A Strike Upon Us

[Toups]

Interesting read! The writers are very serious about this.

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Yes, indeed. This is meant to be more primetime oriented thread.

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[Cat]

Wow. Shawn Ryan's e-mail really puts all this in perspective. I'm a big admirer of his work on The Shield. he's obviously giving up a lot in order to stand up for something he believes in. I hope this strike is settled soon because I am worried that soaps (and a lot of original drama) will be wiped out if it continues beyond December. However, I have a feeling the execs would rather die than give up all that moolah they've been getting from New Media.

[Sylph]

November 06, 2007

Strike Watch, Day 2: Seth Myers and 'SNL' folks on the picket line

Seth Myers and other "Saturday Night Live" cast members were out in force on the picket lines Monday, as the Writers Guild of America strike goes into day 2.

Galactica Sitrep also has a link to a YouTube video of a pre-strike rally. "Battlestar Galactica's" Ron Moore is one of the showrunners who is interviewed in the video (he's the guy with the dark hair and beard).

By the way, Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood Daily and others in the media (check out TVTattle.com for more) are reporting that a number of prominent showrunners of major shows are either not going to work or are out on the picket lines (and fyi, showrunner = executive producer/head writer/head honcho). There was a big meeting for showrunners, all of whom are in the WGA, over the weekend, at which many apparently decided to walk the line instead of perform production duties for as long as they could.

According to various news reports and Finke, the showrunners who have not only stopped writing but stopped supervising all production work include:

• Moore of "Battlestar Galactica"
• Shawn Ryan of "The Shield," "The Unit" and the pilot "The Oaks"
• Shonda Rhimes of "Grey's Anatomy" and "Private Practice"
• Greg Daniels of "The Office"
• Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof of "Lost"
• Tina Fey of "30 Rock"
• Greg Berlanti and Jon Robin Baitz of "Brothers and Sisters"
• Carol Mendelsohn from "CSI"
• Marc Cherry from "Desperate Housewives"
• Tim Kring from "Heroes"

Not all of the shows mentioned above have shut down production. Many will forge ahead with the scripts that the productions already have in hand. But the New York Times reports that production has been shut down on the comedies "Two and a Half Men," "The Big Bang Theory" and "Rules of Engagement" and — somehow this seems appropriate — "'Til' Death."

Many writers for the shows mentioned above are walking the picket lines with their bosses. And actors such as Marg Helgenberger ("CSI") and Robert Patrick ("The Unit") have also walked the lines in solidarity with striking writers.

From Maureen Ryan of Chicago Tribune

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A Comment From Joss Whedon

FROM THE FRONT LINES!

Sick as a dog but proud as a noble and much healthier dog, I made my way to the picket lines outside of Fox studios today. I'm really glad I did. In addition to carrying the banner, it was a chance to talk with other writers, get more perspectives and more information about what's happening, and to see a surprising number of old friends. David Fury and Mere Smith were there, as well as many non-mutant enemies that I know. We were all caught in that giddy first burst of solidarity and fear. Nobody thinks this is going to be easy. But everybody there knows that, as things stand, it has to be.

A particularly gratifying and unexpected sight was that of Aly and Alexis, along with Cobie Smulders, marching shoulder to shoulder with the HIMYM scribes. Aly and Alexis even brought boxes of candy bars to hand out to the flagging marchers (actually, I was the only one who appeared to be flagging – even the pregnant writer outlasted me). Mere told me young Boreanaz had also been there earlier that day. I was really touched, but my actor-friends were very matter-of-fact about the whole thing. They understand that the issues at hand affect the future of the entire creative community here, and that the writers, by virtue of being first, will set a precedent that affects all the guilds. That is why we writers have to be firm, intractable and absolute in our dedication to getting a fair deal. And that's all we're talking about: a fair deal. For us, and for generations of artists to come.

