Roger Catlin | TV Eye

A Lesser Sunday Showcase for Imperioli

Seems like an eon ago but it was just last May Michael Imperioli was tooling around in "The Sopranos" as Christopher Moltisanti, unaware of his fate.

Not only would his Tony Soprano snuff out his character’s life following a freak accident, the actor would end up by the end of the year on a completely different Sunday night show, one David Chase had nothing to do with.

Instead of "The Sopranos," now long gone, it’s the exhaustively-named "Oprah Winfrey Presents Mitch Albom’s One More Day," which you could tell from the title was not exactly going to be Emmy night.

We were on the phone with Imperioli for a story about the ABC Sunday night movie that premiered tonight, so naturally we talked about "The Sopranos."

On the possibility of a movie: "I don’t think that’s going to happen. I don’t think that’s David’s style."

(And after the hubbub over the "Sex and the City" movie, why should it be? What’s the big deal about movies made from demised series? They can’t ever be as good, or even the same type of thing).

Imperioli was the rare cast member of "The Sopranos" who was also a writer – getting the credit on five episodes over six seasons. So he may have been privy to Chase's plan for the ending way before anyone else on the set.

"He explained the very ending to me about year in advance. Still surprised me when I saw it," he said. "I loved it."

Chase Still Coy on 'Sopranos' End

In his first semi-public appearance since ''The Sopranos'' finale, creator David Chase kept up the mystery about what his intentions were as he closed that series.

''Here’s another clue for you all,'' he said at the annual TV Critics Association awards show Saturday, ''the walrus was Paulie.''

The mangling of the Beatles line from ''Glass Onion'' to refer to the Paulie Walnuts character came as Chase won the first of two TCA Awards for outstanding achievement in drama.

When he returned to pick up the heritage award, with ''The Sopranos'' beating ''MASH,'' ''Roots'' and ''Sesame Street,'' he added to the mystery, in explaining the blackout ending by describing his reaction to the first ''Planet of the Apes'' movie when it came out: ''Wow, they have their own Statue of Liberty too?''

So, rather than parallel universes, maybe he’s talking about stories left wide enough to get many interpretations, or even misinterpretations.

Besides, he says, whatever happened at the end wasn’t such a big deal, noting that it isn’t unusual to be in a New Jersey restaurant when the power goes out.

Chase thanked critics for the awards, as well as his writers and cast, two of whom were present – Edie Falco and Lorraine Bracco – and thanked James Gandolfini, who was not. ''Without him, there would be no show at all, or a show so different I shudder to think what it would be.''

Gandolfini's Glare

Just about everybody appearing before the TV Critics Association summer press tour with any connection at all to it had been asked about the end of “The Sopranos” series that surprised so many.
But when James Gandolfini himself showed up, none dared even bring it up.

Maybe it’s because he carries in person every inch of the physical menace he brought to playing mob boss Tony Soprano, with the same physical tics and scowls and piercing stares.

More than that, he had come to help promote the upcoming wartime documentary “Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq,” in which he sits with 10 severely injured soldiers to hear their stories about their experiences in the war, the losses they suffered and their lives since they returned to the states. It airs Sept. 9 on HBO.

The documentary was in part a sequel to the network’s “Baghdad: ER,” and originally scheduled to take a look at 24 hours in the life of Walter Reed Hospital. But the scandal that broke there early this year put an end to that plan.

Instead, the veterans meet in a bare New York studio with Gandolfini, who had previously visited Iraq on his own to meet with troops.

“I was playing this tough guy on TV and I guess I wanted to go meet a few real ones or something like that,” Gandolfini said.

And, he added, “I was angry about the lack of attention that was being paid [to them]. I wanted to do something.”

The closest anyone got to asking him about his most famous role was to have him compare his visit to press tour with past ones and how his experience with the veterans changed him.

Gandolfini put a stop to that quickly.

“It's not about me. I'm not trying to be antagonistic in any way, but I'd like the questions directed towards other things besides how it changed me. You know what I'm saying? Let's have a different question.”

