"ROME" returns & end of "The SOPRANOS"

Dark Horizons is reporting that filming for the second season of the HBO series Rome is now underway.

I was a big fan of the show, and I'm glad.......actually.... relieved.... that it will return for a second season.

For a short while there were rumors that the show might not return.

Apparently after the first season they had completely taken down the sets, and most of the stars of the shows were already committed for the rest of the year. Then I heard that ratings weren't as spectacular as they were hoping, even though subscriptions had spiked for H.B.O when the show debuted.

I guess that was all just posturing.

Looking at the cast list it looks like everybody....who didn't die in the season finale, will be returning for the second season.

Man, I can't wait. That ending of last season left a lot of storylines unresolved. The period of time after the assassination of Julius Caesar is great material to work with obviously... considering Shakespeare wrote his classic play about those events.

That would be so cool if they could somehow incorporate Marc Antony's classic speech.

That would be a great beginning of the second season, wouldn't it?

What a great image seeing James Purefoy on the temple steps in front of a huge crowd saying "Friends, Romans, Countrymen...lend me your ears!!!!"

If I'm not mistaken I believe Gaius Octavian played by the young Max Pirkus eventually becomes the leader of Rome and a brutal Emperor at that.

So a lot of potential there....speaking of potential.....what about the ending of the Sopranos.



Man, I can't get over how friggin good this season is shaping up. I honestly can't wait for Sundays. Every episode this season has been amazing. What's even better is that I have NO IDEA how this show is going to end.

It's become a great conversation piece at work...trying to predict how the show is going to end.

At first I thought that the show was going to build up to the death of Tony Soprano.

The buzz was that the producers originally had a twelve episode arc to end the show. But then after writing the ending they requested that another 8 episodes be added to tie up lose ends completely.

My buddy Lons at Crushed by Inertia initially theorized that the original 12 episodes would build to Tony's death, and the remaining eight episodes would be the ensuing power grab between Tony's captains, family and the New York families.

That all changed with the first episode.

Having Tony close to death at the beginning of this season kind of throws that theory out the window, since this material was already covered in the first couple of episodes. At this point it would be redundant to go through Tony's death and seeing the Capo's pick up the scraps.

The current theory that we now have come up with is that the initial 12 episode arc is building towards Tony becoming the "Boss of Bosses" and the final eight episodes would deal with Tony solidifying his position....Michael Corleone style.

This would make sense if the producers were interested in bringing the show to the Big screen.

But ultimately....we have no clue what the hell is going to happen. And if one knows...PLEASE don't tell us.

I thought it would be cool to post our theories, so that when the last episode airs we could see how close our theories line up.

In any case.... man HBO is putting up good stuff.

I'm still not completely sold on Big Love.....yet.... but I'm counting the days to DEADWOOD.