Sounds pretty damn pompous, no? "Generations to come…"? Yeesh. But it's true. Our culture, our government, our corporate structures have all gotten pretty used to taking care of ourselves at the expense of our children and their children. Part of this is simple greed, part is immediate practicality trumping long-view perspective, and part is perfectly understandable fear. It's easier to take what you'e given, not protest, not make a fuss. A lot of people will suffer grievously if this strike isn't quickly resolved, and the men and women who voted for it know that. But like so many things – our eco-system being the most obvious – if we don't make it work now, what's to come will be much worse.

Let me be clear on one point: I know I have it easy. I've done well, and I'm grateful that I can weather a long winter. Compared to what the studios have made off me my share is tiny and cute, but I'm in no position to complain. But take that differential, apply it to someone who's just getting by when they deserve better. Now take it and… well, just take it, 'cause when it comes to the internet and the emerging media there's nothing there for the artists. There's no precedent; these media didn't exist the last time a contract was negotiated. We're not just talking about an unfair deal, we're talking about no deal at all. Four cents from the sale of a DVD (the standing WGA deal) sounds exactly as paltry as it is, but in a decade DVD may have gone the way of the eight-track. We have to protect the rights of the people who tell the stories, however they're told. I'm never gonna be as articulate as Shawn or Brian (both of whom have been linked here, I believe), but I am just as committed. And a lot phlegmier.

I don't think of the studio heads as a bunch of grinning tycoons sitting in a smoke-filled club and drumming their fingers like Montgomery Burns. I know some of those guys. I think they're worried about the future as much as anyone. But they are beholden to their corporations, and that inevitably causes entrenchment and shortsightedness. They can't afford that. This is an era of change, and for the giant conglomo-tainment empires, it will either be the Renaissance or the Ice Age. Because we will not stand down. Writers can be replaced, as we are constantly reminded. But so can companies. Power is on the move, and though in this town it's been hoarded by very few, there are other companies with newer ideas about how to make money off of – or possibly, wonderfully, with – the story-tellers. Personally, I like things almost the way they are. I truly hope the executives negotiating for the AMPTP make the few simple concessions that will allow us to work with them again. I want to work. I have this idea, for a show about a girl… I even have the actress for it. And if we strike effectively, maybe she won't have to.

I honestly started this post because of Aly and Alexis and their candy bars. But… well… there's a lot going on. Huge props to the pizza people. Your support during this strike means more than I can express. (Note to self: picket near Jane.) I hope it won't be long. I watched my Father strike, back in '88. It was hard. But I was proud. I'm proud now.

Sincerely, -joss.

From the site Whedonesque

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November 7, 2007

The Tv Watch

The Spirits of TV Past, Present and Future

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

No, Virginia, there may not be any new Christmas specials starring Eva Longoria as Slutty Santa and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen as elves. And while many viewers may consider that potential consequence of the writers’ strike a cause for seasonal celebration, it’s not as merry a prospect as one might think.

Not that many people cared or even noticed that Jay Leno’s stand-up routine on Monday night was a rerun that included a three-week-old joke about the blood ties between Vice President Dick Cheney and Senator Barack Obama, or that the repeat of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” made fun of the Democratic debate of Oct. 30. The strike didn’t exactly bring television to a crashing halt. The first day of the walkout was more like a tiny gas leak, imperceptible deep into the night, with only the faintest whiff signaling to the sleepless that something was not right.

The strike, if it continues, will gradually eat into other parts of the daily schedule; it has already forced some half-hour comedies, like “Two and a Half Men,” to shut down production, and may delay pilots and new episodes of serial dramas like “Heroes.” At worst, the networks can pad their programming with more reality shows. And the gut response for consumers is: “Big deal.”

The difference between the previous strike, in 1988, which lasted for more than five months, and today’s is that viewers don’t have to resign themselves to network reruns or sports events and old movies on what was then a far more limited cable. There are thousands of other choices all across a multiplatform media landscape that includes on-demand cable, Internet sitcoms, DVDs and DVR.

