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A strike is upon us all!

By fred | October 31, 2007

Chances are you already heard about a possible strike from the Writers’ Guild of America (WGA), and if rumors are true, it gets more and more likely that it will actually happen. And, well, it sucks.

Yeah, it really does. I won’t argue about what this is all about, but basically the American Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) doesn’t want to give due money to the writers over “new media”, such as DVDs.

But who cares about that ? I mean, as TVoholic or just regular viewers, what we care about is how this strike will affect us.

- In fact, the fear of strike is already affecting things. Do you really think ABC would have picked up series like Samantha Who? that fast if it wasn’t for the strike ? You really think Cavemen would still be on the air ? Of course not.

- But while some network have ordered a bunch of episodes, trying to have as many material as possible in case of the strike, others decided to not go that road. They’re waiting, postponing full season orders because they do not want to deal with the question of who still needs to be paid when a series got picked up, yet failed to produce a full season’s worth of episode.

If you were still wondering why NBC still hasn’t picked up popular shows such as Chuck, wonder no more!

- “It’s so much more manageable this time around. In 1988, everything was scripted programming. But now there’s so much alternative programming, at least we have a pad.” Translation: Get ready for a lot more of games and reality TV. But while they might be ready, a strike would obviously hurt some shows and the world of TV in general, because once a few viewers will get addicted to YouTube, Internet, video games, or that thing called real life, they might not all come back after wards.

- Everybody Hate Chris : the season is pretty much done already, so it should be affected.

- Aliens in America and other CW comedies are far ahead in production and should be able to air through February.

- October Road : the season is pretty much complete already, no worries there. Not that anyone actually worried for this one, though…

- Pushing Daises : they worked hard to get up to episode nine ready to go. Spoiler Alert! There’s a reason they worked so hard to get there, a multi-episodes story does end up with this episode, and executive producer Bryan Fuller didn’t want to leave fans hanging. Thanks!

- Heroes : they should have about 10 episodes ahead of what we’ve seen.

- Prison Break : as you probably know, the show will take a long a stupid break. Yeah yeah, they did it before. So did Lost, but at least they were smart enough to realize it was a bad idea, did nothing but hurt the show, and decided to fix it. Nothing like that for Fox’s shittiest season ever of PB, and I doubt anyone cares, but just in case : they’re good to go up to episode 13 and that infamous break.

Oh and, guess what : according to executive producer Matt Olmstead, that mid-season cliffhanger could easily pass as season finale is needed. So, who wants to bet Prison Break last season will not only be the worst ever, but only half as long ?

- Lost : Oh yeah, the one we’re all worried about, ABC’s hit show Lost. Well, the season will be 16 episodes long, and half of them are ready. The remaining question being, should ABC air them and give is yet another stupid break, or wait until they have the full season before starting ?

In my mind there’s ne question, obviously they should wait. I love Lost, and I’d rather wait a few more weeks (months?) than having to go through yet another way too long hiatus. Sadly though, ABC might just forget about their promise of airing a 16 uninterrupted episodes season and start to air what they got so far. “It’s better to come on with some season than no season” said an insider said. Hell no, it’s not!

- 24 will face the same problem, only worst since it’s no secret that production of the season got delayed. Hopefully they will not make the same mistake ABC seems to be willing to do, and they’ll wait.

Posted in News
Shows: 24, Aliens In America, Cavemen, Chuck, Everybody Hates Chris, Heroes, Lost, October Road, Prison Break, Pushing Daisies, Samantha Who?