Monday, November 05, 2007

Look for the union label...

Strike! Strike! Strike!

Here's a very long, very thorough, rundown of the issues, ramifications and likely outcome of the strike (with swear words thrown in to make sure you pay attention). Here's a shorter version.

As I see it, there's little to no chance the writers strike a deal before 2008. It seems like there would be a window of opportunity where the television networks might blink in January, lest they head into February sweeps with a cupboard full of crap (most of the current shows will run out of scripts before then, so the networks will have a chance to try out whatever reality/news/whatever junk they'll use to fill the gaps and see if they can put together some sort of primetime schedule - of course, given the production lead-times, getting fresh shows on the air by February assumes the writers will be churning out scripts while they're walking the picket line).

If nothing's done by February sweeps, the studios won't have any incentive to make a deal for another couple of months. If this sucker lasts through May sweeps, the fall TV season will already be hosed and I imagine the studios will already be hiring scab writers in order to get something on the air.

I dunno, it seems like it's going to be long and ugly. If there's an old show you always wanted to watch on DVD, get in the Netflix queue NOW (and savor the irony that DVD residuals are one of the major sticking points for the union).

The LA Times has a nice rundown on when the networks will run out of what.

4 Comments:

At 2:41 AM, November 06, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Could the networks reconsider and air some of the shows that were "canned" after one or two episodes?

 
At 7:04 AM, November 06, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The answer to any "could" question that does not involve a writer is "yes."

Depending on the duration of the strike, we're bound to see ALL KINDS of interesting programming moves.

 
At 7:59 AM, November 06, 2007, Blogger Eli the Mad Man said...

"Interesting" of course being completely subjective. ;)

Tell ya what, as much as we like our TV shows... the strike won't bother us one bit. As you pointed out, we've been Netflixing a slew of shows and movies we haven't seen (i.e., How I Met Your Mother, Rescue Me marathons, and we can finally finish watching the last season of Rome).

This will be a nice break actually...

 
At 12:49 PM, November 12, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I could almost care less about the strike except for one huge factor -- LOST!!! Did they already have the spring season's shows written? Or, since the Lost season wasn't going to start until January, had the writing only just begun and therefore there may only be a handful of episodes written? That would suck....

 

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