A writers’ strike doesn’t present viewers with the scary threat of inconvenience or outright loss. The Hollywood type-out is an opportunity finally to watch all those back episodes of “House” stored up on TiVo; to take on “The Wire” or revisit “Curb Your Enthusiasm” on HBO on Demand; to sample the first season of “Friday Night Lights” on DVD; or call up the NBC Web site and check out whether the critics are right about Alec Baldwin in “30 Rock.” It could take years just to catch up with the best selections of last season.

The 1988 strike basically hurt the networks the most, not just in lost revenue but also in lost viewers: Millions of people became used to cable and never returned to shows like “Newhart” and “Mr. Belvedere.” Broadcast networks, which have an even more precarious hold on audiences today, particularly young ones, have the most to lose. But viewers are unlikely to feel much pain anytime soon.

And so before the inkwells dry up, it is time to fast-forward the Advent calendar for an early and cautionary holiday special, “A TV Carol.”

Scrooge-like producers and studio chiefs may be happily curled up with a bowl of high-fiber gruel, hoarding their DVDs and DVR recordings of “Prison Break” and “Mad Men,” scoffing at television writers warming their hands on Starbucks cups on the picket line, and chortling, “Are there no workhouses?”

But before the stroke of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” the frail, slender Ghost of Television Past will float in, presenting Sumner Redstone and his ilk with a poignant tableau of what television was like in the age before cable: clips of “Kojak,” “Bracken’s World,” and “Room 222” that are bound to bring a glow of fond nostalgia to even the hardest heart.

The Ghost of Television Present is plump and rosy, offering a dizzying cornucopia of old, new, good and deliciously bad that can be shown at any time, in almost any form: reruns, mini-series, movies, football games, wrestling, ballet, “Damages” and “American Idol.”

But soon enough the Spirit of Television Yet to Come will rattle and moan at the door, and it won’t be as the clock chimes in “The Colbert Report.” That studio in Manhattan will be dark, empty and awaiting the Trump wrecking ball, which will clear the space for a new high-rise set for “The Apprentice” and its 17 spinoffs on NBC and Bravo, all of them starring Donald Trump and his stone-faced daughter, Ivanka.

If the strike persists, every series that relies on writers could be stricken, not just “The Office” on NBC or “Grey’s Anatomy” on ABC but also “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Mad Men” and “Damages” on cable. News shows will be in greater demand: NBC’s “Today” show could add a fifth hour; the Fox Business Network’s “Happy Hour” could start at noon.

Sitcoms like “30 Rock,” which are holding on to their perch in prime time, thanks more to critical acclaim than to high ratings, are the Tiny Tims of this Dickensian scenario — good but fatally fragile.

Give the writers what they want. Let Peter Chernin, president of News Corporation, lead the rest and say, “The shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled.”

[Sylph]

November 7, 2007

In Long Writers’ Strike, New York Would Fare Better
Than Los Angeles, a Study Says

By PATRICK McGEEHAN

When television and movie writers started walking picket lines in Manhattan and Los Angeles on Monday, their bicoastal protest highlighted the role the two cities play as the hubs of America’s arts and entertainment economy.

More than one-fourth of the people who work in the media and creative arts industries in America are employed in either Manhattan or Los Angeles, according to a federal study released this week. But judging by the figures compiled in the study, a long walkout by the writers would deal a much bigger blow to Los Angeles, which has a heavier concentration of movie and television production than New York.

“The economic impact would be much greater there, as compared to New York, which has a greater diversity of entertainment, arts and creative industries,” said Michael L. Dolfman, regional commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Manhattan and a co-author of the study.

While moviemaking’s dominance of the creative arts industries in Los Angeles has continued to grow, New York’s economy has remained considerably more diversified, the study found. The study compared employment and wages in 27 selected fields of entertainment, the arts and other creative endeavors in the two cities from 1990 to 2006.

In both cities, several of the creative arts and media industries added more than 1,000 jobs since 1990, including museums, cable TV programming and Internet publishing and broadcasting.

