Just got back into town after the final week of my vacation, which pretty much coincides with the final week of new TV before the networks go on vacation. (See how I updated the blog daily during my vacation? How many other TV critics do that?)
Anyway, word hit the streets over the weekend that the eastern board of the Screen Actors Guild is trying to delay the strike vote in hopes of continued negotiations with the producers.
If this is indeed the case, it represents a huge break in the SAG ranks, something which had already been festering for a while as many prominent actors have already come out publicly or privately against a strike, particularly during this economic climate and especially so soon after the WGA strike last year.
SAG would need a 75 percent "yes" vote among its 100,000 members to OK a strike, and had wanted to call for the vote Jan. 2. But now that looks to be at least delayed, and it's hard to imagine 75,000 actors coming out in favor of a strike, especially when so a huge part of the membership is more unemployed than employed.
With the deal for the writers, the directors and the other actors' guild already in place, a framework is there to get something done between the two parties, and that really needs to happen. But right now, the momentum seems to be on the producers' side.
MONDAY'S BEST BETS: Come and get 'em, the final fresh episodes for the networks in 2008.
"Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" (Fox, 8 p.m.) airs its midseason finale tonight, and won't return until Feb. 13 when it moves to Fridays to be paired with Joss Whedon's new series, "Dollhouse." It's followed by "Prison Break," whose hiatus is even longer.
"Chuck" (NBC, 8 p.m.) and "Heroes" (NBC, 9 p.m.) also won't return to the airwaves until February, and are seemingly the last-ever one-hour dramas that NBC is producing these days, especially as "My Own Worst Enemy" airs its series finale tonight.
CBS airs its lineup of sitcoms, followed by the final new "CSI: Miami" (CBS, 10 p.m.), the last time viewers will get to see David Caruso dramatically whip off his shades in 2008.
On cable, HBO airs a documentary about ballet dancers who become exotic animal trainers in "Cat Dancers" (HBO, 8 p.m.)
Finally, ABC airs a special "20/20" at 9 p.m., about a production of "The Wiz" at a predominantly white high school.
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