ENT and the Writers' Strike

[Broccoli]

So, lets go into pretend land and say that ENT got the full 7. It would be in its 7th season right now and there is a writers' strike. I'm guessing that maybe about 11-15 episodes would have been in the can by the time of the strike. What do you think would have happened?

The way I see it, there could have been four options:

1) Write the series finale as the 15th episode, regardless of season plans.
2) Just wait until the strike is over and continue the current season after the strike and air them whenever, even if they go into late summer or early fall of the next broadcast season.
3) Have the final episode produced be the season finale and issue ENT an 8th season.
4) The least idea: the series just ends w/o any real resolution.

Thoughts? Opinions?

 

[JiNX-01]

Option 2 if the strike didn't go beyond mid-February. Otherwise modify option 2 finish out the season and go straight to DVD.
OR
Turn Enterprise over to the SciFi channel where we might get TEN seasons!

 

[Broccoli]

JiNX-01 said:
Turn Enterprise over to the SciFi channel where we might get TEN seasons!

And Planet Hell becomes Planet Vancouver!

 

[JiNX-01]

Broccoli said:

JiNX-01 said:
Turn Enterprise over to the SciFi channel where we might get TEN seasons!

And Planet Hell becomes Planet Vancouver!

HEY! Whatever it takes! We can dream, can't we?

 

[Broccoli]

JiNX-01 said:

Broccoli said:

JiNX-01 said:
Turn Enterprise over to the SciFi channel where we might get TEN seasons!

And Planet Hell becomes Planet Vancouver!

HEY! Whatever it takes! We can dream, can't we?

I ain't knocking it!

 

[Anna Yolei]

Didn't Paramount bring in scab writers when this same thing happened in season two of TNG (Hence the much-lauded "Shades of Gray")? With Trek being the cash cow it is, even if Enterprise itself wasn't doing particularly well, I think TPTB would have just gone that route and just cut the season short to twenty episodes. Whatever finale we got out of it couldn't have been worse than what we have now.

 

[Nebusj]

Anna Yolei said:
Didn't Paramount bring in scab writers when this same thing happened in season two of TNG (Hence the much-lauded "Shades of Gray")?

In a word, no. In a few more words, uhm, are you kidding?

For the record, ``Shades of Gray'' was written by Maurice Hurley, Richard Manning, and Hans Beimier.

Note that when the Writers Strike did hit the end of the first season and start of the second, the results were the production of episodes that didn't have final drafts written yet, as in ``We'll Always Have Paris'', and the elimination of episodes from the second season, although they did run production for the second season a bit longer than they otherwise might have.

Now, were Enterprise still running, and had there been a Writers Strike at the same time and under the same conditions (I don't see any reason continued production on Enterprise would change that fact, but stranger things do happen), well, production would have shut down somewhere around the tenth or so episode of the season.

Maybe the writers, seeing the strike coming -- and people have been anticipating this strike since about the reign of the Sun King -- would have in mind a script that could serve as a credible season-closer, but I'd bet more likely that they'd just have whatever happened to be in the pipeline and hope it wasn't a cliffhanger and that the script was near enough final to not be gibberish.

Should the Writers Strike be resolved in enough time that they can get into production then whatever was left of the season would be made, I'm sure. However, at this point -- if I remember the shooting schedule for Season Four -- even if the strike ended today there'd only be maybe four shooting weeks left. Maybe they'd fit a few more in for the absence, but it would amount to a shortened season.

Should the whole end of the season be aborted, the most probable thing would be -- if they could afford to leave the sets standing -- to just film a made-for-TV movie conclusion whenever the strike ends.