GuessWho

I was thinking about this today for some reason...

In season's 1 & 2, Livia was a HUGE part of the show. In many ways, she was Tony's arch-nemesis. She was the biggest topic of discussion with Dr Melfi (hell, the therapy sessions were often used to push the show's stories further). She was mafia-like without being in the mafia, and even used her influence on Junior to try to get Tony whacked.

If the actress had not died, would the show be much different? Perhaps we wouldn't have had some new character for Tony to contend with as the show would be focused on his issues with mom. Perhaps Lorraine Braco would actually earn her salary and appear on the show again.

What do you think?

Tommy Ceez

To get a clue to see what the Sopranos would have been like if Livia had lived, see 'I, Claudius'
She was basically a whiney copy of Sian Philips super-duper Villian Mom, Livia

And I still believe that if Robert Iler wasnt such a horrrible ass actor, they would have turned him into Claudius

Geofferson

Tony would still be having the panic attacks.

Ted The Bug

I actually don't think things would be too different.

David Chase says in the interview on the season1 dvd (or maybe it was one of the commentaries) that he was planning to have Livia die in the last episode of season1... However, the actress proved to be so good in the role that he decided to let her live and bring her back for the second season.

So whatever long term plans he had at the start for the entire series never included her anyway.

If anything, what got the most screwed up is season3, because they developed the entire season to include her in it, and then the actress died after they had filmed one episode.

Numanoid

Good catch. I hadn't made that connection. I, Claudius rules!