Hollywood on strike by Claudia Sonea

Bad news for comedy and drama series, Hollywood is now on strike and your remote is in serious trouble. It will not be consequences in the immediate future, but on the long run if the Writers Guild of America doesn't reach an agreement on a new contract by Tuesday night's deadline, many writers will quit their jobs and the viewing masses will have no more TV shows. The City is in danger to face another problem on top of everything, midsummer actors' strike. Until now the writers have claimed that their old contracts' do not protect writers' income enough, or their place in the great Hollywood hierarchy. Therefore they want money made from foreign sales, DVDs and video and also from the Internet, more respect which means they want their names to be added to the movie post right besides the director's name, so they can get credits too for their work and end the monopolization of directors. For the viewers things are not that sunny. If the writers don't settle a satisfying new contract until midnight Tuesday, there will be a serious blow for those that are addicted to the remote control. Of course the movie industry will not see the effects immediately due to the fact that the movies that are already written can be finished without writers. Furthermore, when it comes to the small screen, the season is on can, so there is nothing to be concerned about yet. However, if it will go on and they will drag the matter, next fall you will see only TV shows like "Survivor" clones, news shows, and "Millionaire" without drama or comedy. All this happening just at the beginning of a new TV season, is still not a problem because most of the favorite series are already on tap: House with six episodes left (last episodes airing in January); Samantha Who? has eight more episodes; The "Crime Scene Investigation" trio, "NCIS," "Criminal Minds," "Without a Trace" and "Cold Case" each have three to six more episodes running on CBS. Series like CBS' comedies ("How I Met Your Mother," "The Big Bang Theory," "Two And a Half Men," "Rules of Engagement"), ABC's Ugly Betty, Pushing Daisies and Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, NBC's Heroes have episodes that will last mostly until the end of this month and the beginning of December; while Fox's "24" is postponed indefinitely. Let's pray that they iron out differences and get to an agreement if not for their sake, at least, for ours the ones that are waiting breathless to the new episode of our favorite series. Good luck at the negotiations.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071108/ap_en_tv/hollywood_labor_episode_supply;_ylt=AosGz5MdeO5w.AcgEDyZwvis0NUE

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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