They provided one.

Hillary's Soprano Turn

Hillary Clinton has been so quick to parody "The Sopranos final episode – in an almost too perfect video where she’s waiting at the diner booth, flipping through the tableside jukebox, ordering carrot sticks for the table (“No onion rings?” a disappointed Bill, the former President of the United States, asks) as Chelsea is stalled outside, trying to parallel park.

And the menacing guy in the Members Only jacket at the counter is an actual “Sopranos” cast member – Vince Curatola, Johnny “Sack” Sacramoni himself. With Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” playing on the background and the requisite blackout, it’s a heavy duty pop culture parallel.

That is, until she comes up with her choice: Celine Dion song of electronica and uplift,  “You and I.”
(Hubby Bill probably would have come up with the Rick James number of the same name).

The others in the running for official campaign song were: KT Tunstall’s “Suddenly I See,” already so overused on TV; U2’s “Beautiful Day,” already overused by politicians; an a Monkees remake, “I’m a Believer” by Smash Mouth (from a “Shrek” soundtrack); and Shania Twain’s “Rock This Country!”

The Celine song came from the write in possibilities that also included “Are You Gonna Go My Way” by Lenny Kravitz, “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic,” by the Police,” “The Best,” by Tina Turner. “Get Ready” by the Temptations and McFadden and Whitehead’s “AIn’t No Stoppin’ Us Now.”

Nothing from Journey.

Another Whacking to Watch

The legions who have found it so important to prove Tony is dead at the end of the “The Sporanos” finale hang their proof largely on one line they’ve misquoted from the April episode that started this last batch of episodes.

“Everything goes to black,” they think Bobby Bacala says during their lake reverie, repeated again in a blip of a series finale  flashback (actually what he says is “You probably don’t even hear it when it happens”).

I’m surprised nobody’s brought up another significant ad visually spectacular whacking the bolsters their theory.

It happens in the second episode of this back nine, titled “Stage 5.” It’s the episode in which Christopher’s “Cleaver” finally gets a screening. But later in the episode, Silvio Dante is out to dinner with Gerry Torciano, a potential comer in Johnny Sack's gang.

Talk about not seeing it coming. The sound in the restaurant goes off; Silvio’s face and suit are sprayed with blood. Only then does time -- and sound -- return and we see the killer, sent there by Doc Santoro, cointinuing to shoot until his target is dead.

"The @%#^&* scary thing about it is I didn't know what happened until after the shot was fired," Sil tells Tony at the Bing later. "@#*%* weird."

Time and space change in the midst of a whacking, which tend to happen a lot in restaurants. Things can slow down or stop in the middle of a Journey song.

Fresh Sopranos Theories

A closer frame by frame examination of the final episode of “The Sopranos” (the only way to watch TV!) has revealed further conclusive proof that Tony is Dead.

• Inability to parallel park indicates trouble navigating afterlife.
• T shirt under truckdrivers coat says “Tony Must Die”
• Cub scout merit badge is for whacking.
• Item on menu lists “Chicken Fried Jersey Family”
• Coke and family sized onion rings suggests possible death by malnutrition.
• Black guys entering are members of the rap group Murder-T.
• Bell on door tolling for number of murders comitted by Tony this season.
• Playing Journey song backwards reveals hidden message: “Sleeps-with-fishes.”
• When a family of four arrives at local diner in four different vehicles, all will die of global warming, eventually.
• In the extended foreshadowing flashback shot, Bobby Bacala says, “all of a sudden it fades to black – and then the credits come up.”

The 'Sopranos' Finale Nod to 'The Twilight Zone'

A friend has figured out the exact episode of the "The Twilight Zone" that is playing in the safe house in the scene of David Chase's celebrated "The Sopranos" finale that also introduces the cat.

It is "The Bard," from 1963, one of the rare hour-long episodes that happens to be about television writing. Jack Warden Weston stars as a hack who conjures up Shakespeare by black magic to write him a teleplay; the Bard is none too happy about changes brought to his play by advertiser meddling and punches the leading man. A very young Burt Reynolds plays the actor in the episode, named Rocky Rhodes.