The production of movies and videos accounts for more than six of every 10 jobs in the creative arts in Los Angeles, according to the study. In New York, the largest segment — publishing of magazines and trade journals — accounts for less than one-quarter of the jobs in the creative industries, it found.

Indeed, in New York the makeup of these industries shifted significantly over the 16-year period studied. In 1990, more people were employed in publishing than in any other segment in New York, but television broadcasting provided the most pay — an average of about $2,275 per week. That was about $1,000 a week more than the average weekly wages of workers in publishing in New York then.

By 2006, publishing in New York had added about 1,000 jobs, for a total of almost 28,000. The average weekly pay of those jobs had also risen sharply to more than $3,000, while the average pay in TV broadcasting had slightly increased to about $2,450 a week.

In Los Angeles, the biggest constant has been the importance of the movie-making business. It provided about $2.5 billion in wages last year, or almost 60 percent of all the pay in the creative arts industries there.

The only other group that accounted for more than 10 percent of the wages earned in the creative arts industries in Los Angeles was agents and managers for celebrities, who collected total pay of more than $470 million last year.

The report concludes that Hollywood “dominates the creative arts landscape to such an extent there that no other specific creative industry exerts much economic influence.”

But Elizabeth Currid, an assistant professor at the University of Southern California who has studied the economic impact of the creative arts in the two cities, disputed that conclusion.

“I would argue that L.A. is a lot more diverse” than it is given credit for, said Ms. Currid, the author of “The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art and Music Drive New York City” (Princeton University Press, 2007).

Ms. Currid said that New York and Los Angeles were co-existing as “the cultural meccas of the U.S.” While New York has remained the capital of American high-fashion, Los Angeles has become the hub of sportswear design, she said. And differing styles of rap music in the two cities have fueled a thriving music-production business on both coasts, she added.

Even the communities of writers have divided by specialty, Ms. Currid said. New York has more writers, but many of them write books and magazine articles, while Los Angeles has a larger share of the screenwriters.

“The writers in New York may be very different writers than the writers in Los Angeles, but I would argue that there’s going to be reverberations in both places” from a prolonged strike, Ms. Currid said.

Some creative industries, however, have fared very differently in the two cities, according to the report. Employment in theater companies and dinner theaters fell by about 90 percent in Los Angeles, to just about 1,500 jobs in 2006. In New York, theater employment slipped just 6 percent to about 8,500 jobs. Salaries have remained modest on both coasts, with average pay $1,110 a week in New York and $705 a week in Los Angeles.

[Sylph]

November 7, 2007

Some Television Writer-Producers Side With Guild

By EDWARD WYATT

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 6 — Hollywood writers and the studios that produce the most popular programs on television began tightening the screws on each other Tuesday, the second day of the first industrywide strike in nearly two decades.

On the writers’ side, some prominent show runners — the writer-producers who fill multiple roles at the helm of television programs — said publicly that they did not intend to perform any of their duties while the writers’ strike continued.

Among the more prominent writers taking such a stand was Shonda Rhimes, the creator and executive producer of two of ABC’s biggest hits, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Private Practice,” who sent an e-mail message to other Writers Guild members saying that she would “choose not to render my services as a producer” during the writers strike.

Shawn Ryan, the executive producer of “The Shield” and “The Unit,” said much the same thing in an e-mail message. “The only thing I can do as a show runner is to do nothing," Mr. Ryan wrote. “I obviously will not write on my shows. But I also will not edit, I will not cast, I will not look at location photos, I will not get on the phone with the network and studio, I will not prep directors, I will not review mixes.”

Most of the large television studios, meanwhile, said they had begun informing writers who have contracts to develop new series but who are not currently attached to programs that they would not be paid. Invoking a “force majeure” clause in those contracts that allows for their termination in the case of a strike, studios including Fox, ABC Studios and CBS Paramount have begun sending such notices to some writers, according to people close to the studios and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the producers in this labor struggle.

