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The Sopranos/Northern Exposure -- David Chase, Recurring Actors, and Dreams

posted 3 months ago by roger1 (3703)
7 replies | jump to latest

Interesting for me:

I'm one of those folks who watched The Sopranos from its first episode in 1999 all the way through to its final episode(and frustrating ending) in 2007. I have watched the series all the way through or individual episodes many times in the years since.

But it is only in the past few months -- thanks to Prime - that I have been able to binge a series that showrunner David Chase was on BEFORE The Sopranos -- Northern Exposure.

It looks like Northern Exposure ran from 1990 through 1995. I did not watch Northern Exposure first run -- except for an episode here or there, enough to "get the basics" of the New York City doctor forced by contract to work in Cicely, Alaska; the old guy/young chick relationship; the great Barry Corbin as the rich town kingpin and former astronaut, etc.

But that feels like a long time ago now. Its always amazing to me -- watching NOW -- and realizing that I'm looking at a series from so long ago that who I was back then was not only much younger but in a different place -- job-wise, town-wise, romantic partner wise. Just another era. But now I've seen Northern Exposure and what's interesting is the linkages TO The Sopranos which followed it.

Key: I vaguely knew that David Chase was affiliated with Northern Exposure, but I did NOT know that it took him all the way to Season ...4 or 5(I can't remember) to suddenly have his name at the end of the episode as the showrunner.

Did the show appreciably change when Chase took over? Did it decline? I'm not sure myself, so I'll speak to these two objective observations:

ONE: Several -- not a lot -- but several actors later to appear on The Sopranos appeared on Northern Exposure. Evidently Chase "took them with him":

Jerry Adler -- "Hesh" the Jewish music business mobster on The Sopranos, was Joel's Jewish(natch) Fantasy Rabbi on NX. (Adler is still alive as I post this in September 2024 -- age 95.)
Richard Romanus -- Dr. Melfi's Italian-American ex-husband on The Sopranos; an Italian-American Alaska transplant(and restauranteur) on NX.
Peter Bogdanovich -- Dr. Melfi's psychiatrist on The Sopranos; Himself(one episode guest) on NX.
...and...some other actor. At least one I know I saw but I can't name him or her. Anybody?

David Chase took at least one WRITER from NX with him to The Sopranos, too: Robin Green (who in a recent HBO documentary, revealed she quit or was fired from the show a couple seasons in.)

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But other than a few actors and one writer, David Chase seems to have carried forth to The Sopranos from NX one key thing:

TWO Dream sequences.

I will here note that I am fairly "neutral" on the dream sequences -- some short, some very long(like EPISODES when Tony ended up in Costa Mesa CA - or the famous Dream Test episode.)

But I know of someone in my immediate circle who just could not STAND the dream sequences on The Sopranos. Which means they were out of luck for many Sopranos episodes and a LOT of NX episodes.

But here is the thing: NX has MORE dream sequences than The Sopranos and they were in episodes NOT written by David Chase and aired BEFORE he became the show runner.

Given that I believe ALL the episodes with dreams on The Sopranos were either written by (or "story by") David Chase, i guess we can determine he REALLY liked dream sequences going back to his NX days. Did he maybe "borrow" the concept FROM NX?

As I recall from my Sopranos watching days, it seemed that -- at least in later seasons -- if there WAS a dream sequence, the episode had David Chase's name on it.

And this: I always felt that though David Chase was certainly the brains behind the Sopranos concept -- based as he says in the recent HBO documentary on his OWN relationship with his mother, I can't help thinking that maybe a number of the OTHER writers on The Sopranos maybe brought more snap and insights to individual episodes than David Chase.

Terrence Winter for one. HE went on to write one big Scorsese hit -- The Wolf of Wall Street -- and wrote many fine Sopranos scripts. However, his Boardwalk Empire series was perhaps more rough, mean and violent than the humor-based Sopranos. So "Winter without Chase" wasn't quite the sucess.

Matt Weiner for another. Weiner came into The Sopranos late in the game, but wrote some fine scripts and went on to showrun Mad Men (David Chase hired Weiner on the basis of his unsold Mad Men pilot script.)

Meanwhile, in the new HBO documentary, David Chase claims that "I always wanted to write and make movies," that he never really could until The Sopranos made him famous. And yet his movies SINCE The Sopranos have been few and not successful. No matter. David Chase is very famous, very admired, and very, very rich.

CONT

[–] EdwardHaskell (144) 3 months ago

As I see it, these so-called linkages are no more than you might find with other producers and actors. David Chase wrote only one episode of Northern Exposure and, yes, I know he became the show runner.

Jerry Adler was in three episodes of Northern Exposure. Richard Romanus was in one episode as was Bogdanovich. How is this taking them with him? Actors need work. Producers need actors. Maybe they have used the same actors in previous productions. Maybe they haven't.

Did the show appreciably change when Chase took over? Did it decline?

Yes it did. But I think the ship was already sinking. Rob Morrow wanted out. They had already replaced his character with another doctor. After the last Fleischman episode the show, which was already on the slippery slope, really went downhill. Chase was only doing it for the money. As we know, he had other ideas. It's just as well. Northern Exposure had run it's course.

Dream sequences

Did he maybe "borrow" the concept FROM NX?

It had been done to death by the time Northern Exposure was first aired. I recall whole episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show that were dream sequences. I never watched The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd but I recall hearing from a friend that the dream sequence was a frequent device on that show. There are many other examples. I'd wager Chase would have used dream sequences even if he'd never heard of Northern Exposure.

[–] roger1 (3703) 3 months ago

As I see it, these so-called linkages are no more than you might find with other producers and actors.

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Probably so. Your refutation of my theories is so persuasive that I sort of felt like there was no point in responding. But you took the time to comment, so I thought I'd come back in and at least talk about it.

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David Chase wrote only one episode of Northern Exposure and, yes, I know he became the show runner.

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I just finished binging the series with a knowledge that David Chase was involved in it, but indeed it was at first interesting to see how LITTLE he wrote of it(one script?) and then suddenly at the beginning of a season, there was his name as showrunner. BOOM. From very little involvement to a LOT. I also saw Robin Green's name on one or more scripts and SHE ended up writing for The Sopranos (and then left or was fired; Chase was a tough taskmaster.)

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Jerry Adler was in three episodes of Northern Exposure. Richard Romanus was in one episode as was Bogdanovich. How is this taking them with him? Actors need work. Producers need actors. Maybe they have used the same actors in previous productions. Maybe they haven't.

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I've been going nuts on this one: I think there was ONE other Sopranos actor on Northern Exposure: one of the guys who played one of the mob lawyers. Problem is: I checked the "lawyer actors" filmographies on IMDB and didn't find any NE credits. But I'm SURE I saw one of the lawyers.

So that would be four, not just three, actors from one series to another.

Still: I have read that Hesh on The Sopranos was always intended to be a main character from Season One on(though he slowly lost episodes as other actors needed to be paid) and that Chase always intended that Jerry Adler play him(no other auditions.) So there's that. And Bogdanovich certainly was on the show a long time(irony: his 70's stardom as a movie director crashed and burned, but he was quite an amusing actor on The Sorpanos.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 3 months ago

So Adler and Bogdanovich had "long parts" on The Sopranos and we can figure Chase knew them from NE.

That said, Chase also sure cast a lot of actors from Scorsese movies, yes? Including Richard Romanus.

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Dream sequences

Did he maybe "borrow" the concept FROM NX?

It had been done to death by the time Northern Exposure was first aired. I recall whole episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show that were dream sequences. I never watched The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd but I recall hearing from a friend that the dream sequence was a frequent device on that show. There are many other examples. I'd wager Chase would have used dream sequences even if he'd never heard of Northern Exposure.

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I'll take that point, but I think what happened here is that I have a current, female viewing companion for TV and movies and she just could not STAND the dream sequences in The Sopranos and when she saw so many of them on Northern Exposure, she was like "no, no, NO...not again."

