The Sopranos got me through lockdown. Now I’ve finished, there’s a gaping hole in my telly life

People got themselves through lockdown in all kinds of ways didn’t they? Some turned to sourdough, others to running. I wish I’d started jogging back in March, because by now I’d be really good at it, by now I’d have worn in a pair of trainers, I’d possess a non-chafing sports bra and be happily jogging into town. Who needs public transport anyway? But I didn’t and for those who will tell me, “It’s never too late to start”, put a sock in it. It is, I missed my slot.

Instead of running, the one thing I did daily was watch the telly, which lets face it 99.999 per cent of us did, but I watched telly better than anyone else because I watched The Sopranos.

What’s more, I took watching The Sopranos seriously – for starters, my partner and I limited ourselves to one episode a day, awarding it the telly viewing sweet spot of 9-10pm.

This is the hour of serious viewing, when dinner is done and even the recorded cold calls are quiet. This is the time when you’ve had one glass of wine and are just nicely relaxed, but not too sleepy, because when you are middle-aged and beyond, these sort of things must be taken into consideration. It’s no good watching something with an elaborate plot when you’re halfway down a bottle of malbec, believe me I know. Oh yes and make sure you put the subtitles on nice and big, you don’t want to miss a syllable.

The Sopranos is on Amazon Prime. I haven’t totted up how much it cost us, because it’s worth a small Picasso and in any case we bought it on the old man’s account. Some women want flowers, give me series after series of gangster life, thanks.

It takes 86 hours to watch every single episode of The Sopranos. We started viewing some time back in April and almost immediately it became weirdly like a part-time job, something to turn up on the sofa for. It gave us structure to our days – with nothing else happening in our lives, we had our date with Tony and the guys at 9pm to look forward to.

I even started leaving my phone upstairs. I didn’t need the extra company when I was hanging out with The Sopranos. With most telly, I can watch with one eye and muck about on Twitter with the other. Not with “The Family”. I don’t think I have ever concentrated on anything so hard in all my life, certainly none of my school lessons. If only I’d been as interested in Shakespeare as the mob.  

For years now I’ve worried that I don’t really have my very own specialist subject should I ever be forced at gunpoint to play Mastermind. In fact, I’ve always wondered why so many people cared so passionately about something that they had to know everything about it? Well now I know and I’ve got my subject, although sadly the topic has already been done. The comedian Simon Day won the show with “The Sopranos series one and two” as his specialist subject back in 2011. Well, check-mate, give me series 1-6 inclusive.

We finished the final episode last Thursday and since then I’ve been in a TV wilderness, nothing else truly compares and come 9pm I feel slightly agitated. Where is my replacement TV, where is the programme that will transport me from a Covid riddled 2020 to another time and place, who else is going to give me a complete other world?

For those who haven’t watched The Sopranos, I envy you so much, in the same way I used to envy people seeing Venice for the first time. Seriously, I have never had such a great time watching a TV show since I first saw Bill and Ben in black and white whilst sitting on my mother’s knee back in 1963.

So now we are desperately looking for a replacement. People suggest the usual stuff – Mad Men, Six Feet Under, The Wire, Breaking Bad, Harlots, Succession. But nothing quite fits the bill, no, not even The Bill.  

“Maybe it’s too early to commit to another series?” My partner suggests. “Maybe we should play the field a bit, have a couple of one night stands, see what takes our fancy?”

And so the other night we ended up “having a fling” with an Australian reality show called Instant Hotel. It was rubbish, like a cheap sausage roll by comparison to the Wagyu beef dinner of The Sopranos.  

The fact is, we have watched the best thing that has ever been made for television and all we are left with now are the dregs.

The truth is, I’m so bored of television post-Sopranos that I’ve decided I might have to take up another hobby. In fact, the other night when I was watching some repeated old rubbish on the box, I genuinely thought I might have to go out for a run instead.