TV with MeeVee: Writers Strike: Where We Are Now

Developments came fast and furious over the weekend, and you can expect more big news today, as the Golden Globes, Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel, Tom Cruise and United Artists are all embroiled in strike related brouhahas. Can you feel the love?

BIG MESS NUMERO UNO: Today could spell the end for next week's Golden Globe Awards, at least the televised version. Late last week the Screen Actors Guild announced that its members would not cross Writers Guild of America picket lines to attend the ceremony. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association tried to get a Letterman-style waiver deal from the WGA, but failed. So will NBC want to pay a fat rights fee for a show without big stars? Doubtful. Expect NBC and the HFPA to have an announcement today. One possibility was that the telecast would be canceled, allowed the awards show to go on, so at least the stars could have their ego moments - Steven Spielberg is getting the Cecil B. DeMille Award! Rumer Willis is Miss Golden Globes! - and the studios would be able to put "Winner of Five Golden Globes!" in their movie ads.

BIG MESS NUMERO DOS: NBC is also spank in the middle of a nasty pissing match with the WGA over Jay Leno's return to the airwaves with a monologue he's writing himself. Jay and the network say he has the right to pen his own gags - and in some versions of the story from their camp, the WGA promised to look the other way. But the WGA says Leno is in violation of the WGA contract. Leno could adopt the obscure "fi-core" clause in the contract and opt out of the guild, but it's not clear what the long-term effect of such a move would be. Somebody's going to get stung here. Meanwhile Leno and fellow L.A.-based host Jimmy Kimmel are going to combat the lack of big-name guests on their WGA-boycotted shows by doing a crossover on Thursday night, with Leno visiting Kimmel's ABC talker and Kimmel heading to the "Tonight Show."

In other late-night news, amid plunging ratings for reruns, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert return to the air tonight on Comedy Central, sans writers, and it should be interesting to see how that's going to work. Bill Maher will also return to the air this week, but he can ease into more of a talk-show format which much pain.

BIG MESS NUMERO TRES: The Tom Cruise-run United Artists studio has signed a Letterman-style waiver deal with the WGA that would allow production on its projects to go ahead. That's be a second crack in the united front of studios and productions houses aligned against the WGA, and things are getting ugly behind the scenes. It seems likely that behind the scenes the AMPTP members are frantically dialing each other on their Crackberries and iPhones to make sure no one else is going to jump ship. Compared to the solidarity that SAG is showing with the writers (see BIG MESS NUMERO UNO), things are looking just a bit shaky for the moguls. But then there's also the Directors Guild, which is beginning its own negotiations with the AMPTP and is believed to be considerably less sympathetic to the writers.