‘Sopranos’ final episodes delayed
Fans of “The Sopranos” will have to wait a bit longer for the mob drama’s final chapter.
Because of “unexpected” knee surgery for series star James Gandolfini, the concluding episodes that were expected to begin in January will be delayed about two months, HBO announced Thursday.
Gandolfini, who plays mob boss Tony Soprano, was in a traffic accident in New York recently in which a taxi knocked him off his scooter, but he reportedly was able to walk away.
The surgery alone would have pushed the season start back just a few weeks, but that would have put “The Sopranos” up against the football playoffs and the Super Bowl, HBO Chairman Chris Albrecht said. The final season is expected to begin in early March.
Whenever it happens, Albrecht promised that viewers won’t be disappointed.
“I know the story lines for the final eight (episodes), and I am absolutely, positively certain that when the curtain comes down on ‘Sopranos,’ the vast, vast, vast majority of people will say it’s one of the great things of all time,” he says.
Building to the day
The fall of “Rome” also will happen sometime in early 2007.
The second season of HBO’s epic series set in the time of Julius Caesar will debut Jan. 7. At the same time, the network says next season, which picks up following Caesar’s death, will be the last for the show.
“Rome,” nominated for eight Emmys, was one of the most expensive projects in TV history. Reports pegged the cost of the first season at somewhere around $100 million.
Its ratings were decent (most episodes drew between 2 million and 3 million viewers) but not at the level of “The Sopranos” or “Six Feet Under” in its prime.
Another ‘Simple’ season
Followers of “The Simple Life” will be seeing more of ex-pals Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.
E! Entertainment Television will air a fifth season of the reality-style series, which shows the tabloid-ready celebutantes thrown into everyday situations with real people.
The show moved to E! after Fox declined to air a fourth season with the feuding former friends.
“The Simple Life – ‘til Death Do Us Part,” which airs Sundays at 10 p.m., has Hilton and Richie – now in separate scenes – playing a “wife” and running a household.
Flying Nun a ‘Sister’
Sally Field has joined the cast of “Brothers & Sisters,” a new ABC drama set to air this fall.
“Brothers & Sisters” follows a close-knit family socially and financially intertwined by love, business – and secrets. Field, 59, will play the mother of five adult siblings.
The series also stars Calista Flockhart, Rachel Griffiths, Ron Rifkin, Balthazar Getty and Patricia Wettig.
Field, television’s former “Flying Nun,” won Oscars for her roles in 1984’s “Places in the Heart” and 1979’s “Norma Rae.” She’s also won two Emmys – for “Sybil” in 1977 and for a guest role on NBC’s “ER” in 2001.
More hours for MacNicol
Peter MacNicol, one of the stars of CBS’ “Numb3rs,” is joining the cast of Fox’s real-time drama “24” as a series regular.
The 52-year-old actor will portray a high-ranking government official in the sixth season of “24,” beginning in January.
MacNicol won an Emmy Award in 2001 for his role as eccentric lawyer John Cage on Fox’s “Ally McBeal.” He plays physicist Dr. Larry Fleinhardt on “Numb3rs,” which also stars Rob Morrow and David Krumholtz.
Out of the closet
“Trapped in the Closet,” the controversial “South Park” episode that skewers Scientology and its popular proponent Tom Cruise, is hitting the airwaves again.
Comedy Central plans to rerun the Emmy-nominated episode next Wednesday. It was last scheduled to air in March but was abruptly pulled by the network.
The show’s co-creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, say they were told that the episode was pulled from the schedule to appease Cruise and his film partners in “Mission: Impossible III.”
“If they hadn’t put this episode back on the air, we’d have had serious issues, and we wouldn’t be doing anything else with them,” Stone says.