The Strike Is Over! On Wednesday! Let There Be Rejoicing! But Not Too Much!
With word arriving over the weekend that Saturday night's WGA Scribeapalooza II: Let's Call the Whole Thing Off event at the Shrine Auditorium sent TV showrunners back to work today and will return everyone else to their jobs on Wednesday pending the outcome of a strike-ending vote to be counted tomorrow night, Hollywood can safely upgrade its feelings of Cautious Optimism to full-blown This Waking Three-Month Nightmare Is Finally Over Euphoria.
Those who don't want to kick their gloom habit cold-turkey can feel free to fret about the June 30th expiration of SAG's contract with the studios and the possible (if increasingly unlikely) walkout that could follow, or spend some time perusing today's "Was the strike worth it?" piece in Variety, which attempts to throw a sobering bucket of cold water upon those still drunk on this weekend's good news by making them consider the "here and now" losses incurred while achieving "victories in new media that may pay big dividends in the future." (Example: Did you know that some of the aforementioned showrunners may have sacrificed hundreds of thousands of dollars during the stoppage to help save writers' livelihoods in the internet age? They must be crazy!) In the interest of preserving the first days of positive feelings the industry has experienced in about fourteen weeks, can't we all go back to swigging champagne and not picking though the wreckage of the post-strike landscape, at least for the next 48 hours or so? No one wants his Monday morning hangover exascerbated by the tsk-tsking pal who insists you move the car you've parked on his lawn before your headache begins to subside.