You'd think that when A&E, the ad-supported cable channel, begins airing reruns of HBO's “The Sopranos” next January, the episodes would be heavily edited for the gentler
sensibilities of the network's audience and advertisers, not to mention the FCC. Well, you'd be right --and wrong. A&E will edit “The Sopranos”--its team is working on
snipping bits from season two right now--but the task is far less daunting than one might have imagined. Knowing the popular series would one day be sold to a basic-cable service, David Chase and the
other producers of "The Sopranos" were smart enough to film alternative scenes during the original shooting of the series. The network's inventory includes alternative video and audio
(bye-bye to all those expletives), making the show more palatable to a broader audience but, in some ways, hardly changed at all, thanks to the participation of the original actors.
Moreover, writes Jacques Steinberg in The New York Times, once you really get down to it, “The Sopranos” is far less graphically violent than many other TV dramas now on the
tube. A&E will begin selling ads on its “Sopranos” package in about a month's time.
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