The student news site of El Camino College

El Camino College The Union

The student news site of El Camino College

El Camino College The Union

The student news site of El Camino College

El Camino College The Union

Commentary: Beloved TV shows make return with end of the writers’ strike

For three months, TV viewers have been held hostage by reality television and game shows because of the Writers’ Guild of America strike.

Almost every scripted program had gone on hiatus and viewers were left wondering when and if they would ever come back.

The writers affected every TV watching person.

Once flourishing scripted shows were off the air or running strictly reruns.

But last week, the writers reached a deal with producers and are finally back where they belong.

For those who may have been perhaps stuck in a coma for the past three months and don’t know what’s going on, here’s a quick recap:

Three months ago, just before the Christmas holiday, writers in the entertainment industry went on strike in order to receive royalties for their work that was run online.

Apparently, producers didn’t think writers deserved to get paid for their work that was running online because, well, producers couldn’t ever really ever come up with a good reason why not.

Every time a TV viewer went online to watch a show, the networks and producers received revenue from the advertisements that were running on the page.

And even though the writers were responsible for the program, they received nothing for work that was viewed online.

For this reason, the writers had to go on strike and really no one could blame them.

This, of course, led to a void in quality television; it seemed that every network replaced a great scripted program with a mediocre game show like “Moment of Truth,” “My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad,” or the ever-appealing reality show “Celebrity Apprentice.”

As much as we all enjoy mind-numbing television programs, one can only hope that the days of reality television are over and we can once again return to watching scripted programs.

Thank goodness the writers’ strike is over because now we can get back to important things like guessing how will this season of “Lost” will end.

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