November 25, 2007 - Strike Talks Resuming, Scripted Shows Evaporating

Representatives on both sides of the Writers Guild of America strike are scheduled to meet tomorrow, for the first time in weeks, and talk. They're supposed to be negotiating a settlement - and both sides better talk fast. All around them - and all around us - the TV season is starting to evaporate.

ABC's Desperate Housewives has been back on its game this season, but the game's about to be called on account of strike. After tonight's episode, the network has only two completed hours left - and after next week's show, plans to hold the last one in reserve until 2008.

Tomorrow night, Two and a Half Men shows its last completed original episode. Also tomorrow night, NBC's Heroes (which, like Housewives, is completely reinvigorated), presents the penultimate episode of its "Volume II" story line. One week later, with the mini-season finale, we'll see the last of the show until long after the strike is over. That means no more Kristen Bell as the literally electrifying Elle, who has embodied one of the most intriguing new TV characters of the season.

Just as the representatives meet to debate download royalties and other topics vital to their future, television is beginning to experience more major sea changes in the present. This week, we have the first official postponed-premiere casualty of the strike: ABC's Cashmere Mafia, originally scheduled to be unveiled Tuesday. The network is holding it back until after the strike.

I've seen the pilot of Cashmere Mafia, and that's no great loss. But every week that the strike goes on, eating up original episodes of quality prime-time series while no more are being made, the more we lose - if I may be allowed to use the phrase in context - TV Worth Watching.