Recommending this show is a bit like telling someone they should try reading The Great Gatsby. Most people have seen it, and the ones who haven’t either don’t want to be shamed or are certain that the world will keep turning regardless of whether or not they tune into a 20-year-old television series. And sure, they’re right. But if that’s your way of thinking, you might as well call F. Scott Fitzgerald a guy who scribbles letters on paper for a living. The truth is, The Sopranos is as close as you’ll get to a modern day sacred text. Like all the best art, it’s been hanging in the air since the beginning of time, just begging for the right person to pluck it down and give it form. There are no grand themes to be unpacked, no episode analyses to be dutifully written for the Twitter class, no mind to be paid to metrics and data—this is a universe unto itself and it needs no justification or explanation. Together, the seven seasons constitute a milestone so precisely timed that it’s impossible to tell whether the show ended the era preceding it or started the one subsequent. The answer The Sopranos supplies is that it doesn’t matter either way, you should just enjoy it while you can. —Nathan King

Nathan King is a Deputy Editor for AIR MAIL