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Chase brought up the season 4 “Sopranos” episode, “Christopher,” as an example of Rod Serling’s influence. “The episode everyone hates,” he called it. “That’s about America at its ludicrous worst.” Sure enough, the episode is indeed one of the most controversial of the series, as it takes a break from most of the compelling serialized storylines of the season to give us an episode where all the characters suddenly have really strong opinions about Christopher Columbus.
The episode features a beef between Tony’s crew and a group of Native American activists, as well as some out-of-character moments for Silvio, who is inexplicably the angriest about Christopher Columbus being disrespected. (It seems clear that Silvio’s role was originally supposed to go to Paulie, but Paulie was in jail at the time due to real-life health problems with the actor.)
“Christopher” is widely disliked, but not because it’s bad, exactly. It’s disliked because it feels like the sort of episode the show would’ve given us back in season 1. From season 1’s Very Special Episode about Meadow’s soccer coach being a sexual predator, to its storyline about the prevalence of ADD diagnoses in kids, season 1 of “The Sopranos” was a lot more comfortable with using its Mafia premise as a way to deliver straightforward social commentary about American life. But as “The Sopranos” went on and embraced a more subtle, nuanced approach to its social commentary, a “Twilight Zone”-style episode felt increasingly out of place. By season 4, the ’60s anthology show’s influence on the HBO drama had less to do with the social commentary and a lot more to do with the surreal, dreamlike elements.
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