about "The Office" writers' ability to continually produce new material to match or surpass the former brilliant episodes (let's face it, we all have our limits) they bust out with Michael in the wilderness with his ripped apart and duck-taped together suit pants, eating lethal shrooms to survive. Brilliant.However, Friday I learned of The Office's indefinite season halt, as in a couple of weeks they will go to reruns until they resume production. This is due to the Writers' Guild strike that I'm sure many of you are aware of. 24's season premiere is also indefinitely postponed. I'm sick to my stomach. At first, I was floored. How could anyone let things get to this point? Leave it to unions to react like this, too.
But then it hit me--these writers are young folks in the workforce just like myself, and producing BRILLIANT material for network TV. It really is a disgrace for them not to receive royalties from DVD sales and such. If not for them, we'd get awfully tired of watching a steady stream of The Bachelor, America's Next Top Model, VH1's I Love New York, starring Juan McCullum (this is another blog post entirely) and all the other gosh awful reality shows they'd be forced to come up with without these writers.
The central issue: How should writers be compensated for their work? No doubt they should receive royalties for DVD sales (which, correct me if I'm wrong, they are receiving little to no percentage of), but what about digital platforms like the Web? Is the internet arena still too big and too new to establish a payment formula? Someone is profiting. Definitely a sticky dilemma-interesting to see how it'll all pan out.
In the meantime, Dwight, I miss you. Jack, I don't think I'll make it through the winter without you. Hurry back.
5 comments:
I say give the writers what they want. Dwight and Jack are too important to be silenced.
Hold on...Juan McCullum? You mean Juan "Multiple choice exams are racially discriminatory" McCullum? Just to think that a former pillar of the MSU community is chasing after some girl who Flavor Flav rejected twice, it's really more than I can bear.
juan mccullum does not even deserve to be mentioned in this blog. his I <3 NY name is Pretty. Sure. He ain't.
My stomach has been in knots over the strike. I can't say I don't blame them; however, I don't think they understand the maganitude of their decision. For instance, I am going to be depressed every thursday night until they go off strike.
I bet if they knew that, it would make a difference.
give em what they want. that is what I say.
Please blog about Juan's television debut. It is one of my favorite true-life storied this year.
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