Writer's Strike

Sarah Bibel has written an excellent piece called Unhealthy Dialogue about the recent firings of Ed Scott and Josh Griffith and how it cut close to home for her since she worked for both Scott and Griffith in the past. She also points out how only in daytime writers are considered interchangeable and expendable. Here is an excerpt.

"It seems like the writers’ strike ushered in a new era of nastiness in daytime. While the rest of the entertainment industry shut down, daytime, as it has during every other strike, kept going...Daytime writers were the only writers forced to choose between their union and their job, the only ones with anything to gain by leaving the union. If a couple of primetime writers went financial core, NBC wouldn’t have handed them Heroes. It’s only in daytime that writers are considered to be interchangeable and expendable."

Read Unhealthy Dialogue.

Dena Higley - She's Turned The Slow Show Around During The Writer's Strike!

Hogan Sheffer - He Didn't Deserve To Be Fired And Be Replaced By A Scab!

James E. Reilly - I Miss His Writing Style So Much!

Someone New - We Need New Blood And New Ideas For This Stale Show!!!

AHHHH - Medicated - the only way to watch All My Children........

Has All My Children hit a turning point? Or are we going to be subjected to the same old recycled lack-luster storylines? I am asking this because for the first time in a long time, I could not wait to see what happened next on my favorite soap. In case you did not figure it out, I am a long-time and long-suffering watcher of AMC. I was a teenager when Angie and Jesse were the super couple. I cheered for them to make it, and they did. For a while at least. I was watching when he was shot, and when he died. I cried along with Angie, as she said goodbye to her soul mate, and the love of her life. I mourned along with the characters, my heart broke right along with Angie’s. Continue Reading...

Yes! It's about time!

Yay! One down, a few more to go on other soaps.

This is terrible, I loved her take on Y&R

Looks like the Writers Strike saga isn't over yet. Soap Opera Network has an exclusive report of who did and did not accept Fi-Core to return to their soap during the strike. Be sure to check it out.

My question is this: Does knowing who accepted Fi-Core and who didn't have a negative or positive impact on how you view them? Or maybe it doesn't matter to you. I've love to know what you are thinking.

In conjunction with Daytime Confidential's recent podcast interview with Thom Racina, I have stumbled across a Thom Racina inspired video with a compilation of vintage Days of Our Lives footage which was taken from the years 1984 to 1986. During this era, Thom Racina worked in close circles with other Days writers Leah Laiman and Sheri Anderson. For many die hard Days fans, these years were highly regarded as Days' best ever scripted. With some terrific epic storytelling, Thom Racina stirred the hearts of many and brought to life many of our favourite loved characters. During this clip, you visit stories that you can only hope the current Days hierarchy are witnessing. It's a mixture of inspirational drama, on location adventure, traditional romance, sadness and most of all, classic Days at it's prime. Three cheers to Thom Racina for bringing us such magic and creating a powerful daytime drama with it's rich history and poised with soap opera glory.

Music - American Pie by Don McLean.

Since the Writers Strike is unofficially, officially over I thought it might be fun to reflect about what we all consider to be the Best & Worst of the Writers Strike for our favorite soaps. What are the things that were better during the Writers Strike and what are the things that were worse during the Writers Strike.

Here is my list.

Best

1. Spreading the acting wealth around at General Hospital. We've seen a lot more people than we are accustomed to.
2. One Life to Live staying the awesome soap it was thanks to Ron's soap bible.
3. Debbie Morgan, Darnell Williams, and Rebecca Budig returning to daytime.
4. Slight improvements over at Young & Restless.
5. Guiding Light reportedly having the foresight of having scripts through February.
6. General Hospital proving that ratings can go up without Guza at the helm.

Worst

1. Days of Our Lives behind the scenes saga.
2. Sloppy dialogue at several soaps.
3. Choppy editing at General Hospital. Some days you'd tune in and think you missed a day and hadn't.
4. The Head Writers of All My Children accepting Fi-Core. Why couldn't we had a break from them?
5. The possibility that the Scrubs pregnancy storyline wouldn't be told right on General Hospital.
6. As the World Turns not using the strike as an opportunity to bring Luke & Noah more front and center on the show.

What is on your list of Best & Worst?

Breaking News! For all intents and purposes the Writers Strike is over! Here are a few of the headlines and info we found across the web. Be sure to check out the articles in their entirety.

Variety

For the first time in more than three months, TV showrunners are heading back to the office on Monday with the rest of the scribe tribe due back Wednesday.

The development came with the ruling boards of the Writers Guild of America unanimously approving the tentative deal with the majors, triggering a vote by members that will conclude Tuesday night on whether to lift the strike order. Ballots to ratify the new three-year deal will also go out in the next few days with a 10- to 12-day return period.

Nikke Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily

At the WGA's news conference today, union leaders declared the new contract is "a huge victory for us". Trumpeted WGAW President Patric Verrone, "This is the first time we actually got a better deal in a new media than previously." Verrone credited News Corp. No. 2 Peter Chernin and Disney chief Bob Iger, and also CBS boss Les Moonves, with "being instrumental in making this deal happen" after the WGA spent 3 months "getting nowhere" with the AMPTP negotiators and lawyers. WGA negotiating committee chief John Bowman added that, "What happened to the Golden Globes was instrumental in getting the CEOs to this table. It was a huge symbol."

USAToday

It's a deal similar to one reached last month by the Directors Guild of America, including a provision that compensation for ad-supported streaming doesn't kick in until after a window of between 17 to 24 days deemed "promotional" by the studios.Writers would get a maximum $1,200 flat fee for streamed programs in the deal's first two years and then get a percentage of a distributor's gross in year three — the latter an improvement on the directors deal, which remains at the flat payment rate.

"The precedent that we can participate in new media, that's great," said Diane Frolov, another Sopranos writer. "There was mostly cheering" among the L.A. contingent, she added. 

This just in! Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood Daily fame is reporting the following from the WGA meeting today in New York.

"Melissa Salmons said, 'For years, I have lived in fear of that DVD formula, that it would be with me for my life. Now we have a deal that have movement in it.' (Later on, she told a daytime writer that the staff of Days of Our Lives, who had all been fired last week, were getting their jobs back. And that a striking writer, if fired, had to be replaced by a striking writer. Not a scab, and not a fi-core member."

So what does this mean? To be honest I'm not sure. As I understand it (and I could be wrong) TV networks and shows such as Days of Our Lives can't fire striking writers during the course of a strike without suffering the consequences. Obviously only time will tell what those consequences may be.