The AMPTP and the WGA will hold informal talks this week - the first in over a month. The Hollywood Reporter says that hat CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves and News Corp. President Peter Chernin held informal meetings with reps over the weekend - so we could be off to a good start here.

The recent DGA deal has had to have played a part in this to some extent - and, with any luck, things could still get rolling fast enough to give us an episode or two more of some of our favorite shows before the summer - if these things work themselves out quickly.

That may be me being too optimistic - but MAN - am I ready to get back to talking about, and reviewing, decent TV shows.

Could that be a shining light at the end of the tunnel?

Today, the Directors Guild of America inked a three-year deal with the major Hollywood studios. In it, they lined out an improved deal for payments resulting from content distributed on the internet and such. Following this meeting, the producers invited the WGA back to the table to resume negotiations.

This could establish pattern bargaining, in which the remaining talks are patterned after the first deal that is set. So…don’t get too excited just yet, but there is a slim possibility that this thing could end, and end quickly.

…maybe.

Earlier this week, each of the major networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and CW, axed their deals with writers and producers, claiming force majeure.

What does this mean? To me, I see it as a sign that the studios have no faith that there will be any resolution for this strike in the forseeable future. Now, Bryan Fuller of Pushing Daisies talked with eOnline and said, “If the strike is resolved in the next three weeks, there is a slim chance that shows could come back and produce four or five additional episodes to wrap up their seasons.” But the fact is that the WGA and AMPTP isn’t even negotiating now.

So it’s probably a pretty safe bet to not expect any new programming before September, if we’re lucky.

John Stewart returned to the air tonight. His first act was to show off his solidarity “unibrow”, then he moved right into talking about the Writer’s Strike, even going so far as to change the name of the program. THE Daily Show with John Stewart is a show produced with writer’s field correspondents and such - so until the strike is over, the show will be called A Daily Show with John Stewart - because it just isn’t the same program.

John went on to briefly touch on the primaries, then John went on to explain, in detail, what exactly is going on with this whole Writer’s Strike thing. What’s interesting and this is that the show did appear to be scripted. I don’t know if it was or not, but if so, don’t you think John will be getting trouble the same way Leno has been?

Ron Seeber, a labor specialist, was the guest host tonight, he began by talking about how the WGA didn’t want him to appear on the show. One thing that John Stewart is damn good at is pointing out both sides, and that is done very well here. Stewart is clearly on the side of the writers (as are most sane people), but they did a great job of pointing out what is going on, and the real reason why these things haven’t been settled - EGO.

There is clearly a bit of animosity towards the WGA on Stewart’s part though, as he goes out of his way to take several jabs at the WGA for not working out a deal with him for the Daily Show, when he is clearly willing to do whatever they want. The entire second half of the interview with Seeber is a shot at the WGA for not working a deal with The Daly Show. I’ll be interested to see how that is received on the web over the next few days.

Colbert also returned to the airwaves tonight with guest Andrew Sullivan.

In what is sure to be an embarrassing turn of events, employees of the East Coast branch of the WGA whoa are represented by the Newspaper Guild are planning to go on strike. They claim that the WGA East has attempted to modify a contract that was ratified by their members last Oct.

“It’s like a car salesman demanding that you sign a contract after he’s changed all the numbers you had agreed upon,” Newspaper Guild President Bill O’Meara told the New York Post.

A WGA spokesperson would only comment that teh dispute has been submitted to the National Labor Relations Board for a resolution.

I’m not real sure there could be a worse time for this. It’s not going to be long before the AMPTP manages to turn the general public’s opinion on the Writer’s strike - for a lot of middle class Americans its kind of hard to grasp what they’re striking for anyway. They complain about not getting .04 cents on a DVD - but to a factory worker who spends everyday assembling products that he/she doesn’t make an extra penny from…well, they have a hard time being sympathetic. I’m not saying the Writer’s are wrong - I’m just saying not everyone is interested in being informed enough about it to really care - they’re going to hear the new reports about what the strike is costing other workers in LA, and they’re going to hear it from the AMPTP’s point of view - and people will turn on the writers.

Now adding that the WGA itself is being accused of not negotiating a fair deal, and trying to change it in the last minute - well…that’s not going to go over real well either.

There’s going to be bad press over this. Obviously we don’t know the entire story, and I hope we get the facts on it very soon, but I can’t see any way where this doesn’t negatively impact the WGA and their position in this strike.

Well, this Strike isn’t going anywhere. As a result, January is going to showcase quite a few season finales. Great shows are getting cut short for the year because of this thing, but maybe - just maybe - if these guys will get off their asses and get back to a negotiating table, we can still have a 2009 fall season.

We’ll see.

For now, here is a complete list of every show in Alphabetical order (that has a finale date thus far), and when they are calling it quits for the season. If you’d like a list by date, click here.

Boston Legal (ABC) Jan. 29
Breaking Bad (AMC) March 16
Brothers & Sisters (ABC) Jan. 27
Cashmere Mafia (ABC) Feb. 13
CSI (CBS) Jan. 10
CSI Miami (CBS) Jan. 14
Read the rest of this entry »

Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, and Jimmy Kimmel all return to the airwaves tonight without writers, and while the WGA wants it made clear they don’t have anything against the hosts, they are planning on picketing the shows anyway, to show the networks that they may be able to force the hosts into putting on a show, but that doesn’t mean it will be a good one.

David Letterman, however, should have no problems since he reached a deal with the WGA, basically giving them whatever they asked for, and he is coming back with writers on board.

It should be an interesting night for Late Night television. We’re DVRing it all, so we’ll have a full report in the morning.

If you’re an active member of the WGA, then Strike TV wants you.

The rest of us can take a hike.

Active WGA members are invited to spend their own money to produce web-based tv series that will premiere during Feb. sweeps. The WGA members will be able to own their videos and could potentially take them elsewhere to make them profitable in the future - but right now it’s a “do it for nothing” deal.

Oh - and while you’re doing it for nothing you have to work within union guidelines and deal with SAG, DGA and WGA requirements.

Good luck with that, folks.

The Late Show with David Letterman and The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson will join the multitude of late night shows returning on January 2, though they will have one thing that separates them from the rest of the herd.

They’ll have writers.

Worldwide Pants, the owner of both shows, has been working to establish a separate deal with the Writers Guild that would enable the scribes to return to work. Apparently the two parties came to what is essentially an eleventh hour agreement, in which it was said that Pants was willing to concede to virtually any requests by the writers. This puts them at a distinct advantage over their competition, as they will have a full writing staff while the other hosts will most likely be doing a lot of the legwork themselves.

It should be an interesting time to tune in, as many stars have been hesitant to cross the picket lines to appear as guests on the shows. Letterman’s guest on Wednesday will be Donald Trump and musical guest Shooter Jennings, but there’s no word on who will grace the other shows.

Picketing has ceased in New York and Los Angeles. I speculate that this could just be the writer’s taking a break between now and the new year, but I have read no official word on it at this point. I’m sure we’ll see writer’s back out on the picket lines eventually, but its not encouraging to see that they’re no longer there as a daily reminder to the studios that this thing isn’t right.

When this first started I thought, “there’s no way it’ll last as long as the last one did.” Now I’m wondering if there will be any scripted television written in 2008…or 2009.