Word: chased
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...enough history. What everyone wants to know now is: Who gets whacked this season? People die in the Mob, and Chase has killed off major characters before (including Vincent Pastore's "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero and Tony's mother Livia, after the death of actress Nancy Marchand, who played her). When HBO released an Annie Leibovitz promotional photo of the cast (see opening spread), the New York Post scrutinized it for clues as if it were the cover of Abbey Road. (Why is Paulie wearing a white suit? Is he with the angels?) But when it comes to secrets--down...
...perhaps managing expectations for the season's highly hyped debut, also downplays the showdown. "We're in a different business," demurs HBO chairman-ceo Chris Albrecht. Says Chase: "I never really have paid attention to ratings." But somebody at HBO does: a memo tacked on Chase's bulletin board listed ratings for episodes from last year. And, business-model differences or no, a Sopranos viewer is still two fewer eyeballs for those new-car ads. "[The networks] are afraid to endorse controversial and innovative programming because they're afraid they'll lose the mainstream, but they're losing much...
...Sopranos' debut date also launches the show into the publicity wake of the bout of national scab-ripping that is the Sept. 11 anniversary. Ironically, Chase has told the story of how, when he shopped around The Sopranos to the networks in the '90s, executives would ask if Tony could do an occasional good deed--like, one suggested, help the FBI catch a terrorist. And after Sept. 11, the question arose whether the terrorists might have done in Tony Soprano--whether Americans were now less willing to accept dark dramas about morally suspect characters...
...worrier by nature," Chase says, "so I did begin to think that. But then I began to read articles about 'the death of irony' and how [the new climate] is going to require more family films, people are going to want less complexity, people are going to want more simpleminded, escapist fare. Like that's any different than before Sept. 11!" Says Gandolfini: "9/11, I hope it's changed us. If we haven't learned something from it, that's the real f______ tragedy. But I can only do my job. If [the show] is not relevant...
...fact, it's more relevant than ever. The new episodes have a few World Trade Center references, and Chase cut the Twin Towers from the credits, where they used to be visible in the rearview mirror of Tony's car. But the disaster really echoes in more oblique ways, as when Carmela badgers Tony to start estate planning in case anything should "happen" to him. "Watch the f______ news," she says. "Everything comes...