The Sopranos – one of the most consistently excellent TV shows of recent years – has been piled into the boot of a car, stabbed and then thrown in the sea; season six of The Sopranos will be the last.
Well, kind of. Sopranos creator and executive producer David Chase has confirmed that the 12-part sixth season of The Sopranos will be the last. Except for the other eight episodes that will be shown next year. And the Sopranos movie, if that gets made. Which it probably won’t. But Gandhi will definitely turn up at some point. Clear?
Last summer, HBO made the announcement that season six of The
Sopranos (DVDs), which airs in America in March, would be followed-up by eight
‘bonus’ episodes to be shown in 2007. But it kept schtum on whether
those eight episodes would signal the end of The Sopranos. Hopes began
to rise that it might not be the end for the Mafia TV series… and
then David Chase decided to publicly kick it in the head once and for
all.
On Friday, Chase spoke to a group of TV critics in Pasadena. And
during his chat, he confirmed the demise of his own show after this
batch of 20 episodes:
"There will be these 12 (upcoming episodes) and then another eight, and that will be the end."
But there’s always the much-mooted Sopranos movie, isn’t there? Don’t say it’s the end, David…
"We haven’t talked about it in a long time. … It’s hard to see how it
would work. I think what we’re going to be doing the next
year and a half would have been that movie."
Balls.
But at least season six of The Sopranos sounds as if it’ll be really
bloody weird. Letting slip that most of the action will derive from
Johnny "Sack" Sacramoni‘s arrest and trial, Chase also mentioned that
Hal Holbrook, the man who played the priest in The Fog, will play some kind of
scientist, and that Ben Kingsley will star as himself.
So if this is to be the end of The Sopranos, how will the series end? Will we see the Soprano family carrying on, or will there be a definitive end to the story? David Chase was happy to clear this up.
"The truth is both."
Tricky bugger, that David Chase.
Read more:
No encore for ‘The Sopranos’ – Reuters
[story by Stuart Heritage]