Except the NE dream sequences predated Chase coming on the show and indeed go back in time with other shows. Still, there are a lot more dreem sequences in The Sopranos than in Mad Men or Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul. They kind of became a "David Chase speciality."

I think that the dream sequences in Northern Exposure were designed to 'get the characters out of that tiny town." One had all the major actors as New York City characters. Others were flashbacks to "old time residents" of Cicely -- gunfighters and the like. The dreams took the series "out of place and out of time." Northern Exposure sort of NEEDED the dream sequences in a way that The Sopranos did not.

But this: the dream sequences in The Sopranos were more subtle and sophisticated than the rather blatant and silly ones in NE. David Chase himself said he always felt constrained by network TV and NE shows why: the dream sequences were silly and lacked "serious edge." Because network TV execs did not WANT that on a TV show.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 3 months ago

I find the dream sequences in The Sopranos had a nice, and very real quality -- just like REAL dreams -- and not the fuzzy, fluffy cloud versions of Old Hollywood -- but they still tended to interfere with the mob narrative.

And one of the dreams WAS silly -- but it worked: Big Pussy converted into a big fish (among a row of dead fish for sale) "confessing his rathood" to Tony.

I dunno, I'm kind of played out on my observations here. Overall, I liked NE, but far too many of the plots were far two twee for me(Elaine's silent mime-ish entertainer boyfriend, the mentally challenged Shelley singing all her dialogue, etc.) and Northern Exposure stands now as what it was then: a somewhat different, somewhat more intelligent take on the usual TV comedy drama of the 80s and 90s.

And I STILL think that not only was the inconclusive ending of the Sopranos a "cop out" (that, I think, led to pretty much every other series GUARANTEEING an ending to THEIR shows) but that it reflected Chase's limits as "a TV guy" that showed up in his inability to ever really succeed in movies as he desired. (The Many Saints of Newark was largely HIS script and story, and not a good one.)

[–] SamNoyoun (5880) 3 months ago

Interesting, I never knew there was a connection! I enjoyed NE in it's original run and in syndication around that time, but haven't seen it since...I'd actually been considering picking up the box set to check it out again, and this knowledge certainly is a nudge in favor of that decision!

[–] Seperatrix (1234) 3 months ago

For all the talk about dream sequences it's amazing that you didn't reference Twin Peaks (which inspired Northern Exposure which stole the concept for the more vanilla audiences).

Chase stated if he even remotely got close to Twin Peaks dream-like quality with the Soprano's dream scenes then he would be very pleased. Chase directly references the dream sequence in Twin Peaks as something he tried to emulate for The Soprano's, but could never quite duplicate it (his words - paraphrased).

Mark Frost (cocreator of Twin Peaks) on Chase:

"The one that meant the most to me was David Chase saying that The Sopranos had been influenced by the show. He felt it had given him the freedom to go places narratively that he hadn't really considered before (a dream sequence, say) and the notion that he could have a sprawling cast and still be able to service them all. His was the last show I watched with enduring interest. I don't watch network television any more."

See also:

https://www.vulture.com/2015/05/david-chase-twin-peaks-legacy.html

[–] roger1 (3703) 3 months ago

You definitely got me there because...

...I never watched Twin Peaks. Much.

I must admit that of what I did watch, I found its "art film approach" was beyond my taste. The problem is me, but there it is and...

yes, I daresay that The Sopranos is much more connected to Twin Peaks than to Breaking Bad or Mad Men(I remember flashbacks on that show and ONE fantasy dance number for Robert Morse's Bert Hooper after his character died). Or Batter Call Saul.

Perhaps Northern Exposure, Twin Peaks and The Sopranos should be enwrapped into their own genre: "Dream sequence television cinema."

Also, I'm being a bit of a chicken here: its my COMPANION who hates dream sequences. I'm passing along her HATRED Me...they are neither here nor there for me.

But still: I like narrative drama and conflict...dialogue between REAL characters.

Which is why, for overall most part, I love The Sopranos, watched it religiiously when first broadcast, watch it still today.

I just took the dreams as part of the price to pay.