On 'Sopranos' closure, Chase resists the mob

It's packaged like some hefty, holy book. Housed in a black linen box, it is further protected with a black cloth and weighs in at 10 pounds.

About that ending

The set contains the customary "lost scenes" and commentaries by the show's stars and creative team, plus a two-part Alec Baldwin interview with Chase and a lively round-table dinner discussion with the cast and crew about the show and its legacy. (And no -- spoiler alert -- they don't explain the ending in which Tony, seated with his wife and son at a diner, looks up at his daughter's presumed arrival only to have the screen go abruptly to black.)

Not surprisingly, one of the first topics discussed was the ending. Naturally, everyone loved it, but Chase was taken aback by the visceral reaction it provoked from the audience. (And no, nobody interprets the ending.)

Although he wasn't featured in that particular dinner discussion, former "Sopranos" writer and executive producer Matt Weiner -- who recently won a raft of Emmys for his AMC show "Mad Men" -- provided his own insight.

"To me, the ending is very David, it's very rock 'n' roll," said Weiner.

"It's literally smashing your guitar on the stage and walking off. It's like, 'Hey, the hell with you, we're going home, David Chase is going home.' "

Heading into the show's fifth season, Chase hired Weiner after reading a writing sample: the pilot script for "Mad Men," an ensemble dramatic series built around a Madison Avenue ad executive with an identity crisis. (Chase unsuccessfully lobbied HBO to put it on the air.) It's a debt Weiner, who remains friends with Chase, has not forgotten.

"I'm not a modest person," said Weiner. "But I'm fully aware both in a show business sense and a creative sense that my show would not exist if I had not met him. . . . No one would have ever talked to me if I had not been on 'The Sopranos.' "

So, if Weiner's observation about the finale is correct, is Chase done with television? Maybe, maybe not.

"I would never close the door on anything," Chase said. "People have said that I said I hate television. I never did say that. What I said was that I hated a lot of stuff that was on television. It's nothing about the medium itself. It's a medium, and it can be great and sort of wasted. And I thought a lot of it was wasted; from a personal standpoint, I found a lot of it boring.

"It's just that it takes so much work," he continued. "I've done it for a long time, and I'm not anxious to jump back into that arena."