The Sopranos, season 1

Tony Soprano collapses at his son's birthday party, and the diagnosis - panic attacks - sends him somewhere no one in his line of work can afford to be seen: a psychiatrist's office. Dr. Melfi's waiting room becomes the series' engine. He lies to her, tests her, and keeps coming back, because the sessions are the only place either of his families cannot follow.

Both families have succession problems. His actual boss is dying, his uncle Junior wants the title, and Tony lets him have the crown while keeping the power - a compromise that works until Junior notices. His mother Livia, freshly resisting a retirement home, is the season's coldest presence: wounded, relentless, and more dangerous than any of the men.

The year's business runs through a card game robbed by the wrong young men, a friend's restaurant burned for insurance reasons its owner never learns, and a truce with a depressed neighbour's garbage contracts. Meadow gets a college tour that doubles as something else entirely once Tony spots a familiar face at a gas station.

It ends with the two halves of his life converging: the therapy uncovered, an order given from a hospital bed, and Tony learning exactly who signed off on it. The season closes in a storm, in a restaurant, with the family - the small one - eating dinner.