Oscars - Will The Show Go On?

With Academy Award nominations set to be announced Tuesday, it's becoming an interesting game of chicken between the WGA and the Academy.

The WGA has yet to grant a waiver to allow the show to go on with writers working on the program and nominees to cross picket lines in order to receive their statuettes.

Producers for the Oscars have said the show will go on regardless of whether they get the waiver or not, but seeing what a fiasco the Golden Globes were when it was boycotted last week, it's hard to imagine what the producers could do to fill air time successfully.

But the WGA is in a tight spot as well. Though most polls indicate the public is on the side of the WGA, the guild could lose a lot of public goodwill if the ceremony is boycotted or cancelled. The Oscars are typically the second-most watched TV event each year, behind only the Super Bowl.

On the other hand, if the WGA wants to deliver a swift kick to the groin of the AMPTP, the group negotiating on behalf of the studios, deep-sixing the Oscars would be a giant blow. It would be crushing to Disney/ABC to lose all of those ratings and ad revenue, and all of the studios would suffer since they wouldn't be able to use the bump of an Oscar nomination in their marketing schemes.

There are flickers of hope around Hollywood that the recent AMTMP deal with the Directors Guild of America might provide a spark between the studios and the WGA, but it's important to note that the DGA conceded a lot of points that the WGA is striking over in the first place, so the DGA deal hardly provides much of a framework for the WGA to use.

In the end, like the strike itself, no one is going to be the winner in this fight: not the writers and actors, who lose out on a career-making night; not the studios, who lose millions in revenue; and not the public, which loses its traditional night to celebrate the motion picture industry.

R.I.P. SUZANNE PLESHETTE: The actress, who died over the weekend, would have turned 71 on Jan. 31. Pleshette, a veteran performer for both films and television, was the linchpin of the one of the single greatest moments in the history of TV when she reprised her role in 1990 from "The Bob Newhart Show" for the brilliantly conceived series finale of "Newhart," Bob Newhart's second TV series. No TV series before or since has ever touched that twist of an ending (which probably wouldn't have been possible in today's era of Internet spoilers).

MONDAY'S BEST BETS: "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" (Fox, 9 p.m.) suffered a big dropoff in ratings from its pilot to the second episode, but here's hoping viewers give it another chance. It follows a new "Prison Break."

"Medium" (NBC, 10 p.m.) follows reality game show hits "American Gladiators" and "Deal Or No Deal." While I'm personally glad that "AG" has returned to the air, the Hulk Hogan/Laila Ali interviews are coming off as insipid. And the play-by-play voiceover guy makes me long for the days of Mike Adamle and Larry Csonka. But some of the new games are cool and the Eliminator has been pretty interesting, plus I like all of the pools the competitors keep getting dunked into.

ABC follows its newest "Dance War" (ABC, 8 p.m.) with new episodes of "Notes From The Underbelly" and "October Road."

Tonight marks the return of the very popular teen series, "Wildfire" (ABC Family, 9 p.m.), following an all-new "Kyle XY."

If you missed AMC's much-anticipated pilot for "Breaking Bad," you can catch it again tonight at 10 p.m.