The Writers Guild of America Strike officially ended on Feb. 12, 2008, but its effects continue to resonate through the industry.
This, unfortunately, will be clearly seen in this fall’s TV lineup.
What few anticipated new shows there are, like Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse,” won’t be ready to premiere until midseason, leaving networks to fill the time with old, dependable shows and by giving last season’s interrupted new shows some second chances.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with getting our old shows back, especially if we’ve been waiting since the start of the strike to find out what happens next.The strike hit right before NBC’s “Heroes” completed writing on the planned midseason finale, forcing the writers to rework the penultimate episode to serve as an ending.
Monday’s two-hour season three pilot will be preceded by an hour-long recap, which will hopefully be enough to draw us back in for “Chapter 3: Villains.”
That’s nothing, of course, compared to how long fans of Fox’s “24” have had to wait for “Day 7”.
Due to the highly serialized nature of the show, Fox made the decision to put the entire show on hold for the duration of the strike.
So when Jack Bauer and company return on Nov. 23 with a special two-hour “prequel” to “Day 7″ it will be the first new material since May of 2007.
Other shows managed to put together fairly complete, if short seasons, and will be anticipated for more traditional reasons ‚Ä” cliff hangers and plot shakeups from last season.
Sept. 28’s season premiere of “Desperate Housewives” on ABC picks up on a five-year timeline jump from last season’s finale, while sitcoms “How I Met Your Mother” (CBS) and “The Office” (NBC) left off with unexpected marriage proposals, to be followed up on this Monday and Thursday respectively.
In the category of second chances, perhaps no new show is being watched more closely than ABC’s “Pushing Daisies,” a quirky show about a pie-maker who can temporarily bring back the dead which managed to garner three more Emmy nominations than it had episodes in its inaugural season (12 nominations and nine episodes, if you’re counting).
The show will start off fresh with a new full season Sept. 30.
NBC’s “Chuck,” an adventure comedy about a kid with a computer brain full of top-secret data, and “Life,” a thriller that focuses on a wrongly convicted detective tracking down his framers after a 12-year incarceration, will both likewise reboot with new seasons beginning Sept. 29. CBS, meanwhile, will give “Grey’s Anatomy” spin-off “Private Practice” another chance.
Some shows, like the long-awaited final season of “Scrubs” (formerly NBC, airing this season on ABC), will delay their start until mid-season, confident that their popularity will bring the viewers, while others, like NBC’s “Bionic Woman” are gone for good ‚Ä” whether doomed by the WGA Strike or just doomed from the start we may never know.