Salvaging The Wasteland
Posted on | February 12, 2008 at 10:45 pm | 3 Comments
Yee haw, the 3-month old WGA Strike is over at last. Writers are expected to return to work tomorrow. So, Sue will be happy to hear that tomorrow’s Daily Show (and Colbert Report) should have some of that old zing back. I’m happy about that too. Hopefully the writers can get up to snuff quickly and the enforced downtime didn’t dull their creativity.
But it looks like the 2007/2008 TV season is irrevocably altered. TV series that didn’t get a chance to totally capture audiences before the strike (like The Bionic Woman) aren’t going to get that chance after the strike and are being canceled. TV Guide has a list of what’s happening with all the shows, and whether or not they’re filming any more episodes for this season. Some popular shows, like Heroes and Pushing Daises, won’t be coming back until the fall. 24, which never got a chance to start its 7th season even though some episodes were filmed, won’t be back for almost a year. We won’t be getting that whole 16 episode season of Lost (which was shortened from last year’s episode count), but it does look like we’ll have 13 anyway (11 more, since two have already been shown). Battlestar Galactica will get its full 20 episode final season, although they still don’t know when they’ll be showing the last 10. Some shows, like Smallville, are getting a full season, but that’s rare for the dramas. More comedies are finishing out the season with a full or nearly full run, like 30 Rock and How I Met Your Mother.
I’m sure once the wreckage has cleared, the only true winners will be reality shows. And that means the rest of us are losers. Will networks continue to take risks with expensive scripted series? Oh, those will probably never go away. But I think they’ll continue to be a smaller and smaller percentage of programming. Something tells me the networks were just waiting for something like the strike in order to push more of that crap down out throats and get us used to it. But I’m cynical.
Latre.
Comments
3 Responses to “Salvaging The Wasteland”
February 13th, 2008 @ 4:52 am
The funny part is where he seems to imply that any strike could possibly have had “winners”, then later claims to be cynical…
No one ever wins a strike. Ask anyone who’s done the spreadsheets on how long it’ll take the average WGA member to recoup 3 months’ lost wages with their 2%/whatever higher royalties… I bet the time span will take us right about up to, oh, maybe, the next strike?
February 13th, 2008 @ 5:44 am
Of course, the Daily Show writers will only have two days back before Jon takes time off to work on the Oscars. Argh!
I’m glad I didn’t start following any new scripted shows this season. I’ll be anticipating new “30 Rock”s though.
February 13th, 2008 @ 9:41 am
Anything that results in a delay in 24 has it’s saving graces.