The Writers Strike Is Officially Over and a Scrubs Update

As of last night, Tuesday February 12th, the WGA “union members voted overwhelmingly to go back to work.” (link) This means that movie and TV writers will finally be going back to work and “programmers are busy getting back to business after a dry spell that deprived viewers of new episodes and networks of ratings.” (link) Unfortunately not all TV shows will be going back into production. The networks are holding back many of the year’s new shows so that they can be re-launched with full seasons next year. A few other shows that are on the brink of cancellation are also not going back into production until the networks decide if they are going to renew the show or not, or if it’s worth putting those shows back on the air for a very limited final run.


For all the Scrubs fans out there that were concerned that we’d never get a series finale since this was to be the show’s final season, you can now breathe a sigh of relief. Creator Bill Lawrence has assured us all that the final four episodes of the NBC comedy will be written and produced. (link) Lawrence stated to TV Guide’s Michael Ausiello that “worst-case scenario is that ABC/Disney lets me make the last four episodes as a DVD. And I say that's the worst-case scenario because I'm going to try as hard as I can to get NBC's support in finishing the show up on TV. I just don't have any definitive answer because I haven't been talking to them.” (link) To clarify, the NBC comedy is actually produced by ABC/Disney, so that in the case NBC does not want to air the final episodes on their network, ABC would like Scrubs to finish the production of the show’s final season in order to sell future DVD box sets either as an individual Season 7 box set or as a Complete Series box set.

How Many Of Our Favorite TV Shows Are Left?

Michael Ausiello, TV Guide senior writer, has updated his Strike Chart: How Long Before Your Shows Go Dark? In it Ausiello lists how many episodes of this fall’s shows were completed pre-WGA strike and how many of those episodes have yet to air. Unfortunately the number of shows left keeps shrinking and shrinking, with only a handful of shows have 7 or more episodes left which means it’s going to be a very boring, reality filled spring. I know many of you are always wondering if your favorite show is new this week or not, so I’ve gone ahead and included some of Ausiello’s Strike Chart below to help out readers of The Blot Says…


For more spoilers and hints of what’s to come on the small screen, check out The Ausiello Report every Wednesday at TVGuide.com.

Strike Chart

30 Rock:
Ten episodes have been produced. Ten episodes have aired, so there are zero left.

The Big Bang Theory:

Eight episodes have been produced. Eight episodes have aired, so there are zero left.

Bones:

Twelve episodes have been produced. Nine episodes have aired, so there are three left.

Brothers & Sisters:

Twelve episodes have been produced. Ten episodes have aired, so there are two left.

Carpoolers:

Thirteen episodes have been produced. Eight episodes have aired, so there are five left.

CSI:

Eleven episodes have been produced. Eleven episodes have aired, so there are zero left.

CSI: Miami:

Thirteen episodes have been produced. Thirteen episodes have aired, so there are zero left.

CSI: NY:

Fourteen episodes have been produced. Thirteen episodes have aired, so there is one left.

Desperate Housewives:

Ten episodes have been produced. Ten episodes have aired, so there are zero left.

Dirty Sexy Money:

Thirteen episodes have been produced. Ten episodes have aired, so there are three left.

ER:

Thirteen episodes have been produced. Thirteen episodes have aired, so there are zero left.

Gossip Girl:

Thirteen episodes have been produced. Thirteen episodes have aired, so there are zero left.

Grey's Anatomy:

Eleven episodes have been produced. Eleven episodes have aired, so there are zero left.

Heroes:

Eleven episodes have been produced. Eleven episodes have aired, so there are zero left.

House:

Twelve episodes have been produced. Nine episodes have aired, so there are three left.

How I Met Your Mother:

Eleven episodes have been produced. Eleven episodes have aired, so there are zero left.

Jericho:

Seven episodes have been produced. None have aired yet, so there are seven episodes left.

Law & Order: SVU:

Fourteen episodes have been produced. Fourteen episodes have aired, so there are zero left.

