11.06.07
Yesterday’s Industry News: WGA Strike
In case you’re living in a cave or the Midwest (same diff), the WGA went on strike yesterday. Let’s take a moment to collect our thoughts and mourn what might be the last few episodes of Private Practice.
Done? Let’s move on.
This strike is going to have no tangible effect on my life. And you know what, maybe Hollywood could do without a pilot season this year. Because if The Big Bang Theory is the best they can do, it seems like they might need a break. And maybe a few weeks or months trudging around picketing studios will give these writers the perfect kind of self-loathing and existential crises from which they can mine brilliant ideas and scathing dialogue.
If you want to be serious about it, I don’t know the specifics of the strike, but from what I gathered over at Defamer, it seems like the WGA is being pretty reasonable (read: don’t want to be fucked over by studios making money on the internet off of stuff that they created from nothing) and the studios are being dicks (read: acting like studios). I also feel bad for other production-types that are going to be affected. So cheekiness aside, I hope the strike comes to a swift and fair end. But I’m still glad it’s not the grocery stores again.
UPDATE: Apparently I’m not alone in my assesment of the dismal Television landscape (from the L.A. Times)
Dana Gould, a former writer on “The Simpsons,” described the studios’ tactic as a “controlled burn” strategy that would save these giant companies millions of dollars. He said the timing couldn’t be better, amid television’s recent poor ratings.
“It’s a reboot. They want to hit Control-Alt-Delete on the fall season,” Gould said.