KOOL TV CLASSIC IMAGE: "THE SOPRANOS"

Mob rule! The lovable cast of THE SOPRANOS. Image: HBO.

"There's an old Italian saying: you f++k up once, you lose two teeth!"

In America, nothing is impossible and it seems that even skilled mobsters and hit men need help with their hang-ups and emotional problems from time to time, as Doctor Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) soon discovers when she has Tony Soprano on her sofa amongst her daily appointment calender, and as he opens up about his life, things will never be the same for either of them, or for worldwide TV viewers, with the opening episode of the acclaimed HBO series THE SOPRANOS, one of those rare event shows widely acknowledged as having been one of the driving forces from the last ten years or so that helped change the breadth and shape of TV forever, and making the small screen a more respectable place to tell longer, bigger and more involving storytelling in ways that the big screen couldn't, and making it more desirable for major league talent in the acting and film-making worlds to cross the two worlds and diversify their creative input.

As well as finally launching the career of its writer/creator, David Chase (who had been in the TV business for years before this!), THE SOPRANOS also made a household name out of its lead star James Gandolfini, who, before the series, had been an actor everyone recognised in films and TV (normally playing sarcastic and sadistic bullies) but didn't really know who he was, who would make the part of Tony Soprano indelibly his own, inter-acting with a whole host of memorably funny and downright scary background mob characters and wannabe kings of New Jersey, working together and against each other in a way that Nero, Caligula and the gang of the Roman Senate of ancient times would have been proud! And we haven't even talked about Tony's even more complex and dangerous family-life yet!

Now old fans of the show can rejoice and re-live all the series great moments and superb regular characters and guest stars (including the likes of Steve Buscemi, Robert Patrick, Annabella Sciorra, Charles S. Dutton and Lauren Bacall!) with the news that the entire six season, 86 episode run (and its controversial finale) is being repeated on SKY ATLANTIC in the UK from tonight, whilst new viewers will be in for a treat seeing it for the first time. And they'll get to learn a whole new language at the same time. The language of the Mob!

All seasons of THE SOPRANOS are also available on DVD from HBO.