IT'S OFFICIAL:
Season 4 of Lost will Have 13 Episodes!
Carlton Cuse has officially announced that he and Damon Lindelof will be busting their asses to get 5 more episodes done, which will bring the number of episodes this season of Lost to 13. He says what this will do is allow them to end the season the way they'd originally planned, but just in a more condensed version. As he put it, "It's a little bit like driving cross country to Boston. If the goal is to get there two days earlier, we will have to take more interstates and fewer rural byways."

Jon Lachonis at BuddyTV is worried this means we'll lose the remaining three episodes. "With Cuse proclaiming that the season 4 story will end as originally prescribed, I think we have to then assume that they have no intention of making up the lost (pun intended) episodes in the future," he writes. "Selfishly, I don't want to be shorted three episodes of my favorite TV show."

However, USA Today is reporting that the remaining 3 episodes will be rolled into future seasons. Whether Cuse actually said that to them, or whether they're simply assuming it is unclear, since they don't have him quoted as saying it. Since Variety is also reporting that if season 4 is shortened the remaining eps will move to future seasons, I'm leaning to believing both of them.

In other news: Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money have both received 13 episode pick-ups for the fall, which is awesome news. ABC was the first network out of the gate to announce all of their shows that will be continuing. I'm hoping NBC is next...

Writers Strike Calls Timeout...
Well, it’s pretty much a done deal. The writers were asking for 0.4% of the Internet profits, and now they’ll get 0.36% up to 100,000 downloads of a TV show (50,000 of a feature film) and 0.7% thereafter. Not bad... not great, either, but they’ve made their point, and I’m so glad they did. They ground Hollywood to a complete standstill. Actors couldn’t do that. But the writers certainly can. (It’s interesting that Hollywood immediately gave in to the Directors Guild demands, as if they knew how important these people were. Yet, before you can DIRECT a script, it must be WRITTEN.)

So where does put our new shows? As I posted a couple of days ago, many shows are rushing back to work on Wednesday if the vote goes through tomorrow, and we could see as many as 10 episodes more of The Office, and six more of Lost (the season called for 8 more, so maybe with some urging from fans they’ll give in to the full season). Notably absent seem to be all the new shows: Chuck, Dirty Sexy Money, Pushing Daisies... all of these shows have been tabled until fall. And what happens then? Are we to believe they’ll really give them all second seasons? Not likely.

The one that worries me the most is Friday Night Lights. This past Friday’s episode wasn’t great, and when that little Imagine logo popped up at the end, I dropped my head into my hands. I cannot fathom leaving the beloved people of Dillon, Texas with Smash’s football future unknown, Jason’s parenthood future unknown, Riggins’ future with or without Lyla unknown, Landry’s NON-future with Tyra and wonderful future with Jean unknown.... and I cannot bear to think the last I’ll see of Coach Taylor is him all bruised and broken suffering from a hangover. Peter Berg – the man who brought the book to the TV screen – had a guest appearance playing a former boyfriend of Tami’s, and I thought this subplot was stupid. Eric and Tami don’t play games, and to see him downing shots and eventually beating the crap out of the guy with the giant cowboy hat was simply ridiculous. Season 1 showed these two as the most together couple on television, but season 2 has sort of marred that. While I love the season, I didn’t love Tami finally getting out one night with her friends and coming home to Eric snarling at her that she needs to focus on the family more... when she’s been tied to the newborn baby 24 hours a day since it had been born. And I certainly don’t love him not having the confidence in his relationship with Tami to simply laugh off the yahoo in the big hat and walk away.

Could it really end like that?? Please, NBC, PLEASE... say it ain’t so.

The Rumor Mill: The Strike Has Ended!!!
Word has it the writer's strike will end this weekend, with the guild meeting tomorrow to look at the proposed contract, largely rumored to be something happy for both sides. No news on what deal they eventually settled on, or confirmation that the rumors are true, but the networks seem to be pretty confident, since they've all announced what shows will be coming back, how many, and when. Michael Ausiello at TV Guide has posted the complete list of shows here (thanks for the link, fb!) but I'll pull the ones usually discussed here, along with my comments in red:

Bionic Woman
No new episodes expected. Ever.
WHEEEEEEEE!!!

Big Love
Expected to go into production on Season 3 in March. Airdate info is TBD.
I cannot WAIT. Great thing about HBO? They're not stuck in regular network seasons.

