The second season of Pushing Daisies, ABC’s most visible wound from the Writers’ Strike, finally bowed last night. If you like it I hope you had a DVR handy – its sojourn on your screen may be painfully brief.

The four-month strike caused weeks of repulsive reality re-runs and left thousands of below-the-line workers in financial distress, while their employers whined to every media outlet they could find or control about losing vast swathes of revenue that were, in truth, so insignificant they barely noticed the absence.

And now it looks like we’re in for a sequel.

SAG’s fearless team of negotiating Ninjas have been grappling with the AMPTP for months, and their patience is virtually spent. Yesterday, they asked the National Board to call a vote for a strike. If 75% of the members say yes, the whole of Hollywood will shift into ‘Neutral’…Again.

A ‘Yes’ would give SAG a ponderous weapon with which to do battle. But a ‘No’ would leave their negotiating strength – and possibly their entire reputation – publicly and enduringly shredded. The Actors would have to choose from two bitter pills: Accept the current offer, or go on fighting this intransigent hydra with no real weapons and 90% of your potency gone.

The Studios can afford every dime SAG wants, and ten times more on the top. Any studio exec offered a bonus of twice the amount would be almost incandescent with rage at the insult. But they think the SAG guys should accept a risible pittance and fall to their knees in respect. I disagree.

Whatever amount the bosses concede, they can and will easily replace. Probably with more  ‘reality’ fare using non-union Actors. But SAG are not so fiscally strong. And to call a strike less than a year after one that left 1,000’s without pay and could do that again right before Christmas would hardly invoke overwhelming support.

The Actors deserve better. But so do the Audience. Win them to your cause and your inevitable victory will expose to the world the greedy, malfeasant, mendacious ingrates the AMPTP have been since George Eastman gave them a job.

The vote is slated for October 18. Keep something crossed.

Photo by Lord Jim

They’re paying an average of $500,000 each for missing the pre-agreed ratings levels. This is the first time a Network has needed to do this in years, and it’s a sad comment that it comes as little surprise to find the Net in question is NBC.

Networks usually offer free commercial runs, called ‘make-goods,’ to repay any viewer shortfalls, but NBC has no free time left as they [in common with every other Network] are cramming as many commercials as they can get on the air in order to exploit the viewers and the Season as much as possible.

CBS, ABC and Fox also are having to reimburse their advertisers by giving ad space for free. With the kind of disingenuous spin you’d expect, they’re all blaming their failure on the use of a new ratings formula, but experts disagree. It’s the strke. People are sick of all the repeats and they’re switching off. Thousands of them!

The Nets had enough new shows to last until late November, and repeats won’t really take over until mid-January – And that’s when a certain, repugnant material will make significant contact with the air conditioning. At that point the ratings and the profits will start heading downhill….Fast!

And what do the intellectual midgets in charge plan to do to reverse this hemorrhage? They’re going to play wall-to-wall Reality – what else?! A format which every member of their audience blessed with an IQ in excess of that found in a door-knob has already made it abundantly clear they can’t stand.

‘American Gladiators’ and “Celebrity Apprentice’ and upcoming debuts like ‘Knight Rider,’ are all re-makes, being dusted off to avoid creating new shows.

And this, according to the suits, is a policy that will make their ratings go up ??

If proof were even needed that the average American TV executive has the creative capacity of navel fluff, here it is. They drive the Writers onto the picket lines to avoid paying them a decent share of the infeasible profits their creativity generates, then they re-hash shows from three-decades ago to fill the resulting scheduling gaps they’re too intellectually shallow to enhance any other way.

Wouldn’t it be simpler to pay the people with talent to do their jobs? Then the ratings would recover, the Advertiser rebates won’t bankrupt them and they’d all keep their jobs.

…Or do you think that might be too complex to grasp?

Carson – who is not a member of the WGA – will start taping shows on Wednesday, to be aired next week. No guest list is available – and I’d hate to be the Agent for anyone self-absorbed enough to volunteer for it. The Writer’s Guild has made no comment about this Network-wrangled treachery so far — but you can all imagine what their reaction might be.

And Carson’s not in good company – Ellen’s been in production since day two of the strike. And she’s a WGA member! The other late-night hosts have [so far] relied on repeats rather than undermine the strikers, so who’ll be the next to return? NBC isn’t saying. A similar enquiry at CBS was met with the sound of crickets…and no formal word on the future.

The WGA and their Network bosses resumed talks yesterday – the first serious gathering since this whole, sordid mess started on November 5th. The news that one network has coerced a show to resume is hardly going to make the discussions more friendly. You can expect news that they broke down any time now. And once they do, it could be weeks before a return.

If “Last Call” truly is to resume, that provokes a simple question — Who do you think will be next?