While I feel I should point out that I'm as big or bigger of a fan of the show than anyone, that's not to say I don't have my nitpicky complaints. It's possible to be a huge fan of the show over all, while still being objective and having specific criticisms. Here are some of mine.....
1. While the whole show revolved around Tony, including his psyche, sometimes the dream sequences took up too much time in an episode.
2. I never really found the plot point of Furio falling for Carmella believable. And it sucked to lose his character over a reason like that.
3. While Ralph was a character you loved to hate - he had some of the best lines - he was somewhat remincent of Richie; i.e. basically put there to be a pain in Tony's ass. And Ralph being personally killed by Tony was a perhaps a little too reminicent of Richie being personally killed by Janice.
4. A short beating (which we never saw) of the Russian by Tony and Furio as payback for Janice didn't seem enough.
5. Let's be honest. There is no way Tony and the crew could talk as much as they did in the Bada Bing or Satriale's in real life. But familiar settings are important in a TV series.
6. Little Carmine suddenly gives into Johnny Sac in the war when he seemed pretty intent on taking over.
7. Like above, but even more so, in the last season you had Butchie pushing to go to war and Phil holding back. Then suddenly, over some rather inconsequential things (like his name Leotardo) Phil suddenly decides to take a harder edge, eventually going to war after Coco's beating. Wait? That was the final straw and his brother Billy wasn't? And going to war was what Butchie wanted all along but then we find him wanting to call a truce towards the end. Both characters do a complete 180 from their previous positions without much of a reason.
8. It sucked that Junior had less of a presence as the show went on.
9. I think Tony B was killed off too soon. And in fact, like Richie's character from season 2, he was supposed to be around longer in the original plans by the writers.
10. The occassional and uneccessary celebrity cameo.
11. Tony being shot a little reminiscent of Chris being shot. But that plot point still had some great scenes.
12. Blowing up Phil's wireroom, in response to Vito getting killed, wasn't very realistic.
13. Too much time spent on the whole Vito being gay thing. "Cleaver" also.
14. Over time you get used to David Chase's way of leaving loose ends open but there was really nothing to explain Meadow and Finn breaking up. Just all of the sudden she's dating Patsy Parisi's kid.
15. Ray Curto suddenly keeling over. Rushing things much?
16. Tony and Chris flipping the car was too reminiscent of Tony and Adriana flipping the car. And it seemd like they were just looking for an excuse to off another major character towards the end.
17. Tony screwing every woman under the sun. We know he likes to play around and has girlfriends like most mob guys do, but he's not a porn star for crying out loud.
18. Notice the music in the first episode when Tony is chasing the guy with the car. Very doowop and too reminiscent of many mob movies. Chase later apologized for that and from then on the music in the series was one of it's strongest points. The whole idea of The Sopranos was a modern day crime family and the doowop music hails back to an earlier time.
19. Like I pointed out in the other thread, season 5 left everything set up for a strong and concise final 6th season with the regular 13 episodes. However, probably to just make more money, they release a 12 episode part I and a 9 episode part II. Why? Especially when there really wasn't enough strong material left? And then it's like they suddenly remembered the end was coming up and things got sped up way too quickly in the last few episodes.
