I believe she explained on her show that she is contractually obligated to do the show. Yes, there are people who have chosen not to fulfill their contracts, but there are plenty of people who are. (e.g., as far as we know, the principal cast of House...) As to whether she is doing something that would count as writing services, I'm not sure - I haven't watched today's show yet, which I think would be the first one taped this week. I obviously don't know how Ellen really feels about the strike, but I do know that as far as her close circle of writers go she'd fully supportive of them...so, it must be really tough. The thing with her is that she has a bigger committment than, say, the "House" staff does, so if she doesn't show up for work there are far bigger repercussions. It sucks. Fox could simply be making some sort of PR move - see, writers on strike -> no 24, no House all spring, wacky schedule for all the other scripted series. It really does look like they want all those new shows to fail, what with half of them ending up on Friday. It seems to me that they've been setting a couple of those shows up for failure since well before the strike, so this is probably a dream come true. I have no doubt that they were right on this the second that it became clear that a strike would happen. There's no reason for them not to have multiple back up schedules to choose from. The fact that they chose to send it out for the world to see (knowing good and well that it will probably change again before January) is just them rubbing it in the noses of viewers. Like you say, they want us, the viewers, to know that it is going to affect us. They want us to think that our television viewing lives are going to be disrupted because writers are greedy and nothing more.

Lots of pics of Lisa and Kal on the streets of NY yesterday: http://www.abacausa.com/ximagi/search.php?u=&assignment_id=40268

Media Life has a nice article about how the producers expected the writers to cave but now it's turning out that their stockpiles of scripts is actually only enough for a few weeks.

Does anyone know what they're doing in NY? If shooting's still going on, you would think they'd be here in LA, wouldn't you? Well, Kal Penn might be on the east coast in preparation for his teaching gig at the University of Pennsylvania in the winter semester, which has been reported on previously. (And note that he's wearing a University of Pennsylvania sweatshirt.)

stillunwritten, From what I understand, most writers have very nice, comfortable salaries. My understanding is that most writers make comfortable salaries, WHEN they're lucky enough to be on a show staff, but that there's liable to be huge gaps between those times. During those gaps, they're still writing but they're not making a regular salary, and they need those residuals. Regardless, I don't think the opposition your post seems to set up really exists. Yes, I support the writers' strike and am trying to convince people to at least look into the feasibility of setting up strike funds (for all the show people, including the working class folks, not just the writers). But that doesn't mean I (or any one else) don't support a living wage for everyone or that we haven't supported other strikes in the past. The WGA strike just happens to be the one that's going on now and that has the biggest emotional draw for much of fandom. And, yes, it sucks that the public in general is more concerned about our entertainers than about our educators. But that's a bigger problem than we can solve here, and I don't see any reason we shouldn't use that passion for our favorite shows in a productive manner, since it's going to exist whether we use it or not. And there's always the possibility that this strike will provide an opportunity to show the average person the importance of unions and why passively supporting the media conglomerates is harmful. And if it's the presence of celebrities (and minor celebrities like showrunners) on the picket lines that gets the average person to pay attention, then so be it. What about giving that money to that public school teacher, that divorced parent, that full-time student, or any so-called mundane, average citizen? We are those people. Fandom isn't all upper middle class. But no one has the time, energy, or money to spread their passion over the whole world at once. Since there are a lot more creative professionals than there are creative jobs where I live now, I've been working a crappy service job for the last year. And there's an awful lot of people I work with, who unlike me have never had the option of giving up a well-paying job to follow a dream, who both need AND deserve and AREN'T getting a living wage. But I don't expect any one here to get riled up on my or my co-workers' behalfs, because everyone here has their own problems, and we don't give them anything to earn their passion. The show staff, on the other hand, has already earned their passion. And if we can use that to help people, the crew as well as the writers, instead of just entertaining ourselves, than yes, I'm going to push that.

I have another question. If, god forbid, this lasts until June - would they start airing in the summer, or just wait till the fall season? I will literally fall apart if I have no TV till then - I am a TV addict. I guess it will give me a lot of time to study and do homework though, which is good :) Maybe it'll even break me of my TV addiction - and that is NOT what anyone wants. They're going to lose viewers! And I was just getting people in my dorm into House, The Office, and Ellen!

