Tomorrow is a big night for HBO, in more ways than one. Of course, "The Sopranos" is airing its long-awaited finale. I for one will not be tuning in. A while back the show stopped being a warped take on family dynamics and turned into the self-aggrandizing adventures of competely unredeemable people. I've never liked gangster movies, and resisted watching the show for a while because of that. People kept telling me it was different, and without a doubt, the first season stands as one of television's great achievements. Like its protagonist, the show never quite recovered from the death of Tony's mom. The momentum kept it going for a while, but after the death of Big Pussy, I lost interest. In the later seasons, the storytelling made too many incorrect assumptions to hold on to my interest. This is exemplified by the interminable Adriana storyline. Why did the writers possibly imagine we would care if that shrill, annoying, entitled zero bit the dust? Hell, I would have pulled the trigger myself if they'd let me.

Big numbers for "The Sopranos" are not in question. What HBO really has to be on pins and needles about is the following program, the debut of David Milch's new series "John from Cincinnati." The network has a lot riding on "John" being received well, since it essentially killed "Deadwood" when Milch wouldn't change his work habits to accomodate both series running at once. Tim Goodman is already on record as saying that the new show is a disaster, but there has been better buzz elsewhere. I'm too huge of a "Deadwood" fan not to tune in, but going by the description alone, it doesn't sound like much of a crowd-pleaser. It's a noir thing about a commune of surfers of Milch says "we hope to explore the ways we oversimplify our idea of reality." I hope it's not a bunch of inconclusive, intellectually masturbatory new age nonsense, but it sure does have that vibe.

If I attempt to review "John from Cincinnati" without first taking the time to clear the decks of my thoughts about the ultimate fate of "Deadwood," that's all I'll end up writing. So here is what I think. There is absolutely no way one or two two-hour movies can wrap up the story of "Deadwood" the way matters currently stand. The series' chief strength is the way it strings together a whole number of scenes that seem initially meaningless and unimportant only to have them resonate more and more strongly upon each-reviewing. It's not my usual habit to stay absolute mum about a show I love so much, but I haven't written hardly a word about the third season because past experience with the first two suggests it will take five or six complete re-viewings on DVD until the full richness of Milch and his cast's accomplishment comes through.

"Deadwood" by no means is a show that could run forever. The whole premise of the show is dependent on the ephemeral nature of perfectly lawless societies like the one that has sprung up around the mining camp. The story of the show is that of how a unique place and time, a true historical/dramatic outlier, a petri dish for the worst impulses of men, rapidly and inevitably is drawn back towards the center. It's no coincidence that the show's pilot involves the arrival of the first lawman in town, and that the first season largely deals with the fallout surrounding the final days and death of Wild Bill Hickok, a paragon of an already fading way of life. The second season's story showed the current power-holders in the town gradually beginning to make efforts to compromise with external forces in a bid to maintain their positions of privilege. And the third season has begun to demonstrate why this can't work. So much on "Deadwood" is underplayed or implied that you could contruct an argument that the story doesn't need to end -- we can read all of what's going to happen from the text already laid out in front of us. This is may or may not be true. But it seems to me as if the show has a natural stopping point after one or two more 12-episode seasons.

For my part, the existing seasons are such a beautiful example of long-form storytelling that I would rather see no future "Deadwood" at all than a made-for-TV movie. It just wouldn't be right. Too many adjustments to the show's pace and style would have to be made, and I don't think the results would end up leaving anyone, let alone David Milch, very happy. They really ought to do two more seasons, and if it makes me a bad person hoping that "John from Cincinnati" flops resoundingly so that can happen, then I'm a bad person.