It’s been threatened for months, and at last the writers’ strike has struck. Though we won’t notice the effects immediately, soon the networks will have run through the current scripts and January will be a cold, bleak month of reruns and game shows. How will you cope? No worries. Pop Vultures has helpfully compiled a list of 21 ways to survive the strike.
1. Learn Mandarin in order to take full advantage of cable’s Asian TV offerings.
2. Read a book. No, really.
3. Write spec scripts and then have lengthy debates with yourself over whether it would be morally wrong to submit them to desperate producers (hint: it would be).
4. Plan a save-our-show campaign for Friday Night Lights. It never hurts to be prepared.
5. Plan a save-our-show campaign for The Office or another successful show, just to confuse and annoy the studio bosses that got us into this position in the first place. Everyone send staplers to NBC!
6. Found a community theater troupe that specializes in reenactments of great scenes from the 2005-6 television season.
7. Record an audiotape of your favorite book and send it to a studio to be used as the voiceover narration in the film version. No writing required!
8. Film and edit your family’s Thanksgiving meal and submit it to E! in a bid for your own reality show.
9. Create cocktails named after your favorite characters. Pretend this is not just an excuse to drink more.
10. Finish building your altar to Katee Sackhoff.
11. Learn to play the banjo. Everyone should have an unusual hobby.
12. Read fanfic indiscriminately. Take many hot showers in an effort to feel clean again.
13. Write fanfic about WGA members on the picket line.
14. Become a football fan. You have the good guys, the bad guys, the conflict, the ongoing dramas, the season finale…it’s almost like TV. Right?
15. Choreograph a dance to celebrate Jim and Pam’s love. Bonus points are awarded if you also compose the music.
16. Watch British TV. Develop an appreciation for Coronation Street or Father Ted. Buy the Green Wing box set. Don’t wait for BBC America to broadcast it.
17. Two words: box sets. Box sets, box sets, box sets. Recommended places to start: Deadwood, The Wire, Friday Night Lights, or Dexter.
18. Take a road trip to Vancouver for the ultimate Supernatural/X-Files cross-over vacation.
19. Become a 70s TV aficionado. Supertrain isn’t going to study itself, you know.
20. Watch every Best Picture winner ever and note the winning formula. When the strike is over, write the ultimate epic historical war movie featuring a disabled character, a waitress, and uneasy race relations. It will sweep the next awards season.
21. Go outside. The strike will be over soon enough. I promise.
Got any additional tips? How do you plan to get through the upcoming strike?
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November 5th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
I think you could be on to something with number 20…
I plan on hoping it has no affect on me whatsoever. And if it does then I will perhaps watch some of the other new shows that started this season that I have so far avoided. Maybe Chuck, Reaper…anything I am missing out on that I should see? And then toy with buying the BSG sets I don’t have yet to see me through to the start of the new series.
November 7th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Oh, number 8 is brilliant — Thanksgiving with my dad’s family would be a hit (buns in a wet paper bag in the oven! guns! wine in the rutabaga! crashing china!).
I don’t know how I’m going to get through the AG nomination and primary season in general without The Daily Show*. Everything else I can live without, especially since Project Runway is just around the corner.
* I’ve been surviving by perusing the full archive online, which I think is unfortunately blocked outside of the U.S. And, I’ve heard that the Daily Show’s writers’ contracts do include residuals from the online archive, so I tell myself that I’m supporting the writers and “new media” and all that stuff. Even if I do have AdBlock Plus installed.
November 7th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Becky, I just confirmed that it does play outside the US. And by “confirm” I mean “lost an hour of my day watching clips.”