Spokesmen for both the writers and producers said there was still no plan to resume talks. Picketing continued on both coasts, and the Writers Guild of America East scheduled a membership meeting for Wednesday night at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Manhattan.

After the acrimonious breakdown of last-minute bargaining Sunday night, both sides have become preoccupied with the logistics of the strike, and neither appeared eager to alter its stance in the early days of a walkout. One major impasse is how much the writers will be paid for their work appearing on the Internet or in other new media.

The strike’s fallout has landed first on late-night talk shows, prompting programs like “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” and “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” to immediately revert to repeats. At least a half-dozen series have stopped production this week, most of them half-hour comedies that are filmed in front of a studio audience.

The new Fox series “Back to You,” was scheduled to return from a short hiatus on Wednesday to produce a new episode, but instead will join “Two and a Half Men,” “ ’Til Death,” “Rules of Engagement” and “The New Adventures of Old Christine” on the list of comedy programs that have suspended production.

While most prime-time series are likely to have enough new episodes filmed or in production to allow the networks to broadcast new episodes into January, ongoing work on the set of many productions is not expected to last more than a week or two. By that time, the supply of most of the scripts written in advance of the strike will be exhausted.

Representatives of the television studios affiliated with some of the four major networks said Tuesday that work had already slowed on some series. A CBS official said filming of an episode of “Cane” at a site away from the CBS Paramount studio lot was briefly interrupted on Monday by noise from chanting strikers.

And an NBC official said producers were not able to complete all of their planned tasks this week on the set of “The Office” after the show runner, Greg Daniels, and some of the actors who also work as writers did not show up for work.

Mr. Daniels, who could not be reached for comment, was quoted by the trade publication Television Week as saying that his aim was “to shut down” production.

Because most series have nonwriting producers on their staffs, those decisions will not lead to an immediate halt in production of most prime-time dramas. But such a stance might put some show runners in violation of their contracts.

Studio representatives said on Tuesday that they had not yet invoked such a right, and that they thought that some show runners were continuing to perform producing duties at their homes or offices after making an appearance on the picket lines.

Michael Cieply contributed reporting.

[Sylph]

Vuguru's Eisner Calls Hollywood Writers' Strike "Stupid"

Mike Shields

NOVEMBER 07, 2007

Michael Eisner’s digital production studio Vuguru is planning to marry Web video with one of the oldest forms of media – books.

The former Disney CEO, speaking during a keynote interview with Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto at the Media and Money conference in New York, said his firm is developing a video series in a conjunction with an unnamed “top ten novelist.” Though Eisner did go into great detail, the idea behind the project would be to produce 50-episodes of show –perhaps scripted by such an author - that would culminate with the publication of a book which would be available in stores nationwide.

Eisner did not indicate just how close this new project is to fruition, but offered that he is currently, “begging advertisers to give me enough money to break even.” Of course, Eisner’s Vuguru studio broke ground this year with the launch of Prom Queen, an teen-aimed series that consisted of original 90-second Webisodes that ran for 80 straight days on the Internet. That show, which was distributed on sites like MySpace and YouTube, yielded a sequel, Prom Queen: Summer Heat.

While Eisner only hinted at this plans for the Web/novel hybrid during his Wednesday morning keynote, he was more than forthcoming with his thoughts on the strike recently initiated by the Writer’s Guild of America, which he called “stupid.” He said that writers were “misguided” in their efforts to gain a larger piece of revenue from digital distribution, since “there is no money being made...yet.” Even Prom Queen’s modest success has not translated into significant revenue. “We made history, but we didn’t make any money,” he said.

According to Eisner only one person to date has really figured out how to turn digital content and distribution into serious profits: Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

[Sylph]

Picket lines up, TV shows close down

Production ends for a number of primetime TV shows

By Toni Fitzgerald

Nov 7, 2007

The producers and writers are effectively done talking, and with writers now walking the picket lines, production on many primetime shows is shutting down.

