Like many other touchstones of twenty-first-century pop culture, 'The Sopranos' was hatched in the late Nineties, predicting a future that never arrived. It was designed for a decade that would be just like the Nineties, except more so, in an America that enjoyed seeing itself as smarter and braver and freer than ever before.

Summary

This quote essentially states that 'The Sopranos', a popular TV show, was created in the late 1990s with the assumption that the following decade would be an amplified version of the prosperous 90s. It implies that the show catered to an American audience that saw themselves as more intelligent, courageous, and independent than ever before. However, the quote suggests that this anticipated future did not materialize, making 'The Sopranos' a product of its time that didn't accurately reflect the reality of the subsequent years.