1. The Show of Shows Will Go On. There had been talk of having to do the Oscars with no red carpet (can
you imagine the tears, people?) given that the actors would not cross a picket line in order to attend. So phew! Jon Stewart will not have to do his schtick in front of an empty Kodak Theater on Feb. 24th and we’ll all get to ooh and ahh over what Cate and J. Lo and Penelope are wearing-and across the land shall be the collective “Oh gawd” when Celine Dion trots out wearing another piece of crap she picked up at the Fashion Show Mall in Vegas. The TV Guide Channel booted Joan and Melissa Rivers off the red carpet, but lord knows they’ll probably grab a gig with some LA public access channel and set up a dummy red carpet down the block where an unwitting Jennifer Aniston can be fooled into pulling over her Prius to receive some verbal abuse. ABC is dusting off Regis Philbin for red carpet duties, which is something he did back in the 70s, before Cher became an actress. So mix up some There-Will-Be-Blood-tinis; we’ve got some friendly betting to do.
2. Gossip Girl Doesn’t Have to End with Blair Completely Humiliated and Shunned. None of the boy characters has come out of the closet yet, but Gossip Girl remains one of the gayest shows on television. Maybe it’s because so many of us are still bitchy teenage girls at heart, but we’re dying to know if Serena can help restore Blair reputation, or whether the two sluts will just hop in a Bentley together, Thelma & Louise-style, and head for a cliff down south. We also can’t wait until they both lash back at that little climber Jenny and fucking destroy her. Nine new episodes should be going into production pronto and starting to air in April.
3. More Ugly Betty! And Desperate Housewives! We actually don’t watch either of these shows, but we know a lot of gays who do. And we’ll admit to thinking that Vanessa Williams, Judith Light and Marcia Cross are all pretty great in their own right. And we’re fully in support of more work for gay child actors.
4. Tina Fey Can Stop Picketing and Get Back to Being Liz Lemon. We know, Tina: You’re not a scab. But for god’s sake did you have to get everyone to take your picture holding that strike sign? We’re big fans of 30 Rock, especially when Carrie Fisher shows up or whenever Alec Baldwin’s assistant cries or when Kenny the Page gets gets a lap-dance from a short-robed Will Arnett.
5. Chelsea Lately Can Get Some Real Writers and Stop Hiring Scabs. We know David Letterman and Jay Leno reached separate deals with the WGA in order to resume production a while ago. But we have wondered how has E! been able to continue production of Talk Soup and Chelsea Lately without interruption? The basic cable network’s stars often crack wise about how ghetto it is around there, so either Chelsea Handler’s been writing all her own monologues (doubtful) or they’ve just been paying scabs all along-this 28-year-old from India seems to have been her head writer of late and we note that the WGA West does not have him on record. We’d just like to put it out there for E!: maybe if you hired some union labor poor Chelsea would land more than 1 in every 10 zings? Just a tip.
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Is the Strike Over? New WGA Deal Met With Applause in LA (EW.com)