According to James Hibberd's blog over at TVWeek.com, "The Office" is STILL IN PRODUCTION, despite the fact that Steve Carell did not show up for work on Monday, and Greg Daniels has stated his desire to shut down the show completely. "Scrubs", and "My Name is Earl" are still shoting at the moment is well, despite the fact that producer-writer-star Tina Fey walked the picket lines in Rockefeller Plaza yesterday with Amy Poehler and other writer/actors on SNL; Fey has apparently returned to work as an actress today. Greg Daniels was also out on picket lines yesterday, and the show has experienced "disruptions" (source: TVWeek.com).

Variety's Marc Graser reports that the movie industry seems to be prepared, with most movies that are slated to come out over the next year either wrapped or well into production. The phonmenon of writer-actor-producer is also less common in movies, so one isn't running to questions of whether actors (Fey, Carell) or producers (Daniels, Fey) who also write can perform other duties without violating the strike nearly as often. The Variety article includes some pretty strong rhetoric from an unnamed executive, and this one contains very harsh rhetoric from the chief negotiator, of the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers -- ie, the coalition of the studios and networks. There is a small chance that some producer-writers or actor-writers will get sued, though it seems remote, because eventually what everyone wants is for the talent to make the shows and for money to come in. Lawsuits probably wouldn't be condusive to that at all.

As for what my take is, let me put it like this: It's facile to compare this to a strike in a major sport, with rich people fighting with other rich people over who gets the biggest piece of the pie, but I don't really think that's what's happening here, at least not entirely. It's not just the moral issue of writers wanting to be able to profit off their work (though there's something to that), there's also the much more practical issue of how working writers – those who do not have regular gigs on hit shows, or write big-budget movies – put food in their mouths between projects. With the current means of remuneration giving writers a 0% cut on new media, men and women who currently make a few thousand dollars off residuals each year, and use that to do things like clothe their kids and pay their rent in the fallow times, could see that money go away. They could – and to my mind, should – be making more of it. So there you have it. My stance in a nutshell.

For those looking for the human perspective, there's a very interesting article at EW.com; it's the first-person account of an anonymous television author who feels caught between his Guild and the company that signs his cheques. this is a very-much-not-anonymous take from prehaps the only working genius of hour-long television, the venerable Joss Whedon, of "Buffy the Vampire", "Angel", and "Serenity" fame.