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Striking writers and
A vote will be held tomorrow on whether to lift the strike, and movie and television writers will almost certainly be back at work on Wednesday, The New York Times reports.
Throughout the strike, the networks held informal meetings on how to ramp back up after the strike ends, and some have announced the outcome of those meetings. Fox, for example, has said that the hit show 24 - one of the first to be cancelled due to the strike - will be officially postponed for a year. The new season will air in January 2009.
NBC’s Heroes will likely not produce any more new episodes this season. And ABC’s Lost will probably cut its planned 16-episode season to 13 episodes.
Several shows are expected to extend past the traditional end of the season in May, according to another Times article. Comedy series such as Two and a Half Men on CBS and The Office on NBC will have a relatively quick turnaround to get new episodes on the air. Dramas like ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and CBS’s CSI will take longer to produce and air. Fox plans to try to get a few more episodes of House on the air, as well as comedies Back to You and ‘Til Death.
CBS and ABC are the networks with the most incentive to get shows back on the air quickly, because they were the ones who had the most popular shows axed because of the strike.
Fox was the network least affected in a negative way by the walkout. It dominated ratings during the strike with American Idol and The Moment of Truth.
The show likely to benefit the most from the end of the strike is ABC’s broadcast of the Academy Awards, hosted by Jon Stewart, on Feb. 24.
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