Cleanin' up Tony? @%$#!

Today's NY Times has an interesting article about A&E's ongoing project to "clean up" episodes of The Sopranos for their basic cable premiere next year. Now, before you scoff (oh go ahead, scoff, I can see you want to) remember that there are 60 million Americans, roughly, who never saw The Sopranos on HBO. They don't have HBO, and apparently neither rent DVD's or engage in "antisocial" downloading behavior.

Here in Canada, of course, Canadian network CTV made a big splash by rerunning Sopranos afer its premiere on our own Pay Networks, TMN out east and Movie Central out west.

The most interesting part of the article, though, is the part where they walk the spin. Predictably (and you should maybe take this with a large grain of salt) they don't have to change too much. In Sopranos? You fuckin' kiddin me? Well. Apparently not. Here's why:

As A&E works its way through the project — it is currently deep into screening episodes from the first two seasons — Mr. DeBitetto says that he has already been surprised by one dynamic: that the network has actually had to designate very little to cut. On average, it has trimmed less than 30 seconds from each episode, which can run from 45 minutes to nearly an hour. One reason, Mr. DeBitetto said, is that so much of the tension in "The Sopranos" hinges on the unseen anticipation of violence. And when someone does die in a "rubout" or "whack," Mr. DeBitetto said, those scenes are often no more gruesome than those one might see on a drama like "24" on broadcast television.

In such instances, loyal viewers may be hard-pressed to determine what exactly A&E has retouched. For example, in one scene from the first season, two of Tony's lieutenants, Silvio (played by Steven Van Zandt) and Christopher (Michael Imperioli), put a bullet through the head of a quivering turncoat who has been found to be wearing a wire. In the edited scene, as in the original, blood splatters on a nearby wall. All that is missing in the edited version of the shot is perhaps two seconds of film in which what appeared to be a chunk of brain matter began to slither down an air-conditioning unit.

This is worth keeping in mind. Hollywood movies used to know how to do this, too. I still cringe in fear at Hitchcock films, because he knew so well how to build the tension. I mean, really, look at Rear Window or The Birds. There's nothing there that you couldn't show an eight year old, except for the fact that if they watched closely, you might, you know, scar them for life. Rosemary's Baby is laughably tame by modern standards. So why does the movie scare the shit out of me?

Much is made of the freedom of cable. But we tend to forget that sometimes, as writers, it's the limitations of the frame we have to work within that can be our salvation. Whether it's having to constrain your story to four or five acts, or dealing with the implications and anticipation of violence, rather than let it all hang out, SAW or HOSTEL style -- there's something to be said for limitation; simply in the way that it forces you to dramatize rather than shock, and tease rather than bludgeon.

I'm not that surprised that so much of The Sopranos can actually be preserved -- but I am a little skeptical, or at least interested, to see if it does as well for A&E as they need it to.

I wrote some time ago -- in one of the spec script posts, I think -- that most television can be listened to, rather than watched. It's very dialogue-driven -- perhaps a throwback to the days when everyone was doing four things in front of the TV, like homework and making out and the ironing.

But Sopranos is a big exception to that rule. The series is very visual, and if you're not watching, and watching closely, you can miss important moments.

I wonder if your average inattentive American viewer -- the great untapped market that has never seen The Sopranos -- will respond to it the way A&E wants it to. After all, this is the big roll-the-dice replacement for Law & Order. And if there was ever a TV-that's-really-radio show on TV, it's Law & Order.