The TV Zone

So, fellow couch potatoes, what to expect?

When the Writers Guild strike starts - in all likelihood - on Monday, the immediate impact might not be all that noticeable at first. Oh, sure, as reported here and elsewhere, the major entertainment talk shows - from "Daily Show" to "Late Night with Conan O" to "Late Show with DL"- will go into repeats, but that's about it. Tourists who booked trips to NYC to see Dave or Conan will be bummed, but to viewers, it will seem like one of those dark weeks in the middle of summer, when jokes about (say) Mel Gibson seem a little stale simply because they were fresh six months earlier.

There are 4,000 members of the Writers Guild East - 2,500 who are affected by the stoppage. Many, in fact most, of them in New York, and there are plenty of shows that will grind to a stop: "Law & Order"..."Gossip Girl"..."30 Rock"..."Madmen"...These are just some of the New York-based shows affected. There are a total of thirty.

But the rest of television should proceed pretty much as normal. Here's a quick run-down of genres, and the likely immediate impact, as far as I know at this minute. As I get additional details throughout the day, I'll fill them in.

Local news: No, there should be no immediate impact here at all even though there are WGA members throughout TV newsrooms in the city (Channel 5 recently sought to get WGA membership for some of its producers.) Why? Simply because they're working under a separate contract. Nevertheless, WGA members at CBS - local and network - could authorize a strike vote in two weeks; they've been working without a contract for some time, and the WGA wants to get that resolved. Could that mean Katie Couric will have to write her own stories for "The Evening News" if CBS is struck? We'll see...

Late Night: Yeah, gone. And quickly at that. And per my understanding, don't expect someone like Jon Stewart to do a Johnny Carson - who left the air in the '88 strike, but returned a few months later in May of that year. Stewart's a member of the Guild and it's inconceivable that he'd break ranks with fellow scribes. Where does this leave, meanwhile, Stephen Colbert? Maybe more time to pursue his faux-presidential aspirations.

Animation: Hey, what about "SpongeBob" or "The Fairly Odd Parents?" We need these shows to preoccupy the kiddies. Well, as you know, animation is repeated over and over and over. Kids barely notice, even if parents do. Some of these shows are not covered under Guild contracts, I imagine, so there may be no impact. But a show like "The Naked Brothers Band" - produced in NYC - is impacted.

Reality: Of course, no impact, but this is trickier than it seems. Are there no Guild writers under contract at, say, "Project Runway," which begins its fourth season in a couple weeks? Not that I'm aware of, but believe it or not, a show like "Dancing with the Stars" does have Guild writers. I suppose this means Tom Bergeron will have to - gulp - write his own quips from now on.

Primetime: Contrary to what you've read elsewhere, I'm gonna step out on a limb here and say there will in fact be an impact. As you know, shows are often produced in cycles, whereas a hit like "Desperate Housewives" may have completed its first cycle of thirteen episodes by this point, the final thirteen of a 26-episode order have yet to be completed (this, by the way, is a hypothetical example only.) ABC may say to itself: Well, if we're not going to get the final thirteen, we better plan ahead. This could mean - for example - that a onetime special, or a reality show, fills a Sunday 9 p.m. timeslot once this month. That allows ABC to bank an episode for a later time, like the February sweeps.

Daytime: Yes, soaps, wonderful soaps. They burn up writing like a fire burns up dry brush. And this brush supply should be exhausted by December. That means repeats of your favorites thereafter.

Cable: This, of course, is not a genre, but a vast industry, and there are many, many, many shows - many on MTV or VH1 - that will not be affected in the slightest. But the LA Times has put together a handy - if hardly exhaustive - chart of what will be affected. Check it out here.