Have you found yourself exhausted in the current age of peak TV? “WHEN WILL THOSE ENTERTAINING GHOULS LET ME REST?” screams the innocent television watcher as they blaze through their never bare TV stockpile. If you’ve been hoping for relief from all the programming to catch up on, there’s a real wishing on a monkey’s paw type solution in danger of punting you off the catch-up treadmill.
A New York Post report paints a writers’ strike as looming with agents already bracing for a scribe stoppage. This sounds like a bit of an escalation of strike expectations compared to February’s Deadline report placing the Writers Guild of America on strike footing.
“The Writers Guilds of America, West and East, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers announced they will begin formal contract negotiations March 13. The current Minimum Basic Agreement expires May 1,” said the union on the matter.
For television obsessives of a certain age, this may bring to mind the surreal 100-day Writers Guild walkout from roughly ten years back that left scripted productions reeling, had writers out on the picket lines and generated a fascinating run of Late Night with Conan O’Brien episodes. A more reality-friendly climate before Netflix, Amazon and other outlets made hiccups in the TV schedule seem not so grim. With all due respect to Private Practice, the potential for fewer episodes seems like something viewers will be more acutely aware of in 2017. Does the Writers Guild have more leverage now that critic-friendly TV is en vogue year-round on so many platforms? It appears we’re about to find out.
(Via New York Post)
