'Sopranos' returns to the scene of the crime

Series' new season begins Sunday night

(CNN) -- It's been 16 months since "The Sopranos" last aired a new episode. The show that brought broadcast TV-like audience numbers to a cable series -- a pay cable series at that -- and "Godfather"-like ring-kisses from critics now has the unenviable task of surpassing itself.

The television landscape has changed markedly. People -- particularly the Emmy people at the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences -- now take cable series seriously, a trail "The Sopranos" helped to blaze.

The show's HBO stablemate, "Sex and the City," won an Emmy for best comedy series, and another HBO series, "Six Feet Under," is up for the most Emmys this year. (HBO is a unit of AOL Time Warner, as is CNN.com.)

Then there's HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm," FX's "The Shield," and a host of clever broadcast shows, such as Fox's "24."

The show also has to cope with real life: Enron, Arthur Andersen, anthrax, Afghanistan. September 11 has come and gone -- twice.

What's a TV show to do?

Anxious viewers will find out Sunday at 9 p.m. ET, when "The Sopranos" has its fourth-season premiere. If the early story lines of writer/producer David Chase's creation are any indication, it's doing its best. And that's very, very good.

Phenomenon

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Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini)is, if anything, even more beleaguered as the bewildered husband and father to one family and calculating Mafia boss to another.

Uncle Junior awaits a RICO trial and Christopher Moltisanti, the don apparent, has become a heroin addict. Ralphie Cifaretto, Tony's weaselly lieutenant, continues to connive. Son Anthony Jr. is getting into trouble and daughter Meadow is mourning the murder of her former boyfriend and rebelling against her parents.

Tony's wife Carmela is worried about money and questions Tony at every turn. And Tony's still trying to work through his issues with therapist Dr. Melfi.

It's not easy when you're a wanted man.

And it's not easy when your show becomes an unexpected phenomenon, with "Sopranos" cuisine, architectural plans, soundtrack CDs, books about the show, and cast members' memoirs (including ones by Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Joe Pantoliano, who respectively play Meadow and Ralphie).

Edie Falco, who plays Carmela, certainly didn't expect the attention. "We shot the pilot, and David Chase said to us, well, we had a great time, it was nice meeting all of you, too bad no one is ever going to watch this," she told CNN in July.

The attention has prompted the broadcast networks to raise the stakes. Privately, they've groused that "The Sopranos" can get away with more because it's not carried on the public airwaves; publicly, they've put more energy into attempting to emulate it.

"Before 'The Sopranos,' broadcast networks felt like cable was a negligible cohabitant of the airwaves," HBO executive Carolyn Strauss told The Associated Press. "After 'The Sopranos,' they had to wake up and say, 'Here's something we have to contend with.' "

'People have been shot for less'

The show doesn't shy away from either the television competition or the wider world. In the season opener, the New Jersey-based program addresses the September 11 calamity -- in its own way, of course.

"Ma really went downhill after the World Trade Center," mob foot soldier Bobby Bacala tells Tony. Then he adds, "Quasimodo predicted all this."

"Nostradamus," corrects Tony. "Quasimodo's the hunchback of Notre Dame."

Cast members, as always, have taken a vow of omerta when addressing future plotlines. When asked if she wanted to betray any family secrets, Falco told CNN, "Not one, no, not even a single one. ... People have been shot for less on my show."

Still, that doesn't stop bookmakers from making predictions. According to the AP, an offshore gambling company listed Ralphie as most likely to be whacked during the season. You get 5:6 odds by betting on him; Uncle Junior brings 8:5 and Moltisanti is 4:1. Tony is the long shot; he's at 10:1.

And fans have pored over every "Sopranos" tidbit, down to the primary advertisement for the show: a gorgeous Annie Leibovitz photograph of the cast, looking pensive, bored or in-between, gathered in an Italian restaurant.

Even that ad suggests how deeply the show has penetrated the American psyche. Because, underneath, there is no identification of what you're looking at -- just the date, time and HBO logo. Only the "R" in "September," a gun like that in the "Sopranos" logo, provides any clue.

Not that anyone needs more information than the show time. If the past is any indication, the new season will once again place the Sopranos among America's favorite families.