Are striking Writers Guild of America members actually gold-digging, Desperate Housewives after some Dirty Sexy Money?

No one knows exactly what it will take to end this Supernatural stop-work, but you can be sure the strikers have come over all Women’s Murder Club now that the damn thing has gone on for 79 days.

Some of them are even having homicidal visions of Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers big cheeses swinging like Men In Trees.

Either way, you don’t have to be a CSI scientist, a Law & Order attorney or have read Gray’s (Grey’s) Anatomy to realise Hollywood’s Cashmere Mafia will be needed to clear up this mess.

And you can bet they’ll whip up those concrete shoes quicker than you can say My Name is Earl – or is it Samantha? (Samantha Who?). Like Mafia boss Lou always says in his distinctive Italian accent: “You Reaper what you sow”.

But it’s all so Ugly Betty, they’ve Lost the plot and there are no Heroes emerging in this House, despite the fact that both parties are apparently trying a figurative Nip/Tuck of the situation – to reach a happy Medium – with some talks now underway.

Methinks they are between a 30 Rock and a hard place here, the Damages have been done and these writers will forever be treated as Aliens in America.

Is US TV on the verge of disappearing Without a Trace? Will they ever be able to put some meat back on its skeletal Bones?

Gossip Girl has another take on the reason for the strike happening in the Lipstick Jungle that is US television. Perhaps the industry’s too incestuous with all those Big Shots and Brothers and Sisters kicking around, she suggests. Who knows? The Rules of Engagement are not yet clear.

A Ghost Whisperer told me the industrial action would force lots of American writers to consider Pushing Daisies and that, in an Et Tu Brute? Back To You-style manoeuvre, the Australian industry will be sufficiently shaken and challenged to commission a stack more local shows.

“Chuck another prawn on the barbie and get John Wood on the blower,” Aussie TV execs can be heard saying.

“At this rate, we’ll run out of shows by about May and we need to make more of our own. Calm down, calm down, it’s alright – we can do this. We did it quite well back in the ’60s and ’70s.

“Now, my market research shows people loved Mount Thomas and they loved that bloody John Wood even more ... so how about a remake: ‘Blue Heelers Bite Back’?

“Have you got John on the line? No? Try Living Choice … he was doing tai chi on Kawana Island last time I looked.”

But we are really only Smallville in the great big wide world of television and surely this will be only a temporary teleus interruptus while we sort out who the real Weeds in the industry are, before setting them alight to Burn.

Notice how it’s a bit like a Prison? Break the deadlock guys, we are counting on you! The future of television depends on it.

— REBECCA MARSHALL

* All the above shows are currently affected by the Writers Guild of America strike, which began on November 5, 2007, and is still going. It has forced an abrupt halt to production of all these, and more, television shows; caused the Golden Globes to go from gala event to press conference; and is estimated to have cost the industry $1 billion so far. Basically, WGA members are negotiating a new contract and they want an arrangement addressing royalties for their work that is broadcast on the internet or on DVD. Members went on strike back in 1988 to protest the home video market. That one lasted 21 weeks and six days – roughly double the current effort.