Says the friend:

One is left to wonder whether Chase was more drawn to the teleplay within the teleplay because of its idea of the impossibility of writing a very, very important script (and pleasing yourself, AND pleasing everyone else too) by non-supernatural means or instead that even Shakespeare sometimes had to be a show biz pragmatist.

You can't have everything.

Millions See It Go

The cultural event of the season was also Sunday night’s biggest ratings winner.

The series finale of “The Sopranos” captured 11.9 million viewers. It was the fourth biggest audience in the history of the series following the season four premiere (13.4 million), the season four finale (12.5 million) and the fifth season premiere (12.1 million).

That it was the most watched program Sunday was quite an achievement, considering HBO is only in 30 million of the nation’s 100 million TV households. On the broadcast airwaves, the NBA finals only drew about 8 million viewers, while the Tony Awards saw its lowest audience in 15 years with 6.2 million viewers.

What’s more, it was very nearly the most watched show on any network last week, second only to the 13 million watching the two hour premiere of “America’s Got Talent” that gave NBC its first winning night in many a moon.

It was a one night spike for the nine-episode second half of the sixth season, which had been averaging 8.2 million viewers.

Few “Sopranos” fans stuck around for the premiere of “John from Cincinnati,” though, which posted just a puny 3.4 million for its premiere.

The Songs Not Chosen

Oh the choices you make. Couldn’t that be a subtext for the entire run of “The Sopranos”?

Would things have turned out differently had he chosen a different song to play at the diner jukebox in the final scene?

Hey, we don’t know what happens anyway. But playing Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” on the tabletop jukebox at Holsten’s a real life blast from the past ice cream and soda shop in Bloomfield, N.J., certainly sets the tone for optimism and hard-fought happy endings.

And from the scene, it was a careful choice – for writer David Chase, who obviously jerry-rigged the jukebox with titles and for his character, Tony Soprano.

It is Little Feat’s “All that You Dream” playing when he comes into the wood paneled, homey place.
Once he starts paging through the jukebox, we see the offerings he could have chosen.

Among them, the nostalgic “Those Were the Days” by Mary Hopkin (with its Ecclesiastics by way of Pete Seeger and the Byrds B-side, “Turn, Turn, Turn” – “to everything there is a season”).

Below it is the inspirational, “Only the Strong Survive” by Jerry Butler, also an appropriate pick, at least up to that moment. Below it is the other side of the coin, Bryan Adams’ “Victim of Love”

He turns the page: “Crystal Blue Persuasion” backed with “I’m Alive” by Tommy James and the Shondells; “This Magic Moment” from Jay and the Americans.

It’s an admittedly weird jukebox. “Somewhere in the Night” by Sawyer Brown is on there three times; the Bryan Adams song twice. And apparently it is a magic one as well -- as soon as he punches his buttons, his song plays -- when's the last time that happened to you in a crowded restaurant?

Tony Bennett’s “I’ve Gotta Be Me” is a real consideration for Tony, as is Heart’s “Who Will You Run To” b/w a live version of “Magic Man.”

He settles on the Journey just below it, though, which certainly sets the small town stage and tenor of hope.

How different it might have turned out if he had played the flipside, “Any Way You Want It.” You can practically see the blood splatter on the wall with that one.

The Last 'Sopranos' Episode: Don't Stop

“The Sopranos” ended its grand run on TV Sunday just as it has played over the last eight years – with unexpected glimpses of everyday life juxtaposed with bursts of violence and  scenes of hilarity opposite scenes of almost unbearable tension.

Like the other eight episodes this spring to end the series, there’s been a growing parallel into contemporary issues, such that terror has now almost fully taken over the FBI that had been following mobster Tony Soprano. And on Sunday, A.J. moves from despair about it all to toying with joining the Army and learning Arabic to act as a liaison between peoples.

Writing and directing the finale, crafty creator David Chase closed with a scene that will keep fans talking all summer and beyond.