Andrew J. Lederer

i don't like "series finales". they didn't used to have them and that was a good thing.

"the fugitive" didn't start a trend but "mary tyler moore" did and series began to "end," often in ways that undermined the years of episodes left behind to run in syndication and the minds of fans.

but a tv series is the episodes, the stuff that happens week in and week out, year in and year out -- it's not a book or a movie.

and generally tv characters don't change -- we are watching them in a particular period of their lives when the situations and characters are perfectly poised to create adventures that involve and delight us.

the most important thing tonight's "sopranos" did was to remind us that the point of the thing was the episodes made and experienced over the last eight years, not something that happened in a single episode in a single night.

it was a tv series and that's how it went out, returning to the form the "'twas ever thus" that had been sapped from it by simple minds.