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But 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 to admitting whether they appear in a certain episode--the cast members follow a strict code of omerta. Bracco gives a variation on the standard answer: "If you're gonna pay for 13 hours of TV, you have the right to be happily surprised." Last year, after gossip columnist Mitchell Fink published plot spoilers in the New York Daily News, Sopranos writers created a scene in which a homeless woman used his column as, um, thong underwear. So to keep myself out of any untoward body parts, here's fair warning: skip the next paragraph if you don't want to read spoilers.
In 2002, times are no better for the Sopranos than for the rest of us. The Mob's economy is in a pinch, despite Tony's CEO-style fulminations that the Cosa Nostra is supposed to be "recession-proof since time immemorial!" New York City Mafia underboss Johnny Sack (Vincent Curatola) is undermining Tony with his own people, and the feds have planted a mole in the heart of the Soprano family. Tony is back in therapy, but so are his sister Janice (Aida Turturro) and daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler). Most perplexing for Tony, his marriage may be unraveling; Carmela has a crush on one of his associates, and as I learned at a set visit during the shooting of the season finale in June, one character ominously offered Tony condolences on his "marital situation."
If the characters are facing obstacles, so is the show. For the first time, it's airing not in the winter or spring but directly against the major broadcast networks' heavily promoted fall debuts. But it couldn't have picked a more auspicious year to do so; this fall's slate of new programs is the most uninspired, creatively bankrupt set of debuts in several years. There are the shameless knockoffs, like CSI: Miami, a less imaginative product extension than Vanilla Coke. There are the retreads, like the WB's remake of Family Affair, with kids so saccharinely cute and a laugh track so obtrusive that the new series really could have been made in the '60s. Then there are the garden-variety, playing-it-safe choices that make up the bulk of the lineup: another lumpy guy is married to a hot woman on a CBS Monday-night sitcom! John Ritter is a dad who can't figure out his teenage daughters!
One reason: the networks tried creativity last year and got burned. Critics touted Fox's form-breaking CIA serial 24 as last fall's runaway hit, and it was--among critics. The networks took other risks--Alias, Scrubs--but not a single new show became a breakout hit. So broadcast execs retrenched. In July, at an annual TV reporters' meeting in Pasadena, Calif., they said flatly that they're programming not for critics, who prize innovation and surprises, but for ordinary folks, who want to veg out after a stressful day with something familiar and comforting but slightly less harmful than a fifth of Smirnoff.