STRIKE COVERAGE: Sarah Connor Chronicles Scribe Missing His Own Party

WGA Strike Leaves Sarah Connor Creator Friedman Feeling Like an Absentee Parent

By Ben Grossman -- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/10/2007 7:00:00 AM

Josh Friedman did not enjoy watching the World Series on Fox last month, and it had nothing to do with analyst Tim McCarver or any gratuitous Taco Bell promotions.

It was the looming writers’ strike that marred what should have been a triumphant curtain-raiser for the executive producer, whose midseason series, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, was set to get a massive promotional push from Fox during the series.

As first reported in B&C, Fox gave Friedman’s show the biggest splash for a midseason program in recent memory, airing a 45-second trailer over the course of the Series broadcasts.

But all he could think about was how he’d likely be sidelined by the strike long before the show premieres.

Worse still: Friedman is a Rockies fan who had to watch the Colorado club get swept by the Boston Red Sox.

"It was doubly painful," he said. "I don’t know why I kept watching."

Friedman -- whose screenwriting credits include the 1995 War of the Worlds remake -- said nine of the 13 episodes have been shot. But thanks to the strike, he won’t be involved in any editing or other duties for most of them.

"It is really frustrating because Fox did such a wonderful job promoting it; it kills me not to be a part of it," he added. "But I won’t have anything to do with it now to the point where if they had a premiere party, I’d be hard-pressed to even go."

While his show will likely go on without him when Fox premieres it over two nights, Jan. 13 and 14, Friedman is still writing for his blog, "I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing."

In a post last Tuesday, he lamented how the strike has kept him from tending to those beloved nine episodes: "Unfortunately, I’ve only locked picture on the pilot, and each one of those other eight precious little diamonds is now sitting uneasily in an editing bay like a toddler whose parent has passed out on the couch from too much Vicodin."

Capturing the general uncertainty of the situation, he wonders: "What will happen to our work of the last year? