'The Office' is closed (and other strike news)

Watching this week's episode of "The Office," I was thrilled to hear there is a Dunder Mifflin branch right here in Albany (not to mention the office in nearby Utica seen last week). Now I know where to go for all of my paper product needs!

Unfortunately, the folks from Dunder Mifflin won't be around much longer. Production on the show has shut down due to the Writers Guild of America strike. I believe next week's episode will be the last original episode and then the show will go back into reruns until the strike is settled.

In this video, some of the show's writing staff -- many of whom are also cast members -- outline their case. I first saw this a couple of days ago and wanted to post it then. Alas, it's been a busy week and now this clip has spread everywhere. You've probably seen it by now. If not, here it is...



In the meantime, we've finally learned what it takes to stop Jack Bauer -- a WGA strike. Remember that "24" trailer I posted? Enjoy that, because it's all the "24" we'll get for a while. Fox has pulled the planned January season premiere from their schedule -- delaying the show indefinitely. They want to wait until they're sure they can run all 24 episodes in Day 7 consecutively.

I fear the strike is also going to doom the new "Star Trek" movie, which began shooting this week. Director/producer/writer J.J. Abrams agreed to start production on schedule, but is refusing to take part in any rewrites along the way. So if a scene isn't working out as well as it seemed on paper, they're stuck with it. Actually, I'm sure someone will do the script tinkering, but it probably won't be any of the original writers who worked on the script, but rather some studio hack.