The Sopranos

1999

David Chase's HBO series ran six seasons from 1999 to 2007 and opens with a New Jersey mob boss having panic attacks and quietly starting therapy. The show spends as much time on his mother, his marriage, and his kids as it does on the crew, and treats the two as the same problem. James Gandolfini plays Tony Soprano, with Edie Falco as Carmela, Lorraine Bracco as his psychiatrist, Michael Imperioli, Dominic Chianese, and Steven Van Zandt. Nearly every prestige drama that followed borrowed its structure from this one.