SECOND PLACE: The cast of NBC’s “Seinfeld.” (NBC)
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?: “The Sopranos” took top TV honors from the Writer’s Guild. (HBO/Courtesy Everett Collectio)
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?: “The Sopranos” took top TV honors from the Writer’s Guild. (
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Tony Soprano once said, “There’s an old Italian saying: you f–k up once, you lose two teeth.”
So it’s a very, very good thing that the Writer’s Guild of America got it right yesterday and picked “The Sopranos” as the Best Written show on TV — ever.
The Writer’s Guild is made up of the folks who mostly write for TV and the movies, so it’s not like the best writing award for David Chase’s masterpiece TV series — chosen from out of the bazillions of shows ever on TV — was made by a bunch of bloggers sitting in their basements.
It was chosen, in fact, by the hugely overpaid writers who should logically have nothing but envy and jealousy that they weren’t the ones who wrote and created the iconic series, which aired for six seasons on HBO from 1999-2007.
And the dialogue on “The Sopranos” was enough to make any writer marvel. Go to any episode and you’ll find gems as collectible as anything they hawk on HSN.
Coming in at number two on the Best Written TV show list was “Seinfeld,” followed by “The Twilight Zone” and “All in the Family.”
Other top 10 entries were “M*A*S*H” (number five), followed by “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Mad Men,” “Cheers,” “The Wire”and “The West Wing.”
Not in the top 10: “The Simpsons” (11) — which is still going strong — and the sitcom that started it all, “I Love Lucy”(12).