Grid Effect

We meant to get to the Nip Tuckrecap this morning, but our dipshit roommate claims he “had” to play Halo 3, so we caught about fifteen minutes of it and have yet to finish. We’ll get to it later today, for what its worth, the episode jumped quickly into the plot and was pretty inconsistent on symmetry.

But since this is a television blog, and TV sets to be the hardest hit from the writers strike, we figured we should at least comment on the situation. For the most part, it sounds like late night talk shows will be effected more so than anyone else. Yes, I know, it’s hard to believe that Letterman, Leno, Stewart and the rest do not write all of their own material. But it’s true.

As for your series’ currently in season, it sounds like there is a lot of variance from show to show, depending on how production is formatted. For instance, there are some series’ that finish writing, filming and editing before the first episode of a season even airs ( i.e. The Wire, something this website is extremely grateful for). Then there are some that stay well ahead of their airdate, but continue filming and editing throughout the better part of the season. From what it sounds like, virtually every series that continues production throughout their season will run out of fresh episodes by February of 2008. Series’ that begin airing midway through the television season will be able to make it about a third of the way through their upcoming season should this white collar squabble go unresolved.

There was once a poll that surveyed Americans assumptions about who’s responsible for the writing process in Hollywood, and 40% of us believed actors wrote their own lines (sorry, no link, which makes the claim completely invalid, but this is a blog that no one reads, so whatever). This number seems almost unfathomable to us, but if one really didn’t want to know the basic constructs of how a film or television series is made, then it is really easy to avoid. But still, 40%? Have these people heard Paul Walker talk? That’s not to say all actors are incapable of conjuring up their own thoughts, there are several intelligent actors who simply don’t write because: A) They don’t have too, and B) Writing a good, thought-provoking screenplay is really fucking hard.

The point being, for all the celebrity worship that runs rampant through this country, Hollywood and the entertainment industry don’t exist without the WGA. While their complaints might seem trivial and entitled to us, relative to the rest of the Hollywood landscape the writer is the proverbial whipping boy, mainly because he/she isn’t in charge of delegating or investing money, and his/her name is rarely a box office draw, giving them very little leverage. But the foundation of any great product in Hollywood starts with the writer, and this is wherein the problem lies. They want their contribution to be compensated as such (percentages of DVD and internet revenue), and the studios already feel the writers are amply compensated given how little writers are marketed.

It looks like the studios are hell bent on breaking the union, and the union is adamant in their demands, so this thing is expected to unfold over the course of several months, if not up to or over a year. Essentially, we’re content as long as there is no delay in the debut of The Wire’s next season. Between that and Survivor, we can just add on older series on DVD or turn this into a film or sports blog. Because we’re not watching any more fucking reality TV to keep this thing afloat. That, in the midst of all this uncertainty, is unflappable.

Nip Tuck recap later today.