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Highlands Today

Watched Any Good TV Lately?

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Joyce Minor

Published: February 3, 2008

When the Hollywood writers union first went on strike, we hardly noticed because our favorite shows all had several weeks of episodes already "in the can," as they say in the entertainment industry.

When those episodes ran out we watched reruns for a while, but that got old in a hurry. So, eventually, we shut the TV off after the evening news and made an amazing discovery … there is life without television.

We read books, played cards, listened to classical music, and called our families out-of-state who were suddenly free to talk because now our calls were not interrupting new episodes of their favorite shows. It's not easy to admit it, but I realized I knew more about what was going on in the lives of characters on "House" and "Gray's Anatomy" than in the lives of my brother and niece.

Over the last few months, when we did turn the TV on, we watched "20/20," Disney movies, and The History Channel. One night we switched to PBS and sang along with the Bee Gees live in concert. Another night we watched and marveled as André Reus set the whole city of Vienna dancing. It was great fun.

We also discovered that our favorite reality shows are going right on with new episodes in spite of the striking writers, because there's nothing more interesting or entertaining than real people just doing what they do. (I'm old enough to remember "Ted Mack's Amateur Hour" and "The Gong Show," so, for me, part of the fun is laughing at the 20-somethings who think they invented reality TV.)

Of course, on many recent evenings we also watched football and basketball, and we discovered that sports commentators are just as illiterate with or without writers. For example, they don't know or care that there's no such word as "quickness." Every time I hear that inane expression it's like a fingernail on a blackboard to my English-major ears.

So, I'm content to let the strike continue, not only because I'm finding plenty of interesting things to do besides watch episodic television, but also because I rather like seeing those spoiled brat Hollywood writers find out that they are not quite so indispensable as they thought. There's something smugly satisfying about the idea of Hollywood not giving in to their demands. That may sound strange coming from one who is herself a writer. But here's my reasoning.

The writers union has a stranglehold on Hollywood. Very few writers are allowed into it and no one in the entertainment industry is allowed to use a script from a non-union writer. Other entertainment industry unions (actors, stunt workers, set designers, etc.) threaten to, and have in the past, backed that up with walkouts of their own.

So, no matter how good your script is, no one in Hollywood will even read it, let alone produce it, if you're not in the writers union. It really stinks that a few spoiled brats who hold an absolute monopoly on scriptwriting can't appreciate the cushy set-up they already have. I know a thousand starving freelancers who would trade places with them in a heartbeat, including me.

So I say, hold out Hollywood. They can't do without working forever, and we, the viewers, are doing just fine without them. Instead, why not give some totally unknown writers the chance of a lifetime. Let some of us come up with new episodes of our favorite shows. Pay us just half what the striking writers are dissatisfied with and it will be ten times what the best-paid among us are making now.

In return, you'll get writing that's fresh and inventive because it's not tainted by the herd mentality of the jaundiced Hollywood writers union.

It's your move, Hollywood. I dare you!

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