Although I'd like to some day, I have never seen "The Sopranos" and therefore cannot compare the two. Not having even regular cable or satelite has certainly limited what I can see on TV, which is not necessarily bad, either.
"Kingpin" struck me as something of a cross between "Traffic" and "The Godfather," with Miguel Cadena as the Michael Corleone character (soft-spoken, college-educated, etc.). The show certainly was a risky endeavor for NBC, as it focused mainly on characters with no apologies for what they do. And while this was no masterpiec of television entertainment, it was certainly, in my own opinion much more intriguing than Reality TV, and even some of the police dramas that are so popular on the Big Three (NBS, ABC, CBS).
As the title character, I sometimes thought that Miguel was perhaps too weak, not that Yancy Arias was not good in the role, but even Michael Corleone, in his calmness, killed two men, one of them a cop.
The editing seemed to usually convey the story well. While his character was not terribly important, Brian Benben's Dr. Klein offered some much-needed comic relief to an otherwise grim miniseries.
Marlene was certainly very tough and sexy, and Chato made the series interesting as Miguels older brother, who, sometimes quite surprisingly and inventively, took care of eliminating unwanteds.
As the series came to a close, however, I became less interested in the Cadena family, although both the scene where Chato killed the policemen who raped him, and the scene where their uncle strangled the senator with a garote were both very exciting. I became more and more interested in the DEA's part in the series, after Delia Flores got mixed up in the investigation into "Truck" Thompson and his narcotics officer cousin, Rolando Porter.
Unless there was enough of an audience to suggest this become a regular series, I think that in the end there seemed, somehow, to be a lack of closure for the characters.
"Kingpin" struck me as something of a cross between "Traffic" and "The Godfather," with Miguel Cadena as the Michael Corleone character (soft-spoken, college-educated, etc.). The show certainly was a risky endeavor for NBC, as it focused mainly on characters with no apologies for what they do. And while this was no masterpiec of television entertainment, it was certainly, in my own opinion much more intriguing than Reality TV, and even some of the police dramas that are so popular on the Big Three (NBS, ABC, CBS).
As the title character, I sometimes thought that Miguel was perhaps too weak, not that Yancy Arias was not good in the role, but even Michael Corleone, in his calmness, killed two men, one of them a cop.
The editing seemed to usually convey the story well. While his character was not terribly important, Brian Benben's Dr. Klein offered some much-needed comic relief to an otherwise grim miniseries.
Marlene was certainly very tough and sexy, and Chato made the series interesting as Miguels older brother, who, sometimes quite surprisingly and inventively, took care of eliminating unwanteds.
As the series came to a close, however, I became less interested in the Cadena family, although both the scene where Chato killed the policemen who raped him, and the scene where their uncle strangled the senator with a garote were both very exciting. I became more and more interested in the DEA's part in the series, after Delia Flores got mixed up in the investigation into "Truck" Thompson and his narcotics officer cousin, Rolando Porter.
Unless there was enough of an audience to suggest this become a regular series, I think that in the end there seemed, somehow, to be a lack of closure for the characters.