Sweet Catastrophe

Anyone remember that song from Rocco’s Modern Life? It was the episode where they went to the movies–I think this was a preview for some movie about garbage workers on strike–they were singing rats, I believe.

Anyhow, the writer’s strike is officially under way. The part of me that enjoys drama can’t wait to see these daily shows feel the burn, but at the same time, I really don’t want to see the impact on my beloved shows. I’m not even so much worried about the risk of running out of material, but even the shows they’ve got written, but not taped will be affected. There’s so much re-writing during shooting to change things that don’t work, and cut for time, and write in things to make sure it all makes sense when you have to cut something for time…I just hope it doesn’t all go downhill. I’d almost rather see a bunch of re-runs than a bunch of botched episodes.

I’ve been looking through a lot of the articles on the whole situation and I think the most interesting idea that keeps popping up is about hyphenates–writer-producers, actor-writer, etc. The idea is for there to be a totally dedicated strike, meaning that even these hyphenates wouldn’t show up to work at all so that they’d really be strapped, but in their dual roles, they’re still under contract to show up in their non-writing capacity, strike or not. So not only do they have to struggle with the decision of what to do there, but if they decide to show up, how do they refrain from assisting on re-writes and such? How do they just stand back and let the show sink?

I definitely don’t envy the situation the hyphenates are in. I don’t think this bodes well for shows that have just started.

Oh! But I did read a tidbit the other day suggesting that news shows that really should’ve already been cancelled (*ahem* the Caveman thing…) are probably still around because networks wanted to prolong the amount of taped shows they have. Good to know they’re not completely blind to crappy material.