I just got the chills...

A couple of pieces of good news for us here today, both courtesy of the fanboy website Ain't It Cool News:

• The Writer's Guild strike could be ending soon. This source says it could be over as early as next week. Let's all say a silent prayer for Jack Bauer's return...
• I just got back from Disneyland, where I made time for the Indiana Jones Adventure twice. And yet strangely, I get more geeky-chills from looking at the following image than from anything I saw on that great ride (click on image to see Indy in a larger degree of glory):
  

See a couple of other great Indy-images here. Memorial Day can't come soon enough!

Now I'm starting to get mad...

Since daytime soaps and late-night talk shows don't really tickle my fancy, the writers' strike has done little to affect me...until today. Fox has announced that 24's upcoming season has been shelved indefintely because of the writers' strike. Apparently they're not keen on starting Jack Bauer's next day from hell if they can't promise that they'll be able to end it...read Fox's horrifying plans here.

It times like these, when this writers' strike starts to keep me from my yearly Jack Bauer fix, that I think that a little Jack Bauer-style torture of these stubborn studio execs isn't such a bad idea. Right now, I think that the stabbing-the-kneecap technique might do the trick.

Which form of torture do you think is most appropriate?

The end of scripted TV as we know it?

Some of you may have heard recently about the strike of the Writer's Guild of America that started a few days ago. I don't understand the issue completely, but know that part of it has to do with Hollywood writers feeling left out of royalties from TV shows released on DVD and other various forms of media (iTunes, etc.), which studios are refusing to cough up. And so, after much negotiation, the writers of your favorite TV shows and movies are now currently on strike.

I read today that Tina Fey joined her 30 Rock's writers on the picket line today; The Office has halted production because half its producers are also writers (not to mention actors). Same goes for Lost, Pushing Daisies, and Heroes. (Read more about it here.)The networks are now reportedly scrambling to finish up already-filmed episodes in preparation for the possibility of a long-term strike, in which case I suppose we'd be flooded with even more reality TV and news magazines.

Some of you might ask why the networks won't just go hire some talented young writers who haven't yet joined the WGA, and there is a possibility, I suppose, that they will. Having said that, any writers hoping to make it into show business are basically shooting themselves in the foot by writing against the WGA strike. As one radio reporter, talking to KSL's Nightside, put it: "They'll never work in Hollywood again."

Let's hope the studios and writers can make peace again, and soon! I can only imagine what life would be like without our favorite scripted shows!