The Sopranos Television Program

NEW YORK -- Tony Soprano, the TV mob boss who seemed to spend as much time with his psychotherapist as his consigliere, was no stranger to analysis. But not this kind: "Body of Evidence: Tony Soprano's Corporeal Battle." "Episode 5, or When Does a Narrative Become What It Is?" "Carmela Soprano as Emma Bovary: European Culture, Taste and Class in 'The Sopranos.'

This is about David Chase and "The Sopranos," so let's begin with the end. "You know what?" said Chase, creator of the show regarded by many critics as one of the finest ever in television and headed to stores this week as a mammoth DVD box set. "Every time I say anything about the ending, I just make things worse." Few farewells in the medium's history were as anticipated or caused as much howling and froth as the HBO show's last 10 seconds, which still somehow haven't faded to black.

In an upcoming scene from the edited version of "The Sopranos," the one that begins airing tonight on A&E, mob guys Paulie Walnuts (Tony Sirico) and Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli) are chasing a wiseguy through the woods before killing him, in cold blood, pumping his chest full of bullets, repeatedly, brutally. What you don't get in this scene is the full effect of dark comedy -- Paulie Walnuts fretting, in colorful language, that he's just schlepped through poison ivy.

With 4.3 million viewers, Wednesday's premiere of a toned-down "The Sopranos" muscled aside the competition to make A&E the night's most-watched among ad-supported basic-cable services. The much-hyped premiere of the landmark HBO show set a basic-cable record for a premiere and led the evening in households, total viewers and key demographics. It also nearly tripled A&E's average prime-time viewership for 2006.

IF any television character has a bullet, or meat cleaver, with his name on it, it's Tony Soprano. As HBO's "The Sopranos" counts down its final nine episodes beginning next Sunday, the existential question hanging over the series is: Should Tony live or die? Given the show's bleak themes, anything less than killing him off could be construed as a miscarriage of justice -- and a dramatic sellout. After six seasons, even Tony doesn't seem to like his chances.

BY the time academics started to publish essays like "Stripper Iconography and Sex Worker Feminism on The Sopranos," it was apparent HBO's drama about an anxious, brutal, suburban mob boss might be more than just a TV show.

Jamie-Lynn Sigler was a high school kid with a knack for musicals who figured anything called "The Sopranos" would be just her speed. She learned better when she got to the audition. Robert Iler can't recall being there. "I was so young, I don't even remember doing most of the pilot," he says. "I do remember having a great time, but I was wishing I was in camp. It was going to be the first summer I could go to camp, and all my friends were there.

Mary McNamara: Exactly how much slack are we supposed to cut "The Sopranos"? Yes, yes, last week's episode was pretty darn good, what with A.J. discovering his inner gangster and Christopher totally surrendering to his, but one out of five is not great odds, even for a compulsive gambler. Speaking of which, I know Tony's always been a gambler, but two weeks ago, he's suddenly a night-sweating, chest-heaving future member of G.A.

FORMER HBO chief Chris Albrecht reportedly had a problem with a scene in the first season of "The Sopranos" where Tony Soprano kills a guy while touring colleges in Maine with his daughter Meadow. Albrecht worried viewers would be turned off, witnessing the show's protagonist murder a man in cold blood.

After the penultimate episode of "The Sopranos," the question hanging over Steven Van Zandt's head is what happens to, you know, the wig? Does it stay in the family, does the Smithsonian inherit it, what? "What do you mean?" asks Van Zandt with an edge of the same menace and dark humor that he has brought to Silvio Dante, Tony Soprano's pompadour-styled right-hand man, for the last six seasons. "Half the difficulty I face each day is getting all that hair under my bandanna."