Television

The Sopranos' final episode aired last night on HBO. Spoiler alert: Critic David Bianculli's review tells us how the episode, and the series, concludes.

On TV's Rescue Me, the comic, actor and writer Denis Leary plays a highly strung, highly macho fireman Tommy Gavin, who deals with raging fires and his own raging male ego. Season 4 of Rescue Me starts next week on the FX network.

Leary, who's worked in films including The Thomas Crown Affair and The Ref, sidelines as a singer, too; his comedy CD No Cure for Cancer spawned the provocatively titled hit single "Asshole."

Larry Wilmore, jokingly billed as "Senior Black Correspondent" on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, worked as a writer on In Living Color and The PJ's before getting his fake-news-show gig.

Wilmore also created The Bernie Mac Show.

Documentary producer Huw Cordey helped create the staggeringly ambitious BBC series Planet Earth. The series was five years in the making and was shot in 62 countries on every continent. It was broadcast in the United States on The Discovery Channel, and is now available on DVD.

Michael Chiklis stars as rogue detective Vic Mackey in the TV series The Shield; the Peabody Award-winning show is in its sixth season on the FX cable channel.

Previously, Chiklis starred in The Commish; over the years, he's also made guest appearances on Seinfeld, L.A. Law, Miami Vice, and Wiseguy.

Garry Shandling parodied TV talk shows on The Larry Sanders Show, which ran on HBO from 1992 to 1998 and is now out in a four-DVD box set. It's called Not Just the Best of "The Larry Sanders Show" — in part because it features eight hours of extras, including essentially unedited conversations with stars who made guest appearances on the Larry Sanders sofa.

Actress Bea Arthur may be best known for her starring roles in the TV sitcom Maude (in the '70s) and The Golden Girls (in the '80s and '90s) — but did you know she also played Yente the Matchmaker in the 1964 Broadway premiere of Fiddler on the Roof? The first season of Maude is now out on DVD.

MTV's new Thursday-night sketch-comedy series Human Giant got its start as a collection of Web shorts, and the rise of MySpace and the viral-video explosion helped it develop a big following online. Terry talks with Aziz Ansari, Rob Heubel and Paul Scheer, three of the comics who power the show's alterna-comedy antics.

Guest host Dave Davies talks with Peter Berg, executive producer of NBC's Friday Night Lights, who also directed and co-wrote the 2004 film of the same title.

HBO's long-running hit The Sopranos returns this Sunday, with the first of nine episodes that will wrap up the mob drama. Guest host David Bianculli weighs in on the final act of this widely acclaimed series.