Interesting comparison. I've never seen The Sopranos so I can't say much more.

At the site, there's also a link to an interview with D.B. Woodside (Principal Wood) on the right, not to mention other Buffy related articles.

[ edited by fortunateizzi on 2007-06-18 19:11 ]

fortunateizzi | June 18, 13:03 CET

I don't watch The Sopranos (no HBO), but when I heard about the ending it sounded brilliant to me, precisely because I love "Not Fade Away" so much. =)

jam2 | June 18, 13:11 CET

Actually, I'm surprised it took someone this long to write an article highlighting the comparison. It struck me as soon as I heard about the Sopranos ending on Drudge. (Yes, that makes me not-a-Sopranos-fan)

jclemens | June 18, 13:13 CET

As I watched the Sopranos finale with my father last weekend, he was stunned by the abrupt ending. I said, "welcome to my world." and said it wasn't much different than how Angel ended.

CaptainB | June 18, 14:45 CET

As I watched the Sopranos finale with my father last weekend, he was stunned by the abrupt ending. I said, "welcome to my world." and said it wasn't much different than how Angel ended.

CaptainB | June 18, 14:45 CET

I don't know the name “The Underneath” but wasn't Angel S5E18 "Origin"? And wasn't the series cancelled earlier than ep 18?

the Groosalugg | June 18, 15:04 CET

I don't know the name “The Underneath” but wasn't Angel S5E18 "Origin"? And wasn't the series cancelled earlier than ep 18?

the Groosalugg | June 18, 15:05 CET

CaptainB - I said much the same thing to a friend of mine when we were discussing the Sopranos finale. (He hadn't seen any Whedon until we saw Waitress, when I said, "hey"...he's working on Firefly now and is impressed).

I thought the end was brilliant. I told him that those of us who were fans of the Jossverse, were used to this sort of thing.

Znachki | June 18, 15:06 CET

I've never watched the Sopranos but the ending sounds like more of a cop-out than the Angel finale. One could argue that we're supposed to believe the Angel crew went down fighting in a Butch and Sundance kind of way. I personally didn't get that impression at all from the way it was shot, but apparently a lot of people did.

I really dislike the idea of leaving the conclusion to any story up to the viewers. If someone wants to create their own version of a story, they can write a fanfic or something. Most of us watch TV to be entertained by someone else's story, so cliffhanger endings always make me feel cheated.

I haven't ever watched the Sopranos, but from what I've heard about the ending, it seems more like a publicity stunt to me than anything artistic. That's just my relatively uninformed opinion, though.

RaisedByMongrels | June 18, 15:13 CET

I'm a big fan of the Sopranos and was one of the many that thought their cable went out during that last scene. Must admit I wasn't a fan of the way Ats ended, however with the Sopranos I was ok with it. It was a life goes on moment to me and it really worked.

Whether Tony dies or not, who knows? But I'm glad they didn't show it, even if some have speculated the fade to black was an indication he died, since the episode was shown from his point of view.

maje | June 18, 15:36 CET

I'm not a fan of the Sopranos, but after hearing about the last scene I made an effort to catch it. (And let me just say that even not being a fan, it made me mad for those who are.) And yeah, after watching it, it made me think of the Angel finale, but not in the same way. I loved the finale of Angel and I thought it was really the way to go with the fight never ends, but the scene at the end of the Sopranos was just so mundane and set to the tune of Journey.

I really thought that Angel was the way to do it and the Sopranos just fell short.

I honestly really hope Tony is dead, cause it would validate the end a little.

Emma | June 18, 16:33 CET

I also thought of Angel as soon as I read about the ending of The Sopranos. Glad I'm not the only one!

spidermansays | June 18, 16:39 CET

I loved the ending and it also made me think immediatly about 'Not Fade Away'. If you follow closely the clues given by David Chase in different interviews, Tony remembering him and Bobby talking about when they would die and if they would see it coming and the fact that you have 3 or 4 people in the dinner (in the background) who had disastrous previous encounters with the Soprano family... with all that, it seems to me that the NJ mob boss is kinda killed when it all fade to blck. Or it us, the audience without seeing it coming, being whacked? I love David Chase. (here's an interesting reaction by Battlestar Galactica'sRonald D. Moore to the ending)

Yorick | June 18, 16:59 CET

I think the report that the diner was full of people with previous ties to Tony Soprano has been debunked.

The flashback to the conversation with Bobby re: the deathblow being the one you never see/hear is probably the closest thing to a clue, but it hardly seems definitive.

It doesn't seem correct to me to say that nothing was resolved in the finale. LOTS was resolved, just not in the last scene.

fruit punch mouth | June 18, 18:29 CET

I've been a huge Sopranos fan since day one. And I also thought of Angel when I watched the series finale. Because I was thinking if you want to see that kind of ending done right, look no further than Not Fade Away!

batmarlowe | June 18, 18:57 CET

Not a fan of Sopranos but from the descriptions I've read of the finale, I'm not surprised at the fan reaction to it. It sounded very reminicent of Angel and NFA and I've always been torn on how I feel about the way it ended.

menomegirl | June 18, 20:51 CET

Funny! I had a very similar discussion with a friend just the other day. Now if only I had gone on and written an essay about it...

Maeve | June 18, 22:33 CET

Interesting that several comments on this thread are from people who have never seen The Sopranos. I don't quite understand how anyone who's only heard about the finale, or watched that one ep, having skipped the six seasons that led up to it, feels qualified to judge it's artistic merits or the artistic choices that went into making it.
I have never missed an episode and I think it's without a doubt one of the most brilliant shows to ever grace a TV screen. I'm also a believer in the widespread idea that this show "changed the face of series TV forever". I could write an essey on my reasons for that conclusion.
I thought the final episode was brilliant, a fitting finale to one of TV's greatest accomplishments.

I've always been a little ambivalent about NFA, but I couldn't be more pleased with the finale of The Sopranos. I like the "leave it to your imagination" aspect, it was a stroke of genius and after all the speculation, the one thing that, to my knowledge, no one saw coming.
If it leads to a movie, I'm sure it will be as well done as the series, these people simply don't know how to do anything less than excellence. And I certainly don't see the finale it as a cop out.
Unlike AtS, which had the supernatural thing going and could justify resurrecting a character with ease, if there is ever a possibility of a Soprano's movie, the finale had to leave some doors unambigously open.

Shey | June 19, 00:48 CET

Shey-I fully admit I have not seen one episode of The Sopranos, nor do I have any interest in watching now. I was commenting on the reactions I've seen and read about the finale and nothing else. I don't need to watch the show, which was on cable and not network television, to be "qualified" to comment on that.

Also? The exact quote you used was:

menomegirl | June 19, 04:17 CET

"The Lady or the Tiger", need I say more. It's been done before and I have no doubt it will be done again. Some people do it right like Whedon and Chase in this case and others have done it wrong, but in the end it is the ultimate ploy to keep people thinking and talking. And guess what it works well especially when it is done well.

RavenU | June 19, 09:10 CET

Shey, thank you for your post. You articulated my feelings exactly. Also, as with Angel, people had such strong emotional connections to the characters on the Sopranos as well as to the show itself, that no matter what David Chase had done at the end, some faction would have complained. If Tony had been blown away, there would have been an outcry. If it had shown an unambiguously happy ending, people would have cried foul. The Sopranos never insulted the intelligence of its audience, and the finale was no exception.

[ edited by Frances on 2007-06-19 21:10 ]

Frances | June 19, 15:08 CET

*menomegirl* .... I wasn't singling you out but making a general observation and, umm ... the quote you used wasn't mine.

Confused now.

Shey | June 20, 06:44 CET