End of Days for Sopranos, TV Season

It's swan-song time for Tony Soprano. It's power-ballad time for the next American Idol. It's nail-biting time for Gilmore Girls fans.

In other words, it's May sweeps, kicking off Thursday and running through May 23.

Here's a look at the highlights for the finale-fraught final days of the 2006-07 TV season.

FAREWELLS!

• 7th Heaven (May 13, CW): No, really, we mean it this time. Eric (Stephen Collins) and Annie (Catherine Hicks) are piling into the RV. Next stop: Leisure World. 
• The King of Queens (May 14, CBS): Once, dinosaurs ruled the land. Sometime after, stand-up comics dominated the prime-time sitcom. Didn't really work out in the end for either group. Kevin James' triceratops of a comedy—slow, steady, less flashy than a T-Rex—becomes extinct after nine seasons. Its comfortably conventional, three-camera like may never walk the Earth again.
• The Sopranos (May 20, HBO): After six stop-and-start seasons, the end is nigh for Tony's crew in an episode entitled "The Second Coming." A good time probably won't be had by all.
• Bob Barker: The silver-haired Price Is Right host steps back from the wheel in June after 35 years. But first, he'll host the prime-time game special, The Price Is Right Million Dollar Spectacular (May 16, CBS), and reflect on the meaning of "Come on down!" on Bob Barker: A Celebration of 50 Years on Television (May 17, CBS).

FAREWELLS?

• Girlfriends (May 7, CW): Will seven seasons be enough for this UPN survivor? Does it bode well for a sitcom about single women when one of the singles (Tracee Ellis Ross' Joan) gets a "long-awaited marriage proposal?"
• George Lopez (May 8, ABC): Is the presence of guest-star Jerry Springer inspired, or a last desperate act? Did you read the earlier graph about comic-headlined sitcoms going the way of Michael Richards' stand-up career?
• Jericho (May 9, CBS): Can a post-apocalyptic drama live on for a second season? If it's renewed, will Skeet Ulrich be forced to solve crimes like everyone else on CBS?
• Gilmore Girls (May 15, CW): Is there life after Rory's Yale graduation (as featured in the May 8 episode)? Is there hope for a seven-year-old show with a season finale called "Bon Voyage?"
• Scrubs (May 17, NBC): Can a plucky little comedy that barely survived six seasons survive into a seventh? Is it a bad sign that J.D. (Zach Braff) and Eliot (Sarah Chalke) are "contemplat[ing] their futures?" Doesn't Braff have a film career to look after? 
• Veronica Mars (May 22, CW): Can a show that averages fewer than viewers than Univision telenovelas win a fall time slot? And if not, then there's not really much hope for the just-as-little-watched Girlfriends, is there?
• Law & Order (May 18, NBC): They shot Gunsmoke, didn't they? Nothing can last forever and/or 18 seasons (which it'll reach if it's renewed for the fall), can it? Doesn't Fred Thompson have to go run for President?

AND THE WINNERS ARE...

• The Amazing Race 11 (May 6, CBS): The show hands out its latest $1 million check, and then gets straight to work on the Emmy reel.
• Survivor: Fiji (May 13, CBS): The five remaining castaways give way to one $1 million winner. A live cast reunion follows.     
• America's Next Top Model (May 16, CW): Tyra Banks sends her newest anointed charge into the big, bad, bathing-suit-monitoring world.
• The Bachelor: Officer and a Gentleman (May 21, ABC): Andy "delivers a devastating rejection," and then "a deeply romantic scene which could jump off a movie screen," but won't, so you better set the TiVo.
• Dancing with the Stars (May 21-22, ABC): Clyde Drexler never did show the chops required to be the next Emmitt Smith. Only time and fox-trot steps will tell if Joey Fatone or Apolo Anton Ohno do.
• American Idol (May 22-23, Fox): Taylor Hicks' reign ends. And so begins the reign of [insert a name, though probably not Phil Stacey's, here].