Several sitcoms filmed in front of live audiences, as well as a number of late-night shows, have been suspended. While NBC has not officially canceled Saturday’s planned episode of “Saturday Night Live,” set to be hosted by The Rock, the move is expected soon, as hopes of a short strike fade away.

And ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” is expected to finish shooting its final prepared script today, with people close to the show saying that the network has only enough completed new episodes to make it through December.

Four CBS comedies have stopped shooting until the strike ends, including “Two and a Half Men,” broadcast’s No. 1 comedy. “The Big Bang Theory,” “Rules of Engagement” and “The New Adventures of Old Christine” also shut down yesterday. In fact, “Christine” star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who is married to writer Brad Hall, joined the picket lines.

At Fox, “’Til Death” and “Back to You” stopped shooting yesterday as well.

Though NBC’s “30 Rock” was still shooting today, star Tina Fey, who’s also one of the show’s writers, said production would be done by Friday. Fey also joined the picket lines.

“The Office” star Steve Carell has refused to cross the line to shoot his NBC show, which is still filming, as did syndicated daytime host Ellen DeGeneres, though she has said she will go back to work this week.

Obviously the late-night shows were the first to feel the effects of the strike, since writers are needed daily to help compose the topical monologues.

CBS’s “The Late Show with David Letterman” and NBC’s top-rated “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” are both in reruns this week, as are their lead-outs, “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” and “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.”

Leno actually walked the picket lines, bringing donuts to the striking writers.

On cable, Comedy Central’s “Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report” are also in repeats until further notice.

While “SNL” has not been officially shut down, its writers were on the picket lines this week and said that there will be no show if an agreement with producers is not reached soon.

Thus the networks are now casting about for replacement shows, with most scripted programs expected to run out of new episodes by January. CBS is rumored to be preparing its summer reality show “Big Brother” for a fresh run starting in February, and other summer reality shows like "Last Comic Standing" could be fast-tracked as well.

[Sylph]

Strike Watch, Day 3: What will happen to
'Dirty Sexy Money' and other new shows?

by Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune

Could new shows such as ABC's "Dirty Sexy Money" become casualties of the writers' strike, which began Monday?

Last Friday, three days before the Writers Guild of America went on strike, the ABC drama's creator and executive producer, Craig Wright, sounded pessimistic about the show’s chances in the face of the scribes’ walkout (there's more on the strike here).

“I believe the show might end with Episode 10 — that might be the last one aired,” said Wright. He added that he supports the WGA strike, which largely revolves around writers compensation for Internet use of TV shows and films.

“Dirty Sexy Money” is taking a break Wednesday — the three-hour Country Music Awards show airs at 7 p.m. on WLS-Ch. 7 — but it will return with its seventh episode at 9 p.m. Nov. 14.

If the strike drags on for months and ABC ends up canceling the show, there’s a chance that we could be done with “Dirty Sexy Money” — and many other new programs on the broadcast networks — by the end of the month.

Dsm1 That would be a shame in the case of “Dirty Sexy Money” (but not so much for the majority of other new shows for fall). Though it has wobbled a bit in its quest to be both a voyeuristic soap and a serious drama about the personal costs of extreme privilege, “Dirty Sexy Money” has never been less than interesting.

Though I’ll miss the finely nuanced portrayal Peter Krause was giving as conflicted attorney Nick George, I might miss the luscious interiors that George’s employers, the mega-rich Darling family, occupied even more. If ever a show was a feast for the eyes, it was this handsome drama.

But before the strike, ABC did not pick up “Dirty Sexy Money” for a full season. A few new series (“Pushing Daisies,” “Gossip Girl,” “Samantha Who?” “Back to You” and “The Big Bang Theory”) did get full-season episode orders. Of course, no new episodes of any scripted TV shows are being written now, because of the strike. But those with full-season orders may be more likely to survive if the strike is short-lived.

