Gavin Polone, the author of the post below, is a film and TV producer and a talent manager as well as a former agent. Here he is at his insightful and provocative best:
Over the past two weeks, the question I’ve been asked most is, “Why are you so obsessed with me?” What’s surprising is that the second-most-asked question has been, “What do you think is going to happen with this whole WGA vs. the agents fight over TV packages?”
If you’re as ancient as I sometimes feel I am, you’ll remember the early days of VHS home video rentals– Mom and Pop local stores, pre-Blockbuster.
In that prehistoric era before the concept of “sell through” (meaning, “making VHS tapes affordable enough for families to purchase), local video rental shops like the one in “Clerks” would buy a handful of popular studio titles, which were ridiculously expensive at $99 a pop (in early 1980s dollars) and filled the rest of their shelf space with whatever cheap crap they could dig up.
Lucy V Hay continues her journey to get to the bottom of all things writerly. The following article contains some of the best advice we’ve ever seen for facing the kinds of obstacles all to often sends our way:
We all have challenges to our writing. In today’s world we all live busy, hectic lives and sometimes it can feel impossible to finish writing what we started. But what about those of us who face extra obstacles or challenges that can make writing a page feel like writing War and Peace?
Some TVWriter™ visitors have not-so-casually mentioned that they think we’ve been one-sided in our recent reports about the current disagreement between writers and their agencies. And, upon reflection, we definitely see their point.
There is, of course, another side to the story. In fact, there are many of them, we’re sure. Here’s a cogent review of the situation, written by a WGA member who wants to remain anonymous at this time:
The obviously superior human being known as Siskoid shares his thoughts on the usually obviously inferior works of creativity known as reboots. And comes up with an interesting and, to us anyway, genuinely new perspective:
So I was perusing the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 comics series, 
kicked off by Joss Whedon himself, and positing what happened after the cult series ran its course. It’s got the Scoobies running an international group of 500 slayers, Giles working with Faith, the military investigating the hole in the ground that used to be Sunnyvale, villains both old and new, and Dawn turning into a giant and a centaur due to… unprotected sex with a demon? Let’s just say it throws you into the deep end from issue one and goes from there.
Continuing celebrated franchises in comics form isn’t unique to Buffy, plenty of movies and television series have spun off into comics to tell interstitial stories and to continue the sagas. Star Wars is an early example, as are Star Trek and Doctor Who, but early examples don’t have the same function Buffy Season 8 does. First, those are franchises that have kept going, putting in doubt the canonicity of any comics (or other media) material, but more importantly, they were crafted at a time when there was no way to easily revisit your beloved franchise. No VCRs or DVDs, no streaming services, no Internet, even movie theaters were simpler and had fewer screens (NOTHING ever stayed more than a week in my local cinema in the 80s)… Even straight adaptations of the material become worthwhile because that’s the only way you can re-experience the material ON DEMAND. Yes, television shows might be syndicated and run an episode (not of your choosing) every week night, but you’re really at the mercy of local stations, and your favorite show might drop off the schedule completely. Movies are even harder to come by.