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 caused as much howling as the HBO show’s last 10 seconds, which still haven’t faded to black.
Shortly after the finale aired, it was hard not to think that Chase, 63, the veteran of television’s “The Rockford Files” and “Northern Exposure,” had checked into a witness-protection program.
He left for Europe, and he gave only one print interview.
In the following months, he steadfastly refused to explain or justify his show’s conclusion — a fictional destination he apparently had in mind for a few years. However, several days after an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Chase called back.
“You asked if I wanted to comment about the ending and I said, ‘I don’t want to make things worse,’ ” said Chase, speaking from his second home in France. “But then I thought, ‘Well, worse for who?’ It’s not worse for me. There are just people who want this closure, and I don’t have that.” And despite persistent rumors on the Web, Chase said he has no plans for a “Sopranos” feature film.
But an absence of upcoming “Sopranos” stories on the small or big screen hardly constitutes an end in the digital age. For years, individual-season DVD sets of the show have rocketed to the top of the sales charts, and there’s little reason to believe — despite its heavy price tag at $399.99 — that “The Sopranos: The Complete Series” will be much different.
The 33-disc set contains all six seasons on remastered discs with an additional 3.5 hours of bonus materials and music CDs. It weighs in at 10 pounds.
“We did a fair amount of work on it,” said Chase. “It’s very good, actually, but I may be too close to it to say.”
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 roundtable dinner discussion with cast and crew about the show and its legacy.
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.
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.’ “
