So I started watching Boston Legal in order to feed my recently rekindled love of James Spader and I'm liking it so far, although not as much as I might have if I hadn't started watching the Sopranos around the same time. I'm crossing my fingers that they come up with a new credit sequence for Boston Legal by the second season because, seriously, the one from the first season sucks beyond sucking. The music is completely wrong -- and not in an ironic way -- and the morphing of actors into cartoon-likenesses looks cheap and very silly.

I only started watching the Soprano's because of all the talk about the finale. I'm spoiled in the odd way that I know what happens in the last four minutes only. As you probably know, whether you watch the show or not, what actually happens during those minutes has been the subject of some heated debate. The only two cents that I have to offer at this point -- having just finished the first season (no spoilers, please) is that Owen Gleiberman had better have it wrong. This is what he has to say:

"For a few moments, we felt, and envisioned, Tony Soprano's death, and so, in the skipped heartbeat of our imaginations, he really did die. Moments later, we imagined that he might have lived, and so he did live after all. He died and he lived. Not the possibility of either one. But both. Cut to black. And let there be light."

If Gleiberman is right, then David Chase is a pussy. Ambiguity is one thing, but there's nothing brilliant or poetic about an ending that lets you have it both ways (as an end in and of itself, so to speak)-- it's one of the biggest acts of creative cowardice in my hypothetical book.

Anyhoo, while David Chase has been tight-lipped as to what the ending means (as he should be), HBO has confirmed that he had a definite ending in mind. And that's all that I need to know to enjoy the ride.