It’s 25 years since The Sopranos made its debut on HBO, and changed the landscape of television. It wasn’t necessarily the first “prestige” TV series, as the stylization of Miami Vice landed with a splash in the 1980s, and David Lynch created the first modern “water cooler” effect when Twin Peaks revolutionized murder mysteries with the death of Sheryl Lee’s Laura Palmer. The Sopranos, however, had the same effect on television as the New Hollywood movement had in the 1970s; David Chase’s show was cool, edgy, and delved into the darker aspects of anti-hero stories.
The Sopranos established a standard of excellence for HBO, which quickly became the “go-to” network for adult entertainment. In an era in which Hollywood filmmaking emphasized summer action movies over true artistry, HBO produced challenging storytelling in the form of The Wire, Deadwood, Band of Brothers, Boardwalk Empire, and The Leftovers. However, times have changed, and HBO now competes against services like Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+. Under the domain of the recently-formed Warner Brothers Discovery conglomerate, the network has found itself handling the previously established intellectual property within the Warner Brothers library.
The conclusion of Succession in the spring of 2023 may have marked the last of HBO’s “great dramas,” at least those that were entirely conceived in-house. Recent efforts by HBO include the video-game adaptation The Last of Us, the Games of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon, the ever-expanding True Detective franchise, and upcoming spinoffs set in the It and Harry Potter universes. Standalone dramas, such as The Gilded Age and The White Lotus, have now become the exception, rather than the norm.
A spinoff show based around a recently successful superhero film may not have been considered anything other than supplementary a few years prior, but HBO’s supervillain series The Penguin is tasked with fulfilling the requirements of continuing a cinematic universe and filling in the coveted “Sunday night slot” that the network has always had a monopoly over. The series is set shortly after the events of 2022’s The Batman, and follows up with Colin Farrell’s criminal mastermind Oswald Cobb, who finds himself filling in the power vacuum in the crime-ridden Gotham City.
While The Penguin seems poised to set up events that’ll pay off in the upcoming sequel to The Batman, the series skips the trappings that have plagued many comic book spinoff shows in recent years. The bulk of the Marvel Cinematic Universe shows that have aired on Disney+, such as WandaVision and Secret Invasion, require the viewer to have extensive knowledge of the dozens of films that preceded it. Although the aforementioned shows were ostensibly marketed as self-contained mini-series, they ended on cliffhangers bound to be resolved by another project in the undetermined future.
The Penguin is radical in its aversion to these flaws; outside of a few scant references to the final act of The Batman included in the pilot episode, The Penguin is nearly devoid of connections to the superhero genre. That’s not to say that there isn’t an interesting rogue’s gallery of villains, but the series isn’t trotting out old favorites like the Joker, Mr. Freeze, or Poison Ivy. Rather, the central conflict revolves around Oz attempting to usurp the drug trafficker Salvatore Maroni (Clancy Brown) by forming a tense alliance with the former Arkham Asylum inmate Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti).
The Batman was a harder edged PG-13, but The Penguin pushed even further with its examination of the rotting underbelly of America’s infrastructure. Gotham City’s an easy stand-in for Chicago or New York, as the series is keen to note how dominant crime families are when law enforcement is bought and sold by the highest bidder. It’s hard to imagine that any children with Batman action figures would find themselves enamored by The Penguin, and not just because of the frequent disturbing content, including the standout flashback episode “Cent'Anni,” which explores Sofia’s abuse at the hands of a mental facility. The series is as much about the fall of the American dream as it is about a supervillain; Oz waxes poetic about the rise of his empire in monologues that James Gandolfini could’ve delivered two decades prior.
The similarities with The Sopranos don’t stop there; Oz’s primary relationship is with his troubled mother, Francis (Deirdre O'Connell), whose unapologetic snark is almost certainly derived from Nancy Marchand’s performance as Livia Soprano. Francis is positioned more as a tragic figure than Livia ever was, but the concept of a rough, ambitious gangster who’s actually a “mama’s boy” isn’t all that different. Oz’s young protege, Vic (Rhenzy Feliz), feels derived from both the wide-eyed innocence of Tony’s son, A.J. (Robert Iler), with a little bit of the reckless fanaticism that defined Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli).
If there’s a fault to be found in The Penguin, it's that it may have succeeded just as much had it simply been an original mafia series, as the trappings of The Batman universe are more of an added value element than a drawing factor. The question is whether a series like The Sopranos would be greenlit in today’s entertainment landscape; would a network as concerned over its bottom line like HBO take a chance on a novice writer like Chase, or a burgeoning star like Gandolfini? The thought of a series making it to six seasons seems absurd. The Penguin isn’t “the next The Sopranos,” but it points to a future where HBO can make inventive projects out of studio-mandated assignments.