Lost:

Eight episodes have been produced. None have aired yet, so there are eight episodes left.

Men in Trees:

Nineteen episodes have been produced. Eight episodes have aired, so there are 11 left.

My Name is Earl:

Thirteen episodes have been produced. Thirteen episodes have aired, so there are zero left.

NCIS:

Eleven episodes have been produced. Eleven episodes have aired, so there are zero left.

Numbers:

Twelve episodes have been produced. Twelve have aired, so there are zero left.

The Office:

Twelve half-hour episodes have been produced. Twelve half-hour episodes have aired, so there are zero half-hour episodes left.

Private Practice:

Nine episodes have been produced. Nine episodes have aired, so there are zero left.

Pushing Daisies:

Nine episodes have been produced. Nine episodes have aired, so there are zero left.

Reaper:

Thirteen episodes have been produced. Ten episodes have aired, so there are three left.

Scrubs:

Eleven episodes have been produced. Six episodes have aired, so there are five left.

The Shield:

All 13 season-seven episodes have been produced. None have aired (the final season gets underway in '08), so there are 13 left.

Smallville:

Fifteen episodes have been produced. Nine episodes have aired, so there are six left.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles:

Nine episodes have been produced. Three episodes have aired, so there are six left.

Ugly Betty:

Thirteen episodes have been produced. Thirteen episodes have aired, so there are zero left.

WGA Strike Nears Its End?

According to a few sources it looks like the WGA and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) are going to start holding informal talks again today. This is great news and may save next season’s television season after all. The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that the WGA has agreed to drop their demand that Reality Show Writers and Animation Show Writers be unionized by the latest deal. (link) They have decided to try and organize those two groups of writers another way than including it in their collective bargaining agreement with the AMPTP.


What’s most shocking about this statement is the fact that both the WGA and AMPTP are both admitting that reality television has writers! Doesn’t this go against everything the term reality television stands for!?! I’m hoping this latest revelation will spark a movement to change the term from reality television to either: a partially scripted show, a quasi-reality show or a half-written show. These terms haven’t been perfected yet, so I’d be happy to take some suggestions for a new term for professionally written reality television shows.


There have been some other reports that because the AMPTP and the Directors Guild of America (DGA) agreed upon a new collective bargaining agreement last week that the argument between the WGA and the AMPTP has effectively been settled. I can’t even begin to try and explain why this is the case, so instead I’ll direct to you to a recent blog post on a great blog I read quite often, Notes From A Hack by Irwin Handleman. Irwin Handleman is a professional comedy writer and also a pen name, I think. If not then he just happens to share his name with a character from one of my favorite television shows of all time, Skippy from Family Ties. You can read his explanation for why the strike will end soon here.

The Blot On Strike With The WGA

This is one of the cooler news items I’ve seen about the recent Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike. Both TV Squad and the New York Post are reporting that the casts of Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock are each putting on separate stage versions of their shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York as a fundraiser for the WGA strike fund on November 17th and 19th. (SNL or 30 Rock) Since many members of both shows’ casts are both actors and writers, production on both shows has stopped for the foreseeable future.

This is probably a good thing for SNL considering how bad its writing has been lately but is horrible for 30 Rock, which was riding high off their Emmy win for best comedy. Reportedly most of the casts for the two shows will be on hand for the stage version and SNL, as is tradition, will even have a host: Michael Cera from Arrested Development and Superbad. The titles of the show are creatively Saturday Night Live – On Strike! and 30 Rock – On Strike! and tickets are a pretty cheap $20 each.

This sounds like a pretty cool, once in a lifetime experience for TV fans and I’d recommend any readers in NYC to check it out…if tickets were still available. It sounds like the SNL show is already sold out, but according to the Upright Citizens Brigade website, limited tickets to the 30 Rock show will be available the day of the show. I’m interested in seeing how they pull this off and whether or not clips of the shows make it to YouTube. If so I’ll post them on here for everyone to check out.