HBO Website Crashes Following Sopranos Finale OutrageA report appearing in Adotas.com claims that the HBO website was taken down by angry Sopranos fans following what many claim was a less-than-stellar finale.
"Fans were very disappointed by the ending and went online to express their outrage. According to numerous reports the volume of hate traffic to the HBO web site brought the site down for a significant period of time.
"Many critics and fans had been hopeful that this ending would satisfy the need for a proper farewell to a pop icon and one of the most successful television series on record. David Chase wrote and directed the final episode where the final scene featured Tony (James Gandolfini), his wife, Carmela (Edie Falco), and son, A.J. (Robert Iler), in a restaurant where they were about to be joined by the last member of their family, daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler), when the screen went black and the credits started to roll.
"While the finale is the story here, the interesting point is that the ongoing convergence of television and online media have reached new levels. Fans absorb the content of a show like the Sopranos on one medium and then immediately utilize the web as their voice to express points of view. Audiences see the web and television as symbiotic and the response to the Sopranos show simply reinforces how the two are becoming very interdependant."
Not all fans agreed with the assessment that Sunday night's Sopranos finale ended with a thud.
One of the most active discussions on the Sopranos finale can be found - not surprisingly - on the New Jersey Star Ledger Sopranos forums and blogs
One fan writes:
"It's been interesting surfing the blogosphere after the Sopranos finale and see how many people feel cheated by this ending. It makes you wonder what these people loved about this show if they could feel, after eighty-odd episodes of this kind of storytelling, ripped off. No ending could have been more perfect: the family gathering over yet another supper, and that sense of the outside world (ie, their outside world, which could contain the threat of people like them, or the threat of people like us) and only the mere possibility that there will be a tomorrow for them all."
Another writes:
"The last scene may have been the best television I ever watched. Intense, knuckle whitening, waiting, waiting..."
And this:
"First, all praise to David Chase for the whole series, and for the finale, always defying expectations and especially Hollywood endings. No witness protection, no terrorist attack, no betrayal by Paulie or Sil (but one by Carlo), no improbable last-minute rescue by A.J. (a likable loser to the end), no anticlimactic return of Melfi (but a moving final scene with Junior, one of many great scenes)--and no ducks.
"As for that ending: has anyone read "The Lady or the Tiger?" Or seen the splendid 1999 John Sayles film "Limbo," with its identical abrupt, deliberately ambiguous ending (which also left some infuriated, others in admiration)? Chase prefers to make us think, and wonder, and never be sure, than to tie up all the loose ends neatly. (Thank goodness that Russian never came back.)"
One of the most anticipated finales in television history also resulted in some of the most frenzied betting over a one week period online. Following Gambling911.com's request for Bodog.com to offer odds on the show's finale, a few other online gaming establishments soon followed suit, offering Tony Soprano as a big favorite to survive the finale. This ultimately resulted in a rather substantial profit for the online bookmakers, who maxed bets at $50 per pop.
While pre-taped shows can present difficulties for gambling websites offering odds since the "insider" potential is always there, the Sopranos finale was filmed using three different endings so that only show creator David Chase and those immediately close to him knew the actual outcome.
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Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com
Originally published June 11, 2007 12:30 pm ET