On the other hand, the strike might give the networks the chance at a do-over. Executives might decide, especially if the strike continues into the new year, to ditch the majority of new shows that they rolled out mere weeks ago.

No, I don’t understand how spending tens of millions of dollars on new shows and expensive P.R. campaigns, then killing the majority of those same programs two months later makes any sense either. Trying to figure out network logic is one sure-fired way to give yourself a migraine, so don’t bother trying.

In this otherwise pallid season for new network shows, “Aliens in America,” “Gossip Girl” (which I’m slowly warming to) and “Dirty Sexy Money” have been the only shows I’ve developed any affection for. “Life” and “Reaper” show some wisps of potential, but they aren’t nearly required viewing yet.

Still, most new shows require some time to hit their stride, and “Dirty Sexy Money” was on its way to doing just that. Its ambitions may have outstripped its execution at times, but those very ambitions — to mix comedy, satire and even a murder mystery with soapy standbys such as illegitimate children and unrequited love — set it apart from much of the new crop of programs.

Even if the show’s young tabloid-friendly Darling twins could be annoying at times, other characters had intriguing potential, especially billionaire Simon Elder (Blair Underwood).

And one of my favorite romances of the new season was between political candidate Patrick Darling (William Baldwin) and his transgender lover, Carmelita (Candis Cayne) – a love affair that was handled with dignity and respect. Carmelita was a real person, not just a punchline or a plot device, and she proved to be a worthy adversary for Tripp Darling (Donald Sutherland), who desperately wanted her out of his son’s life.

Back in July, before the show premiered, Wright talked in an interview about how much of protagonist Nick George’s story was derived from his own experiences.

Wright grew up poor, left home at 14 and ended up writing plays. In pursuit of a more stable income, he attended divinity school in Minnesota and became a minister for a short time. (It’s this aspect of his background that led him to create the “Dirty Sexy Money” character of Rev. Brian Darling.) Then one of his plays got Wright a job on the writing staff of “Six Feet Under”; he’s since worked on “Lost” and “Brothers and Sisters.”

Wright said over the summer that he told his “Dirty Sexy Money” writers, “‘If you’re going to write for this show, you need to commit to examining the questions you face as a rising interloper in a world of radical privilege. You need to write your journey.’”

“The average Hollywood writer’s journey is Nick’s journey,” Wright added. “[He’s] someone who starts out moral and gets slowly deeper into a world” where his formerly trusty moral compass becomes unreliable.

“A poet named Kenneth Patchen said, ‘The one who comes to question himself has cared for mankind,’” Wright said. “I definitely think this show is part of how I question myself.”

Krause Last Friday, Wright said he had envisioned a midseason point at which George would go to bed in a lavish new apartment, bought with a small sliver of the Darlings’ seemingly limitless fortune. Despite the beauty of his surroundings, the lawyer would find rest hard to come by.

“He can’t sleep and his wife says, ‘Is something wrong?’” Wright said George had promised himself he would work for the Darlings only for as long as it took him to investigate the death of his father, the family’s previous lawyer. “He just says, ‘I just realized — I’d miss this.’”

Wright, who said one of his only indulgences is wine, said he can relate to that idea.

“When the bubble bursts and I fall back down into the Bowery, I’m going to miss what it’s like to taste a 20-year old Bordeaux,” the writer said.

Wright added that he’ll also miss working with the cast, which includes Jill Clayburgh and Sutherland as the Darling family matriarch and patriarch.

“The best part is working with the actors on the set in the moment to find something new,” Wright said.

Dsm2 “Dirty Sexy Money” is “humorous, romantic, there’s intrigue – you never know what kind of beat is coming next,” Wright added. “The really poisonous thing about a lot of network TV is that you know what it is from the moment it starts and it never stops being that.”

His drama is “on one most populist networks, but it’s intelligent and it’s cheeky and it’s unapologetically complicated and that makes me happy,” Wright said.

Should that last sentence from Wright have been in the past tense? We’ll find out in the next few weeks.