SitcomsOnline.com News Blog

Day 57: WGA's Strike; New Year's Eve/Day Marathons; According to Jim Returns Tuesday

Today is indeed day 57 of the strike. Late on Friday the WGA struck an independent deal with Worldwide Pants to bring writers back for CBS' The Late Show with David Letterman and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson starting January 2. Here is the statement the WGA released:
"The Writers Guild has reached a binding independent agreement today with Worldwide Pants that will allow Late Show with David Letterman and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson to return to the air with their full writing staffs. This is a comprehensive agreement that addresses the issues important to writers, particularly New Media. Worldwide Pants has accepted the very same proposals that the Guild was prepared to present to the media conglomerates when they walked out of negotiations on December 7.
Today's agreement dramatically illustrates that the Writers Guild wants to put people back to work, and that when a company comes to the table prepared to negotiate seriously a fair and reasonable deal can be reached quickly.
It's time for NBC-Universal to step up to the plate and negotiate a company-wide deal that will put Jay Leno, who has supported our cause from the beginning, back on the air with his writers."

New Year's Eve and Day gets a lot of marathons every year and this year is no different. We mentioned WPIX in New York will air a Honeymooners marathon tonight starting at midnight...in Boston WSBK will air a Three Stooges marathon. As for nationwide, we also mentioned The Drew Carey Show launches on ION Television tonight at 7/6 central with a marathon until 11pm ET. TV Land will re-launch The Beverly Hillbillies with a marathon starting tonight and lasting all day tomorrow.
As for other marathon, Sci-Fi Channel will do its annual The Twilight Zone marathon which has already started today at 8am and it will last until 10pm tomorrow, then again from 11pm-6am late on Tuesday. The entire first season of 10 Items or Less will air tonight on TBS and five episodes of South Park on Comedy Central to ring in the new year tonight. TNT has a Law & Order marathon which has started today at noon and will last until 10pm Tuesday. A Law & Order: Criminal Intent marathon has started today on USA Network and on New Year's Day a Monk marathon will start at 6am...a 21-episode run of the defective detective, including run-ins with a psychic and Dale the Whale, and trips to the circus, a ballgame and Mexico. Bravo has a Project Runway marathon today and a Biggest Loser marathon tomorrow with a 10-show block opens with the contestants facing the challenge of navigating up and down the aisle of a moving railroad car. Spike TV will have a 14 episode marathon today of CSI. On SOAPnet it is the Serial Bowl V: One Tree Hill Marathon...13 hours of the teen drama starting at 11am. VH1 will have an America's Next Top Model-thon starting tonight at 10pm. On GSN, we will have a marathon of the 100,000 Pyramid with host Dick Clark, and of course we will all ring in the new year with Dick Clark on ABC tonight at 11:35pm with Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve.

We have gotten a lot of searches on this, so I will indeed mention it. According to Jim will be back in 2008 on ABC with new episodes starting January 1, 2008. We got searches on "According to Jim's new season, "According to Jim 2008, "According to Jim winter 2008, "According to Jim mid-season 2008," etc. It will air Tuesdays at 9 on ABC. On January 1, two back-to-back new episodes will air starting at 9/8 central, including a spoof on Bruce Almighty, titled "Jim Almighty," with Lee Majors as God!