We are those people. Fandom isn't all upper middle class. But no one has the time, energy, or money to spread their passion over the whole world at once. For that matter, I take exception to the idea that it's one or the other in the first place, wrt what people personally support. I support the writers in their strike just as I will and have supported the actors in their strikes. Likewise I am more than happy to support the teachers union when they choose to strike/renegotiate/fight for fair pay. I resent the idea that I should be spending my time on something more important because, sorry, I have a very good understanding that there is more to it than simply what the suits are telling us (i.e. "these ungrateful assholes make six figure salaries!!") and I find it extremely important. The entertainment industry makes a lot of money in this country and this is a business story, hence the mentions in the "real" news. It's no different than when any union goes on strike and gets coverage, but it's not consuming the regular newscasts. It is, however, making it on the infotainment shows, the entertainment glossies, the trades, the gossip blogs, message boards like this, etc. because that's what we talk about here. If it wasn't for this strike right now we, on this site, would be concerned with spending our days *here* talking about whatever "House"-related development was happening. Elsewhere we would talk about other things with other people that most likely not only have nothing to do with "House" but probably don't have anything to do with entertainment unless it happens to be our jobs. The infotainment press and blogs would be talking about what Britney did last night or who was sent home on DWTS. They're not going to be talking about the pay grade of teachers in Kentucky because that's not their focus or their concern. Sure, there should be more attention paid to social matters of import (which is a subjective category, I suppose) but the discussion here and elsewhere of the writers strike isn't taking anything away from anyone other than whatever starlet didn't wear underwear at Hyde last night. I have another question. If, god forbid, this lasts until June - would they start airing in the summer, or just wait till the fall season? Fall season. The summer will be filled with the normal summer broadcasting, save for the scripted shows like those on USA and HBO. Depending on how long it goes they could hold what they have until later, but I don't see that happening. They won't squeeze in any regular season programming during those months, though. They'll need it to get the fall back on track and they're not going to rearrange the actors schedules to accomodate a time of year when less people are watching television. And it all depends, once this is resolved, on what the actors choose to do in the spring wrt to their contracts. I will literally fall apart if I have no TV till then - I am a TV addict. I guess it will give me a lot of time to study and do homework though, which is good Maybe it'll even break me of my TV addiction - and that is NOT what anyone wants. They're going to lose viewers! And I was just getting people in my dorm into House, The Office, and Ellen! I'm actually really happy that I've got a dozen + episodes of "Boston Legal" in the tivo. Being lazy paid off. {g} I suppose it's possible that all their scenes are shot and they've reached the end of episode 10 or 11 or whatever episode they eventually got to. The comments from David Shore were a little vague, but I got the impression that they were just wrapping up their last episode and it was mostly up to post at this point. Besides, it's not as if we haven't seen Lisa jet off to NY at times when the show was absolutely in production. Her schedule is probably about that of RSL this season. LE looks like about the cutest striker ever. I would so much rather watch her than when the burly meatpackers in Wisconsin go on the picket line. She always looks like she's on a runway. {g}

Each time there's a strike, if it lasts long enough some of the consumers never come back. They've had time to develop new habits. That's why it makes sense for the producers to grasp the simple fact that refusing to give a fair slice of the pie the people who contributed to the show's or movie's success can easily result in there being a smaller pie to share by the time it's all over. Unfortunately, they don't learn from past mistakes. They're seemingly convinced that, if they say "no" long enough and loud enough, the writers will give in and they'll go back to having exactly what they had before. Question for our WGA members - is the union asking consumers to not download shows and movies during the duration? They should. That way the income won't come in until the writers are getting their fair share and companies like Apple will also push for a speedy settlement.

According to Michael Eisner there's no money there period, therefore the writers are idiots for fighting for something that's not making money but could make money in the future and...the logic train takes a little bit of a wrong turn somewhere in there. If there's no money being made or to be made then the strike should be pretty easily resolved, especially if they can get the writers to take the dvd money off the table again, right? He refers to the the writers as being misguided and the strike being stupid, but what's pathetic is that he's speaking under the idea that a majority of these writers are delusional enough to think that they'll instantly be making an assload of money from something like internet downloads. Of course, he's also acting like the networks aren't making real ad money off of the downloads, but I'll just ignore that part because, basically, Eisner should probably be ignored period.