Longer runs
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- October
- 12
NOTE: This originally was posted Oct. 12 on our temporary site.
Additional scripts have been ordered for five new fall series, according to The Hollywood Reporter—Bionic Woman, Life, Journeyman and Chuck, on NBC and Cane on CBS.
This is a big deal because of the looming writer’s strike, which is set to start Nov. 1 if everything falls apart in negotiations.
THR says most of the series involved already have the scripts for their initial 13-episodes order—if not completed, then close to it—and this’ll help get them through, I guess, the end of the year. Or, at least until everything pretty much goes on hiatus for the winter season and the 40-year-old Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Frosty the Snowman, A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and their brethren grace the small screen for a few weeks until after New Year’s.
The NBC shows got three additional scripts and Cane got four.
An order for additional scripts is cheaper than an episodic order, and it keeps the writers working. If the network follows them with a full-season pickup, with the teleplays already in place, the shows can resume production almost immediately with shorter hiatuses for the cast and the crew. Only one new series this season, CW’s “Gossip Girl,” has been given a full-season pickup so far.