CLIFFHANGERS

• 30 Rock (Thursday, NBC): Jack (Alec Baldwin) must deal with his planned wedding—and his visiting mother (guest-star Elaine Stritch). Hope it doesn't stress him out or anything.
• Criminal Minds (May 16, CBS): "Gideon's (Mandy Patinkin) girlfriend is murdered by his nemesis." Sweeps months can be so brutal to recurring characters. 
• Ugly Betty (May 17, ABC): "Explosive secrets will be revealed, and everything will be tied together by a beloved Broadway musical." That's what the network release says. We read it twice.
• The Office (May 17, NBC): Michael (Steve Carell), Jim (John Krasinski) and Karen (Rashida Jones) vie for the same promotion. Yeah, not really the same as promising that Jim and Pam (Jenna Fischer) will get moving already.
• Grey's Anatomy (May 17, ABC): The juiciest cliffhanger—Will Isaiah Washington return?—will be resolved in an off-camera executive suite. Until then, we get a finale called "Didn't We Almost Have It All," which is about, per the tight-lipped network, "Copy TBD."
• CSI (May 17, CBS): Jorja Fox goes missing. Nothing like hedging your bets during contract talks. 
• Desperate Housewives (May 20, ABC): It's ring-exchange time for Eva Longoria and Tony Parker, sorry, Gabrielle (Longoria) and Victor (John Slattery), not to mention an unnamed duo who partake in a "surprise wedding...in an unexpected location." All that, plus the return of Bree (Marcia Cross).
• 24 (May 21, Fox): Here's guessing the Bush White House doesn't schedule any press conferences on this night—not when torture-advocate Jack Bauer's going to be serving up two hours of pain. 
• Heroes (May 21, NBC): The series' "first volume comes to a close," and the journey to the next DVD multidisc set begins.
• NCIS (May 22, CBS): "The 'season of secrets' wraps when the team's biggest secret is revealed," a statement which doubtless makes perfect sense to those holdouts who refuse to bow down to American Idol on Tuesday nights.  
• Lost (May 23, ABC): Funny, this two-hour finale has the same plotline as Grey's Anatomy's: "Copy TBD." In Lost's case, we're guessing this is code for a few answers, and a whole lot of new questions.

VERY SPECIAL EPISODES

• American Idol (Tuesday-Wednesday, Fox): Eliminated-finalist Gina Glocksen is going to totally bum once she finds out Jon Bon Jovi's stopping by.
• America's Next Top Model (Wednesday, CW): Ms. Banks directs a "sensual swimsuit photo shoot." Completely and totally unrelated to sweeps, we're sure.
• Smallville (May 3, CW): Do not adjust your flat screen. It's supposed to be in black and white. At least the parts that take place in the 1940s.
• My Name Is Earl (May 3, NBC): Ever wonder what Jason Lee's TV world smells like? Retrieve that "Laugh 'n' Sniff" card from your TV Guide, follow this episode's prompts and find out.
• Deal or No Deal (May 6, NBC): Jay Leno, Jackie Chan, Regis Philbin and more congratulate Howie Mandel on hand-bumping his way through 100 episodes.
• Law & Order: Criminal Intent (May 8, NBC): An ex-stripper who found fame as model and riches as the widow of a very old, very rich man mourns the death of her grown son, celebrates the birth of a baby girl and then unbelievably drops dead herself. So the humor isn't lost stand-up David Cross guest stars as the dead star's longtime companion.    
• Traveler (May 10, ABC): Announced last spring, this action-drama finally premieres this spring. Starring nobody you've ever heard of, except maybe Bree's dead TV husband, Steven Culp.
• Work Out Reunion (May 15, Bravo): Because Jackie Warner's trainers haven't spent enough time reflecting about, well, themselves, they spend one more hour discussing the reality-show's second season.  
• Jimmy Kimmel Live (May 15, ABC): The late-night show brings you an entire show from a running city bus. Just because.

VERY SPECIAL SPECIALS

• Saturday Night Live in the '90s: Pop Culture Edition (May 6, NBC): Relive those special years when the show became almost entirely apolitical.
• 42nd Annual Academy of Country Music Awards (May 15, CBS): Carrie Underwood continues her effort to win armfuls of awards, and, in the process, cheese off veteran country acts.
• A Dr. Phil Primetime Special: Caged? (May 18, CBS): The good doctor visits "a father who is accused of aggravated child abuse after he [the father, not the good doctor] allegedly locked his nine-year-old son away from the world for three years." Finally, entertainment the whole family can enjoy.
• Jesse Stone: Sea Change (May 22, CBS): Tom Selleck is back as the Robert B. Parker sleuth. Finally, a TV movie the whole family can enjoy, provided the whole family is really old.