Stories hold a power all their own. Think of Scheherazade, telling stories so good they saved her life. Or the thousands of fables and legends that have lasted through centuries. They answer a primal need to know about each other, to learn from each other, and to talk to each other.
And as we know, a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A story without an ending is like a sentence without a period.
In my view, that's what happened to The Sopranos. The story stopped, but it didn't end, and they're not the same thing. The promise of once-upon-a-time is that there will be a they-lived-happily-ever-after, or at least a they-all-got-whacked. The fact that so many Sopranos viewers got angry at its ending proves the power of a story. It didn't matter to them that Tony Soprano was fictional. They still wanted to know what happened to him.
Sadly, The Sopranos was the only TV show I watched, and now it's gone. There are no good stories on TV anymore; I mean normal, scripted shows like the ones I loved. Remember Sex and the City, Seinfeld, or, in a pinch, Friends? Going further back, I adored M*A*S*H and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Those stories got people talking to each other the next morning around artifacts known as water coolers. Starbucks would do, too; no matter what the beverage, we'd all gab about the story we'd seen on TV the night before.
But now TV isn't about story, but about contest. Who is the best singer? Who the best inventor? Best chef? Dress designer? Men compete for women; women compete for men. We watch game shows like Deal or No Deal, 1 vs. 100, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? Or TV shows about real lives; Kathy Griffin's My Life on the D List. Those started with the Osbournes and continue with Gene Simmons and Paula Abdul.
Reality TV is the antithesis of fiction, and it has hijacked story.
So what happens to a popular culture without story?
Paris Hilton.