Chuck
No new episodes until fall.
I'm so sad about this one... I love Mr. Bartowski and Friends.

Dirty Sexy Money
No new episodes planned until fall; three remaining pre-strike episodes will undergo some tweaking and kick off fall run.
Wah... just when I was getting into it. I wonder if this will kill the show?

Friday Night Lights
No new episodes expected for this season. Future TBD.
Excuse me for a moment.... I need to go off into a corner and SOB.

Gossip Girl
Expected to shoot up to 9 new episodes to air in April/May/June.
Wow, do they film an episode per day?? They'll pretty much finish their season.

Heroes
TBD.
What are they determining? Whether the show is still any good?

Lost
Six pre-strike episodes remain. Six additional episodes could air this season.
Oh please please please please....

The Office and 30 Rock
Expected to shoot 5 to 10 new episodes to air in April/May.
Come on TEN. Let's see TEN! I vote for TEN!!

Pushing Daisies
No new episodes until fall.
Must return to my sobbing corner... WAAAAAHHHH....

Ugly Betty
Expected to shoot 4 or 5 new episodes to air in April/May.
This is good news, and they'll have a fuller season than most shows, too, I suspect.

The Writer's Strike: The End Is in Sight!
The entertainment wires are abuzz this morning with the news that the writers and the studios have reached a tentative deal, and the final deal could be in place any day now. Of course, it'll take weeks of finalizing the new contract, but there's a good chance the writers will be back sooner rather than later.

Could we soon be seeing new episodes of The Office? Pushing Daisies? Friday Night Lights?

More importantly, could we actually get the rest of season 4 of Lost??!! (If they were to start now, they could probably have them air in May/June, which wouldn't be too late.

The Writers Strike
UH has made a post at their blog about a possible deal upcoming in the writer's strike. Interestingly, Joss Whedon has responded in a comment below, telling people not to jump too quickly into thinking it's the end, and to let the studios know they are still willing to remain on strike. He writes it in the way only he can (this has been confirmed as a post by Joss Whedon, and not just someone signing his name).

The best appeal on behalf of the writers that I've read yet was in this morning's Globe and Mail, by Joanna Schneller. In it she argues that writers should be given their due -- which is at the top of the food chain in Hollywood. "A tremendous number of people make their livings off the backs of writers," she writes. "Go to the taping of any TV sitcom, and 10 network suits are lined up, monitoring the laughs they didn't write. Meet a star for an interview in a restaurant, but first greet her phalanx of publicists and agents - none of whom would have anything to do had someone not written the movie she's in. Attend an awards show, and try to count the number of people employed - from caterers, red-carpet manufacturers and makeup artists to limo drivers and cleaning staff - because someone wrote a good movie or TV series, and someone else wrote copy to honour it. Then try to estimate their salaries: The New York Times figured that the revenue lost by the cancellation of the Golden Globes alone - one awards show, one time - was $80-million (U.S.). That's real money, even in L.A."

Schneller is correct; from the beginning, writers have been the butt of Hollywood jokes, and earlier this week, NBC entertainment co-chairman made a hideous comment about the writers when the Golden Globe awards were cancelled, saying, "Sadly, it feels like the nerdiest, ugliest, meanest kids in the high school are trying to cancel the prom. But NBC wants to try to keep that prom alive."

No, I didn't make that quote up. He actually said that.

When the Globes were cancelled, I remember looking at some online forums and seeing comments directed at the writers by viewers, saying, essentially, "HOW DARE YOU?!" They called the writers greedy, whiny, losers, assholes... you name it. A few quiet voices rang through on the forums, piping up to type, "Um... but don't you think what the writers are asking for is fair?" only to be shot down again by the boobs who were all upset that their widdle awards show was cancelled. Boo. Hoo.

Hollywood has come to a standstill. Doesn't this highlight for the studios just how important these writers are? At this point, the writers are holding their ground, and the studios are furiously holding theirs. When a deal is reached, whenever that may be, the blood between these two won't be bad -- it'll be festering. It'll take years for that relationship to build back up again.

I started watching The Daily Show again this week, and it's appalling. It's had its moments, but the whole show appears to be one big ad lib by Jon Stewart, and some of it is TERRIBLE. On Wednesday night he actually looked around at the non-laughing audience and said, "Sometimes it feels incredibly alone up here... at home, you're looking at a guy getting no laughs, while I'm staring into a sea of faces who are just staring right back at me. Not laughing." Uh huh. Too bad those hacks out on the picket lines weren't valued enough by the studios. On another night, he and John Oliver did an extended ad lib just showing old clips of Stewart in bad hair and worse suits, and it was clearly something sprung on Stewart. The two of them sat there giggling their arses off, and it was funny for a bit, and after a while you just wished the biting humour was back.

