television

CEO’s Scab Shows

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I was originally going to mock Drew Barrymore and Bill Maher for scabbing when they announced they were putting their shows back into production while the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes are still going on. Unlike CEOs, some celebrities are capable of shame, and both changed their minds after a week of ridicule. I still had to put a Maher jab in here ’cause he sucks.

If the strike continues much longer, the studios’ pipeline of new stuff will dry up. They may think they can wait the unions out, but audiences are less patient and won’t keep their subscriptions autorenewing if the only new stuff they’re getting are reality TV and game shows.

If these CEOs can’t get their shit together, they deserve to be bought out by UPS, a company that realized averting strike for a few million in benefits is better business than losing billions to stick it to the unions.

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Zaslav TV

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David Zaslav has been rapidly turning what was once HBO into a low-rent content farm that makes Tubi’s offerings look like Masterpiece Theatre. Other studios and streaming platforms are pulling the same stunts to avoid paying residuals and axing entire shows for the tax write-offs. But Zaslav’s work at Warner Bros. Discovery really stands out for his unctuousness while doing it.

The Writers Guild is still on strike, and their modest demands to be paid slightly more would barely make a dent in the executive salaries of assholes like Zaslav.

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Scab Scripts

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The Writers’ Guild of America declared a strike early Tuesday after the executive side of the entertainment business refused to negotiate their modest demands. A lot has changed since the last writers’ strike in 2007, especially how media is consumed and compensated.

Netflix’s red envelopes were the big new thing back then, and now they’re a relic young people think coexisted with BETAMAX. Yet pay, residuals, and benefits are still stuck in that ancient time before we had to manage a dozen or so streaming logins.

All of these studios are making profits, just not enough to satisfy Wall Street’s maw. So they’re screwing writers and nickel-and-diming their subscribers by canceling shows and memory-holing their back catalogs to save a few cents on residuals, all to squeeze out more dividends and stock buybacks.

Joe “Union Guy” Biden broke a rail strike so the economy wouldn’t take a hit. If this writers’ strike goes on long enough to harm the studios’ bottom lines, I’m sure he’ll find a way to intervene.

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Fall TV Premieres

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There’s a strike going on at a Boston Starbucks that’s the longest in that franchise’s recent wave of workers demanding to paid fairly for slinging glorified milkshakes.

Every other panel is about another news thing. I had to hedge a bit with the supply chain, since there’s a tentative agreement with railroad workers, but I’ve been experiencing random things being out of stock ever since we decided to let COVID rip through workplaces.

As for actual TV shows, summer seems to be when they put out a lot of the good ones, and FX/Hulu are putting out bangers. Reservation Dogs, This Fool, The Bear, What We Do in the Shadows, are all worth checking out if the fall garbage isn’t for you.

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Tucker Carlson’s Toadies

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Since COVID’s still rippin’, there aren’t many options for sports fans who don’t want Long COVID to watch games. Stadiums and bars are out, and if you’re in the same TV market as the teams you like, the streaming options are blacked out.

The names of everyone featured in the comic aren’t stated explicitly, because they are tedious people who name-search and I don’t want to deal with them or their weird fans. If you can’t identify them, you have a healthier media diet than I do!

Consider this comic an attempt to alleviate some of the guilt I feel every time I plop on a baseball or hockey game.

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Fall TV Preview

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These T.V. shows I made up are still more informative than anything on cable news. I don’t watch any of it, yet somehow I’m aware that things are bad and getting worse.

Unlike what seems like everybody else, I’m still quarantining and soon it will be too cold to do that outside on long walks or the porch. So I’ll eventually look at cable news out of sheer boredom and immediately regret doing that.

If you don’t know what the numbers are above the show titles, ask your grandparents to show you a copy of their TV Guides.

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Quarantine TV

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Not only are we under house arrest, it’s been cold and rainy for most of the quarantine so far. Without being able to escape to our triple decker’s balconies, my wife and I are watching A LOT of T.V. The commercials that are about the pandemic are the worst part. And that’s even including Tiger King.

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