So this was DEFINITELY going to be the last Sopranos season coming up? Well, yes and no…
LOS ANGELES – When “The Sopranos” finally arrives next year for its sixth season, fans of the HBO mob drama will get more than they expected.
Eight “bonus” episodes are planned in addition to the 12 previously announced for the series, set to return in March 2006 after nearly two years without a first-run episode, HBO said Thursday.
“When something is as remarkable as ‘The Sopranos,’ our audience would like to see it continue as long as possible, so we are thrilled that (series creator) David Chase felt there are more stories to be told,” HBO Chairman Chris Albrecht said in a statement.
There will be a break between the first set of episodes and the arrival of the extra eight hours in January 2007, HBO said.
The premium cable channel avoided tagging the newly announced episodes as part of a seventh season and also declined to label them the final ones.
The upcoming season was to have been the series’ last but there have been hints the end wasn’t necessarily in sight.
Is this surprsing? No.
As The Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rosenthal notes, The Sopranos is one of the few programs that generates “water cooler talk,” although HBO has several critically acclaimed programs, including Deadwood (cover the kiddies’ eyes — and especially ears — for that).
It’s good news for Tony for, as the New York Daily News points out, this means he won’t get whacked in the 6th season. The Washington Post, meanwhile, is dismayed over why they won’t officially call this a seventh season.
Is it possible that Tony won’t wind up like many have predicted — whacked in the final episode? Although no one knows, it’s quite possible. Perhaps Chase and others will want to leave the door ajar for some kind of big screen version of The Sopranos later on. That’d be hard to do if Tony is sleeping with the fishes.
Stay tuned (to HBO).
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.