It's both and was originally marketed as both.

The tagline for the first ever episode was "If one family doesn't kill him, the other will"

Tony was pictured in the middle with the mob on one side and his family on the other.

It's a mob family drama. You have the mix of mob dynamics and the family characters. That to me is what makes Sopranos what it is. The yin/yang of Tony Soprano and really all the Sopranos. A guy that will drive all over to make sure his daughter gets into the right college, but on the way might wack someone that needs wacking. A violent man that sees a therapist. A man that will kill an associate, because of his grief over a horse. That complex nature of the characters extend to the other players in this show. The thing I like about it, is that it is not so one-dimensional.

If this was only a mob drama, it would have been off the air a long time ago.

I liked the episode.

I don't understand why people complain when the show focuses onthe family. The show is called The Sopranos, not the New Jersey Mob.

We don't complain when Six Feet Under doesn't focus on the funeral parlor business.

I loved the episode and i liked the parallel story lines for Carmella (the most interesting and complex character on the Sopranos IMO) and Tony B. The line about business with strangers summed it up. These characters are trying to branch out of their usual crowds and it was a disaster for both. I didn't think it was a complete shift for Tony B, the money showed him what he could have if he went back to his old ways, hense him spending it so fast. The asian boss annoying him was just icing on a really crappy cake. I will agree it was not as good as last week, but not bad by any measure.

now if they tried to just do the mob family war this season, people would complain that they kept on trying to stretch it out, when it doesn't have the material for this.

When Carmela was reading the Cliff Notes to AJ was anyone else thinking, "...the blind leading the blind"?

I'm not sure if it was her, or the other female guard who was always f***ing the inmates.

-Charlie

No it was the other female guard. IIRC, in all the seasons of Oz she only did one biker and her boss.