The weirdness begins.  A cavalcade of late night shows return to the air tonight (The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Nite with Conan O'Brien, The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson and Jimmy Kimmel Live), most without writers.  The writers' strike has continued on into 2008 and only Letterman and Ferguson were able to ink special deals with the guild allowing their writers to return with the rest of the crew.  In response, the WGA announced today that they would place intense pressure on the late night shows returning without writers and try to make prospective guests forgo the likes of Leno and Conan, and visit Letterman and Ferguson instead. 

Letterman owns Worldwide Pants, the production company that makes both his and Craig Ferguson's show, which is why he was able to strike up a deal with the Writers' Guild.  With this hard line stance being taken by the WGA, it seems abundantly clear that Kimmel, Leno and Conan's quality of guests will suffer dramatically, especially when the big Hollywood names have other options (Letterman, Ferguson). 

For instance, tonight's guests for the big shows are as follows – Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee for Leno, Robin Williams for Letterman.  Letterman has the rest of the week booked, in fact, with Bill Maher and Juno star Ellen Page on Thursday, followed by Donald Trump on Friday.  Letterman will likely be bombarded with Hollywood talent until the strike ends and, for a show like Leno, I think you're going to see a lot of Huckabee-types: politicians, authors, academics.  Mostly people outside the Hollywood bubble who have no connection to the WGA.

I'm a little surprised at the WGA's stance here.  Conan O'Brien, for example, has publicly stated that he doesn't want to come back without writers, admits the show is much worse off for it, but he couldn't just sit by and watch his entire crew get fired, which is what would've happened had the shows stayed dark for much longer.  It's gotten to the point where the WGA is really playing hardball.  This will probably get uglier before it gets better.


-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer 
Source: TVGuide
(Image Courtesy of CBS)