Monday, June 11, 2007

A Non-Ending? Fair Or Foul?


TV Critic Brian Tallerico:
"The water cooler will be a little bit duller on Monday mornings now that Tony Soprano and his family have gone into TV history." There's a fine line between being clever and giving the big middle finger to your fans. For many, the non-ending of their favorite show will be seen as a colossal brush-off, a complete disregard of the commitment they have given to HBO and the most influential television series of all-time. Imagine if you read a thousand-page novel, which is what many critics have compared The Sopranos to, and it ended with as many unfulfilled plot threads as the final episode of The Sopranos. You'd find the author and beat him with his own book. And yet, intellectually, you have to admire what David Chase pulled off in the final episode of The Sopranos. The show has always been full of non-endings, so how could we expect anything different? You may not like the non-ending, but the whole episode (and arguably the series) was about how we go on with chaos all around us. We live with the chance of a terrorist attack, a car accident, a fall of the wagon, a death of a family member, or even a mob hit at any moment."

There were many bits (back in the days when I was on the air) when I was tempted to simply turn off the carrier at the transmitter instead of finding a clever way out of it, but I never had the courage to do it.

It sure won't be very hard to start a sequel to The Sopranos now, if they ever want to do one.

No comments: