The Strike's Over, So... Where Are My Flippin' Shows!?

The strike is ovah! There's a vote on Tuesday to decide whether to end it immediately or a little later, but it's definitely at its end. And what now? What's the damage to the current season of your favorite show? Luckily, Great White Snark has put together a comprehensive list of all the shows you could potentially care about and when they'll be back. Sneak peek:

• LOST - Six "post-strike" episodes to be made, bringing the season total to 14, two less than originally planned.
• Smallville - 3 to 5 "post-strike" episodes to air in April/May.
• Heroes - Fall at earliest, but who the F cares anyway?

Is the Writers' Strike Over?

There are whispers on the wind that the WGA strike may finally be coming to a close. If it is over, I'd like to think it went down like in the video above.

Via one of my favorite niche blogs, The Ramblings of Some Audio Guy.

"Nothing Says Writer's Strike More Than Guitar Hero On A Show"

Now that most live talk shows are back on the air, every show host from NY to LA must be roaming the vacant room that used to house their staff writers, looking for ghosts of inspiration. But all they find is a big empty table and a video game console gathering dust. And they've got come up with a segment about something, and they did the table yesterday.

We've seen Conan O'Brien's overbearing Rock Band showmanship, now here's Ellen simply playing two minutes of Guitar Hero to the delight(?) of her studio audience, as seen on her show last week (via, appropriately, Lesbian Gamer). Analysis after the jump.


Obviously this doesn't compare to the made for YouTube brilliance of Conan's sketch, and I think we all know how much fun it is to watch someone play Guitar Hero on easy, but I'm inclined to give Ellen a break. Her performance style is endearingly familiar, featuring what I like to call the "rocker's lean". This is where you slowly lean back, letting the music flow through you, and you use your leg as a counter weight. Anyone? Maybe it's just me and Ellen.

Also notable is that in her intro Ellen says, of game's addictive qualities, "You lie in bed awake and see the notes and lines." Aha, the Tetris Effect! This is the phenomenon of video game imagery occurring in gamer's dreams and coloring their real life cognition. I think we've all been there. For me, the worst was back at the height of my Myst fixation back in '94, when I went to bed and my thoughts played out in still, sequential images. That was not good. Or when I played Galaxies for a summer and started looking around in real life for columns of lights indicating where my next destination was. That was also a little scary. Though it's kind of interesting to flirt with the experience of being insane.

Brian K. Vaughn On The Writer's Strike

Brian K. Vaughn has been a writer for Lost since last season, and had recently been bumped up to co-producer for the new crop of episodes. Now that the writer's strike is on, he's walked away from every Lostie's dream job. On his personal blog, he's posted an excellent FAQ about how the strike will effect not only his work, but the comic industry in general, including some thoughts on the lack of unions in the comic book biz.

Quote of Interest:
"I was also about to begin work on a particularly exciting new comic-to-screen adaptation that I can’t really talk about, and while I’m hopeful the gig will still be waiting for me if/when the strike ends, who knows? That’s one of the many risks that comes with this very necessary strike."

A new BKV comic-to-screen adaptation, eh? He already sold his Y The Last Man and Ex Machina scripts, so does that mean...the long-awaited Runaways movie? If that's the case and the script does get lost in the shuffle of the strike, comic nerds may storm Sumner Redstone's office with themselves.

No More Heroes: Writers Strike May Cut Season Short

The fabled writers strike is finally upon us, and you may start seeing the effects sooner than you think. TV Guide is reporting that the producers of Heroes are going to shoot an alternate ending to the December 3rd episode that will allow it to work as the season finale in the event that the writers strike keeps them from producing the rest of the season. Considering how little I'm enjoying this season already, rushing to a conclusion FIVE EPISODES from now (making it an 11 episode season) will probably ensure I never return. To be fair, that episode was always planned as the end of the current "volume," (while the first season was only one volume, this season was meant to be two) but the admission that additional material would need to be shot to give viewers some closure certainly means some important stuff is gonna get rushed.

Via Comingsoon.net