Ahh, the good ole days.the days before the Writers Guild strike.,”Do you remember sitting in your room watching Phoebe singing "Ode to a pubic hair," or laughing as House verbally abuses some random patient, or wondering with anxious anticipation if Derek and Meredith will ever be together again?

Ahh, the good ole days.the days before the Writers Guild strike.

The days of quality television may finally be returning to us, because today the Writers Guild of America (WGA) West will vote for whether or not they want to officially end the strike.

According to a recent media reports on Sunday, the WGA Negotiating Committee unanimously and unconditionally recommended the terms to the WGA West and East councils, which approved the contract unanimously.

All picketing was suspended yesterday through today until the votes come in. A "Yes" vote is a vote to lift the restraining order, and immediately end the strike.

I think we'll all agree that this is good news, but even if the writers vote to end the strike tomorrow some of Marquette students' favorite shows won't return until next fall.

Let's take a look at some of the long-term effects of the writer's strike.

According to ABC, there will be no new episodes of "Grey's Anatomy" this season and they only completed 11 out of the 23 episodes for the season before the strike ensued.

Additionally, "Desperate Housewives" and "Ugly Betty" have no new episodes this season, and "According to Jim""only has three new episodes to be aired.

The Crime Scene Investigation triumvirate: "CSI," "CSI: Miami" and "CSI: New York" have all run out of episodes for the season according to CBS.

Other CBS favorites, including "How I Met Your Mother" and "Two and a Half Men," are also both done for the year.

But don't worry girls, the CW says there are still six new episodes of "One Tree Hill" for the season. Unfortunately, only 12 out of the 22 ordered episodes were completed so the season will end abruptly.

As for "Family Guy", the show's creator and voice actor Seth MacFarlane, said the episode entitled "Lois Kills Stewie" that aired on Nov. 11 was the last episode produced under his watch and that no more episodes are ready.

However, Fox completed the last three episodes that were written and voiced and animated them without MacFarlane's approval and aired them through November.

MacFarlane reacted to the situation by calling it "a colossal dick move" on the part of FOX in an interview with Variety. A new episode will be aired on Feb. 17 entitled "Back to the Woods."

Fox's hit show "House" is out of new episodes for the season as well.

On FX there are two episodes of "Nip/Tuck" left, but only 14 out of the 22 were completed.

"Entourage" has no shows left as well, and the show's star Adrien Grenier told OK Magazine may never return if the strike is not settled soon.

On NBC, there are six episodes of "Scrubs" left, but the series finale episode could possibly not be produced or broadcast.

Basically all of Marquette students' favorite shows are done, or almost done, for the year and in some cases forever.

So why are the writer's striking anyway?

Writers get paid on "residuals" whenever a show they've helped write gets sold on DVD or aired on television. The writers get paid a base pay, but it's the residuals that are their livelihoods – much like a waitress working for tips.

The television networks insisted that the writers work for the same residual rate for the new media: Internet residuals.

The writers pointed out that the distribution costs for the Internet downloads are a fraction of the normal costs and insisted an increase in their residual rate.

The disagreement resulted in a strike and neither side backed down.until Sunday.

The exact details of the new contract have not been released, but we do know it will lead to the guild's 10,500 movie and television writers going back to work under a three-year agreement.

Personally I feel that the network administrations pretty much define greed, and that the writers – the people who really make our shows – should be given their fair share.

I fear that the strike will end tomorrow without a single thing the writers can show for it. We'll find out the terms of the contract in the weeks to come.

Either way, I want to tell the writers, and I think I speak for everyone…GET BACK TO WORK!

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