As Joanna Schneller says in her column this morning, "The writers are asking for the equivalent of a freaking cup of coffee. Give them this fraction of their due."

Amen.

Why Janes Writes
As part of the ongoing "Why We Write" series (I linked to Damon's essay the other day), today's installment comes from Jane Espenson, former writer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and current writer on Battlestar Galactica.

I had a lot of Barbie dolls when I was a kid. Close to a dozen, I think. I remember that I loved them, but looking back, I’m not sure why. I knew at the time, vaguely, that I was supposed to make up stories and act them out with the dolls, and I actually remember trying to do that, and failing. The problem was that I didn’t know these girls. I didn’t know their backgrounds, their quirks, what distinguished one from the other. I didn’t get the premise of how eleven identical ludicrously-shaped teenagers had met. But most of all, I didn’t know their voices.
Without that, I was uninspired.

The dolls I REALLY played with were the characters from M*A*S*H and Welcome Back Kotter and Barney Miller and The Odd Couple and The Love Boat and Starsky and Hutch. I would fall asleep making up stories for those shows in my head. But I was a brutal audience. I couldn’t enjoy the made-up stories if I couldn’t make myself believe them. And I couldn’t believe them if the voices weren’t right.

For the rest of her essay, go here.

The Writer's Strike, Part 3
Our fave writers speak out about the strike. Joss Whedon:




And Damon Lindelof, here.

The Writer's Strike, Part 2
You know, I've been complaining that so many articles and blogs are being written about how the writer's strike will affect the average Joe sitting at home on his couch, yet they aren't focusing on the strike itself, what it's about, and what the writers are asking for.

And then I went and did the same thing. D'oh.

If you want a really quick and dirty explanation, this is it. It's less than 4 minutes.



Basically, the studios cut writer's residuals on home video sales by 80% in the '80s so they could fund the burgeoning home video market, and writers agreed. Two decades later, the pay cut still stands, and they make a tiny percentage of what the studio gets (for a $20 DVD, they make 4 cents). Now that same pay is being given for any internet viewings, whether it's free streaming or a paid download. The writers are simply asking for another 4 cents on both. They want 8 cents for a $20 DVD. And the studio says that's too much (?!)

You can go here to read the daily reports from the strike lines. Here's my favourite line of the bunch:

William Mapother, aka "Ethan Rom" from "Lost," walked the picket line Wednesday... BUT HE WASN'T ON THE MANIFEST!!!"

HAHAHA!

Apparently this Friday is going to be BSG picketing day, and they were joking that they'll probably do it in costume. WICKED.

Let's show our support to those writers. Our TV season could be over because the stupid networks won't recognize the importance of them.

Think of it this way, for Office fans (the Office writers have a great complaint YouTube video here, including Ryan, Toby, and Kelly, who are all writers on the show): Two weeks ago we saw an awesome and hilarious episode where Stanley was going to quit. This past week, featuring exactly the same cast but a different writer (Steve Carell, unfortunately), the show was a dud, and other than Michael singing falsetto in the woods, I barely chuckled at all. It's not the cast of a show that can make or break it, despite how much we love this cast. It's the writers.

You can sign the petition to support them here.

Writer's Strike
Several people have been asking me what my thoughts are on the writer's strike, and I've had a few newspaper columnists emailing me asking for a quote or two on it. So I thought I'd finally blog on it, if for no other reason than to get more answers from you on my comments board.

Before the writers walked on Monday (when the original date was set for midnight on Halloween) I'd read a lot about it, and several points kept popping up. If the writers walked, the following would happen:
*late night talk shows would cease immediately, since a lot of their subject matter is based on things that happened that day
*daytime talk shows would probably have 3 or 4 eps in the can, and then they, too, would stop
*soap operas have sketchy story lines that would get them through November, but by December they'd be doing clip shows or reruns (of soaps?! I don't think I've ever seen a soap rerun in my life, but wouldn't it be cool to go through the vaults and show people old episodes from 20 years ago?) But seriously, I thought this was kind of funny... I mean, don't soaps usually write themselves? I speak as someone who hasn't watched a North American soap opera since about 1988...
*network shows would have a few episodes finished, so they could continue probably until the end of November, and then they, too, would be on indefinite hiatus
*reality television would invade our sets in droves. They do have writers, but they don't belong to the writer's guild because they, well, suck
*shows like SNL would go into immediate reruns because they're filmed, well, live

