By Lisa de Moraes
Friday, July 13, 2007; C07

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., July 12

"It was startling -- even to us," HBO Co-President Richard Plepler said of David Chase's cut-to-black non-ending that caused such an uproar among fans of "The Sopranos."

"The truth of the matter is there were just as many people passionately intrigued as angry" among TV critics and viewers alike, he told The Reporters Who Cover Television at Summer TV Press Tour 2007.

"I thought David did what David is brilliant at doing -- finding his own voice, doing something nobody had ever done," which, Plepler said, was in the "highest tradition of the show." He added practically, "It's impossible to tell someone like David Chase . . . how he should end it."

What Chase did was end the show with mobster Tony Soprano sitting in a diner booth with his wife and loser son eating onion rings while his daughter tried to parallel-park her car; a menacing guy at the lunch counter got up and went to the loo.

The more viewers, including himself, "sat with" that ending, the more comfortable and less irritated they became, Plepler insisted.

Asked what he thought actually happened in the final episode, Plepler said he thought Tony reaped what he had sown and is a guy who will live a life of eternal vigilance, always looking over his shoulder, never sure of his safety or the safety of his family and asking himself whether it had all been worth it.

Presumably, that means Plepler didn't think Tony got whacked by the menacing guy who went to the loo.

Sitting with Plepler onstage was Michael Lombardo, president of programming at HBO. Asked the same question, he joked, "I don't know, because my TV went out."

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Looking forward, remember those two "Deadwood" movies that HBO told fans of the show were coming?

Maybe not going to happen.

It depends on whether David Milch's other HBO show, "John From Cincinnati," is picked up for a second season, the suits said, in which case he'd have to go right back to work writing that show.

Or not.

Right now, Milch is exhausted from working on "Cincinnati," Lombardo said.

HBO hasn't had the conversation with Milch about the movies, he also said.

"It's complicated," he also said.

"Of course, it's possible. . . . It's doable, but it will be daunting," he also said.

"If David's game for this, then we will figure it out," he added.

Asked to put odds on the movies' ever happening, Plepler and Lombardo said they were not betting men. Pressed -- and the press really pressed -- they finally put the odds at 50-50.

Both men are firmly in favor of a "Sex and the City" movie. And, in response to suggestions the pay-cable network hasn't really had a chick show since "Sex" went off the air in 2004, they directed the reporters to "Big Love," the show in which three women married to the same guy lead wrist-slittingly depressing lives.

* * *

Sending TV critics DVDs of Ken Burns's documentary "The War" that do not include the added interviews with Hispanic World War II vets marginalizes their stories, University of Texas journalism professor Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez told The TV Column.

Not inviting Hector Galan, the Hispanic producer who was brought in to work with Burns on the additional material, to join Burns onstage for Wednesday's Q&A with critics, is just another slap to the Hispanic community, said Rivas-Rodriguez, who earlier this year galvanized the Hispanic community in protest of the documentary, which originally did not include interviews with any Hispanic soldiers.

In advance of the Burns Q&A, PBS sent reporters copies of the original documentary, completed more than a year ago. After Hispanic groups protested the lack of interviews with Hispanic soldiers, Burns agreed to shoot more material; Wednesday he detailed his plans to add interviews with two Hispanic soldiers and one Native American soldier at the end of three of the seven episodes. TV critics and journalists were told the completed product, as it will air on PBS, will be sent to them in time to re-watch the documentary before its debut on Sept. 23.

Rivas-Rodriguez thinks PBS is being disingenuous. "If it is an important and integral part of the documentary, I don't see how they could not have" the additional footage in the DVDs, she said.

"If it was considered such an important part of the overall documentary, why not have Hector Galan on this press conference? All these things make me feel like they say one thing to shut up the Latino community" but say another to the TV critics, she said.

In response, PBS spokeswoman Lea Sloan told The TV Column Thursday, "I do understand for someone not a television critic nor in the television industry why the press tour would be a confusing event, and they may not understand why a network needs to get material to the press whether it's in for-air form or not.

"I wish the product were a fast-food restaurant where you can call in your order and pick it up at the window five minutes later. Ken is a perfectionist."

With regard to Galan not being included in the Q&A session with Burns and his producing partner, Lynn Novick, Sloan said, "Ken and Lynn are the producers of this film and they have been touring the country promoting it. Hector made a valuable contribution, but he is not a co-producer of the entire film."