Strike!

Beware, TV viewers...it's happening again. The writers are going on strike. As of Monday morning, November 5, Hollywood writers began their picketing. Late night shows, such as Jay Leno and David Letterman, are the first casualties. Members of the Writers Guild of America were seen picketing outside of Rockefeller Center, the headquarters of NBC in New York, and the CBS Lot in Studio City in California.

This is the first time the Writers Guild has gone on strike in almost 20 years. From March 7 through August 7, 1988, the writers did not write and television came to a halt. I remember watching one of the awards shows during this period. Everyone had to ad lib through the entire show because there were no writers writing scripts for the annual event that year.

But thanks to most studios having stockpiled enough scripts or completed shows to last until early next year, the season should not be impacted.

The possibility of a strike came up in July when talks began between writers and producers, and continued after the writer's contract expired last Wednesday. According to producers, writers were not willing to compromise on major issues.

Some support has been shown towards the writers. Jay Leno made an appearance at the Burbank studio to visit the strikers walking the picket line despite the fact that "The Tonight Show" is immediately beginning to air repeats. Ellen DeGeneres did not go to work today in support of her writers, according to her publicist.

But so far, it looks as though the only casualties of this strike will be talk shows, thanks to the stockpiled scripts. CBS soaps will continue uninterrupted for several months with completed scripts, and ABC soaps have enough scripts already written into the new year. ABC's "The View" will also go on uninterrupted because of contingency plans made before the strike, according to the Associated Press.

One talk show not being interrupted by the strike is "The Oprah Winfrey Show." The show does not employ union writers and will therefore be able to continue uninterrupted.

I find myself on a strange impasse during the strike as both a writer and a dedicated TV viewer. As a writer, I feel I should understand and support the views of the writers. But as a viewer, all I can think of is the possibility of my shows being cancelled. I often wonder if greed is too much a part of what goes on behind the scenes of Hollywood. We often hear about contract negotiations and pay increase demands by our favorite stars. If only we could live in an age where money was not a factor in what we do, and we worked simply because we love what we do. I fear that day is a long way away. But that's a subject for a whole different article.

For now, we, the viewers, can only enjoy our shows as they come and hope that negotiations do not take another 22 weeks like they did back in 1988.