Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Season 5 of The Sopranos opens with news that several new characters will join the show. In-show the reason is that a bunch of convicted mobsters have just gotten out of jail, their paroles happening around the same time many years after a justice spree of organized crime convictions. Seeing a raft of new characters coming into the story, moreover with flimsy justification, made me wonder: is this where The Sopranos jumps the shark?

For those who don't know, Jumping the Shark is a storytelling trope named for the 1977 episode of TV series Happy Days in which the iconic Fonzie (played by Henry Winkler) ski-jumps over a shark. The meaning of Jumping the Shark is that a series has lost its way and has to resort to gimmicks to shore up its declining viewership. As the pages on Jumping the shark on Wikipedia and Jumping the Shark at TV Tropes, explain, the gimmick doesn't have to involve water skiing or shark jumping. There's actually quite a long list of disruptive tropes writers can engage in that may signal the show is going downhill creatively. One of the more common ones is introducing a bunch of new characters.

As I've mentioned a few times before I have the benefit of hindisght when it comes to questions about whether The Sopranos holds together or falls apart. The show wrapped more than 15 years ago. It was acclaimed all the way through, and it ends just one season later (6 seasons total).

Watching the first half of Season 5 has satisfied me that this is not a case of Jumping the Shark. The four new characters are well integrated in the narrative. The story remains centered around Tony instead of being changed from that core premise.

Two of the new characters become minor characters. We see them on camera infrequently, and their function is mainly to show that the world Tony Soprano inhabits is not standing still. He's got to deal with changes and challenges that come from new people who might be his friends, his enemies, or both.

The other two characters, Feech LaManna and Tony Blundetto (played by accomplish film character actor Steve Buscemi), become on-screen regulars (at least through the first several episodes of season 5). They, too, are well integrated into story. There are character sub-plots about each of them, but these ultimately center around Tony and how he deals with differences of opinion and unwanted behavior under his leadership of the organization. Plus, the Tony B. character arc is just fun. He's a person you feel good rooting for because while he was a criminal in the past he's trying really hard in the present to go 100% legit... with some slips and falls along the way.