And one show just kept coming up in all the discussions: Lost. And the basic rumour was this: Since Lost has 7 or 8 episodes in the can, scheduled to run in February and March, they're WAY ahead of the game on this one. If the strike went until January and then the writers were back on the job, other network shows would be scrambling to write and film episodes for March, while Lost would be coasting through on their finished ones and would be writing for April, giving them a lot of extra time. As a result, Lost would become the blockbuster show it was in the first season, because other shows would continue to be off the air while Lost was showing super-awesome new episodes.

The best news for me (yes, even better than Lost) was that the final season of The Wire (aka the smartest television series EVER) is completely finished and in the can, and scheduled to run in January, so while the rest of television would be a vast wasteland of reality scum, The Wire would be the one shining light, and there's a chance viewers would tune in in droves, making The Wire a well-watched show. And if ANY show deserves that, it's The Wire (by the way, major Wire plug here: THERE IS NO LONGER ANY EXCUSE NOT TO WATCH THIS SHOW. I was in Costco the other day and all seasons are there for $38.99... seriously. For an HBO show... not $80, not $100, but $38.99. Please buy this, watch it, and be blown away. I cannot stress this enough).

And then... the writers went on strike. And suddenly there's a WHOLE new tune being played.

For, it seems that those writers? Well, they plan on being out for a VERY LONG TIME. As in, rest of the television season long. Which means Lost has 8 episodes of 16, and no more. Word came out at the beginning of this week that Team Darlton was looking to pull the show completely, and that season 4 would start in February 2009, not 2008. I think that spells DISASTER. Fans are already grumbling about waiting almost a year, do they honestly think they'll wait TWO? Especially when the time between the DVD and the show will be about 15 months? Uh uh... won't happen.

Today ABC announced that regardless of what happens, they will run the first 8 episodes starting in February. This has Darlton a little worried, because they now believe that running 6 episodes of season 3 in the fall of 2006 before a 3-month hiatus was a huge mistake, and they think if it's done again... bigger mistake.

So what will happen? Will Lost go off the air indefinitely, probably spelling the end of the series? Will they run the first 8 episodes and then disappear, ruining the momentum of the season?

Man, this is worse than if Nikki and Paulo were resurrected... oh wait... what am I saying...

And I'm not even talking about the rest of our shows. The Office may be going into hiatus effective immediately, and they'll either show reruns of the American version, or there's talk of airing the UK original version with Ricky Gervais (which I love, but I've already seen -- several times -- so I don't need to see it again). 30 Rock, Ugly Betty (which is REALLY GOOD this season!), Heroes (which, um... isn't, but I'd still miss it terribly), Friday Night Lights (Nooooooo!), etc.

And what about the new shows? Pushing Daisies just got a full season order, will it ever make it to a season 2 if season 1 isn't allowed to finish? (WAAAAAAAAAHH!) I also adore Chuck, Journeyman, Reaper, Gossip Girl, Dirty Sexy Money... what will happen to them?

And think of the DVD sales (or lack thereof). How do you sell a season when you only have about 6 episodes, and yet the show hasn't even been cancelled?

That's another trend that's been apparent this season -- nothing's being cancelled. It's like the networks needed to hold onto every last show in the hopes that they might be able to stagger them through the season or something.

One thing that's showing through as a major strength in all of this is the cable programming. As I said, The Wire is already in the can. Dexter is finished, and is running right now and will continue to run to the end of the season. The final season of The Shield is also finished, and scheduled to begin in the new year. Maybe other series need to look to this model as the one to follow. Get an entire season written and shot before airing the first episode. But that takes big bucks, and the networks can't pony up for that the way HBO can.

But HBO will be the clear (and only) winner in all of this, I think. Next year's Emmy Awards will go to HBO because it was the only one with complete seasons. But what about this time next year? If HBO has to work a year in advance, then a year from now they won't have any shows, because none were written. So this will affect the cable networks much later, whereas the big networks will be affected immediately.

Or... they could just admit the writers are the most important people on a tv show, give in to their demands, and get their damn shows back on the air. Because the alternative seems to spell disaster.