After two weeks of the writers’ strike, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and the Writers Guild of America will resume contract negotiations on November 26th.
Sean Jablonski, a writer for “Nip/Tuck,” commented, “That’s fabulous, that’s great. You can’t get a deal until two sides sit down and talk about it. It’s a good message to hear around the holidays.”
The writers will continue to strike until an agreement is reached.
David Letterman has made the decision to pay his striking writers and all the rest of his staff through the end of the year. That money, in addition to the $100,000 he loses every night he doesn’t tape his show, the Late Show with David Letterman, is coming out of his own pocket. That’s quite a commitment. Some reports say that he plans to pay them through the duration of the strike, but that hasn’t been confirmed.
Evidently, this isn’t something new for Letterman. He did the same thing in the 1988 writer’s strike. One of Letterman’s friends said, “Dave’s not doing this to get good press, which is why it hasn’t been reported for almost two days.”
Some of the cast of “Everybody Loves Raymond” came together over the last few days in support of the Writer’s Strike. Ray Romano, Patricia Heaton, and Phil Rosenthal all joined the picket line this week to support the writer’s strike. Ray, who was Raymond‘s writer notes that he’s part of the Guild, and said, “I won’t cross the picket line… I was in the writers room every day for nine years… Without the writers, Brad (Garrett) and I would have been sitting on the couch looking at our feet for 22 minutes.”
Rosenthal added that if people are upset, they should write in to the networks and studios and get them to do the right thing.
And if you want to catch the whole Raymond cast together, reruns will be playing soon. I know my Mom’ll be happy.
With the writers strike looming over us for an undetermined amount of time, it’s fair to be concerned about our favorite TV shows. My Tuesday night favorite TV shows are House and Bones. And to be honest, their future isn’t looking so good. They’re being moved to Friday nights.
Everyone knows that Friday nights is a bad TV sentence. Now, House will continue on Tuesday nights after American Idol, as usual, but as near as I can tell, it will only be playing reruns. The new episodes will all be playing alongside Bones on Fridays. And with limited new episodes, both House and Bones will be playing a mix of reruns and new episodes.
But on Friday nights! Why?
Ironically, Heroes is going to be one of the few shows that won’t have problems airing episodes because of the Writer’s Strike. That could be good or bad, depending on what direction the show takes. In other words: Due to the comic book nature of the plot line, they have what could be a completed season, or if need be TWO completed seasons, should the strike continue into next year.
How did they do that? “We started earlier and we worked as hard and fast as we could,” said co-executive producer/writer. “We’d be shooting one episode just as soon as another ended.”
Smart thinking on the part of Heroes. And, evidently they split it up into two short seasons. They could combine them to make it one season, or they could leave it where it ends in December, with “Powerless.” If it ends in December, it’ll be a full story, but they say fans won’t be happy. As fans are already not happy, I’m against this, even if everything is wrapped up.
Hopefully, they’ll make the right decision.
Despite “Family Guy’s” creator, Seth MacFarlane, being involved in the writers’ strike, the Fox network has decided to continue producing episodes. This seems like a bad idea – sure, it’s an animated show, but MacFarlane also provides voices for many of the show’s characters.
The last original episode of “Family Guy” just aired on November 5th, before the strike started. Fox and the studio, 20th Century Fox, could opt to continue with reruns or do the show without MacFarlane. Seems they chose the latter and will continue producing episodes without MacFarlane — who provides the voices of Peter, Brian and Stewie Griffin.
It was a star-studded event yesterday – nope, not an awards show or movie premiere – the stars came out in droves to support the writers on day nine of the strike. Matthew Perry summed it up well, “When the writers are on strike, nothing can happen, which is why we’re all here.”
Jay Leno, Ben Stiller, the casts of “Brothers & Sisters” and “Desperate Housewives,” Julia Louis-Dreyfus and many more were there to show their support. More stars after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
With the writers’ strike in week two now, TV viewers are getting antsy, wondering how many more new episodes of their favorite shows they can expect before the re-runs begin. While all of the shows have different schedules, Michael Ausiello at TV Guide was kind enough to provide an extensive listing of the remaining episodes.
The first casualty? “The Office.” Sadly, there’s only one new episode left and it airs this week. Read the rest of this entry »
