The WGA vs. ... well, just about everybody

So the Writer's Guild of America (WGA) strike continues and the latest victim is the Golden Globes awards ceremony. Instead of a full-fledged awards ceremony, the Globes this year has been reduced to a one-hour news conference-type format.

Honestly, I'm not much of an awards show fan, but I gotta admit that this latest bit of news was somewhat shocking. I mean, the Globes is a big deal and the latest word around the campfire is that the Oscars may be next ... zoikes! That's some serious coin ABC stands to lose as they are set to broadcast the event on Feb. 24.

And it really doesn't look good for the Oscars. The WGA has already denied a request by the Academy to allow them to show clips from past Oscar telecasts and the WGA won't grant a special wavier for the writers to pen material for the Oscars ... wow. Give the WGA credit ... they're playing hardball with some serious industry players.

Meanwhile, The Daily Show and the Colbert Report are back on the air without their writers. (Actually, it's now called "A Daily Show" because, as host Jon Stewart explained, it can't be "The Daily Show" without the writers.) Anyway, Stewart and Colbert are taking shots now by media critics saying the shows aren't as funny without the writers. As a regular viewer of both shows, I agree that they aren't quite as funny since they came back on the air but, I have to give them credit ... at least they've put production people back to work and they are still funny. If you're a fan of either show, they're worth a look, IMO.

Of course, the other aspect of this is what will this strike do to regular shows like NBC's "The Bionic Woman". I really liked this show and was hoping it was going to get better as it progressed. But, like many other shows, it came to a screeching halt with the strike. NBC still lists it on it's schedule for Wednesday nights, but it hasn't been on for weeks and with less than a dozen episodes, how many times can re-runs really be broadcast? Makes you wonder if the strike will be the death of fledgling shows like this.

Still, I really respect what the WGA is doing here. As much as it stinks to see nothing but re-runs, the writers just want their fair share of the millions of dollars generated by the shows they write for. That's not too much to ask, IMO.