Television writers may be on strike, but that doesn't mean your favorite shows have to go off the air or the networks have to show nothing but old episodes of "Supermarket Sweep."
TV executives, a few of whom are smarter than they look, have plenty of ideas for new episodes of all of America's favorite shows, and without having to worry about any bearded, sweater-wearing, beglassed nerds putting words in the mouths of their beautiful, beautiful stars.
Here's what you can expect to see over the next few months, as the well runs dry.
The ensemble cast of "CSI:" all gets knocked out by poisonous gas. As they lay unconscious, they dream fondly about their past adventures in the form of clips of old episodes. But this time, it's to the tune of the dulcet tones of Steely Dan.
To get into the holiday spirit, those two grown men who live with a little boy on "Two and a Half Men" decide to sit down and watch the entirety of "It's a Wonderful Life." (4-part episode)
The castaways on "Lost" meet up with yet another set of not-before seen plane crash survivors. This group, who was on the plane's second tail, happen to look just like the ones from the first tail and do exactly all the same things. In fact, the episodes appear to be exactly the same as those from season 2. But they can't be, because these characters all have CGI mustaches drawn on them. Also all their names now start with 'B.' For instance, Bana Lucia and B-Mistereko.
"24" takes an exciting new turn when, instead of secret agent Jack Bauer, the show focuses on 24 hours in the life of actor Kiefer Sutherland. Watch as he drinks voraciously on a night-long bender, passes out, sleeps for 10 hours, then gets up and realizes he needs to buy some toilet paper at Walgreen's. A major twist comes when he discovers Walgreen's is out of double rolls, and he has to go to Costco.
The medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" takes a turn more toward the medical and less toward the drama as each episode begins featuring lengthy readings from the manual with which the show shares its name. Once the book is finished, characters just begin reading out info on various illnesses from WebMD.com.
"The Shield" vies for even more critical acclaim when it spends the entire season on one continuous shot of a police badge.
"The Office" takes a break from its continued look at the life of an office in Scranton, Pa., to focus on a strikingly similar office in the U.K. city of Slough. After about 12 episodes of that, the series takes yet another turn to look at the laugh-a-minute office life at the Kinko's in Burbank.
In what critics hail as a revelation for the series, "According to Jim" becomes nothing but 22 half-hour marathon contests between Jim Belushi and his co-stars to see who can have the longest, most painful farts.
"House" gets an entirely new cast and characters, switches hospitals, has its setting moved back to the 1980s, and changes its title to "St. Elsewhere."
The Chris Rock youth comedy "Everybody Hates Chris" is replaced by a blank screen for half an hour. No one notices.
The ensemble cast of "CSI:Miami" gets knocked out with a different, more tropical poisonous gas. While unconscious, they dream of previous episodes of the original "CSI:," too, but this time, it's set to Kansas songs.
KingOblivionPhD@the-iss.com
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While I wholeheartedly agree with the writers and believe that they should be entitled to a fair share of the cut and profits of their work from DVD's and internet sales, I'm afraid that the only people who are going to be hurt by this are the consumers. Already shows are being postponed and cancelled, while others probably won't survive the strike because they are so new and haven't gotten a strong fan base as others who have been on for multiple seasons.
In the end, I only see that the common viewer is going to have to pay more to have the shows that they enjoy so much. This I believe will increase the file sharing and piracy of current shows and movies because nobody wants to pay more money when they can get it for free. Writers and their unions need to come to an agreement with their companies to ensure that we, as consumers, don't have to pay more to watch the shows we love so much.
Posted by: Wes | November 12, 2007 10:08 PM
King, it's definitely an interesting time for television viewers and movie goers. I suspect that this is going to drag on like the NHL strikes did a few years ago, which has soured me on professional hockey ever since. There have been many new shows that I've been watching that will suffer and the older, established shows will feel the blow too...
I know it's a sign of the apocalypse when American Gladiator is coming back to television... Geez.
Posted by: Brian Fitzpatrick | November 15, 2007 6:13 PM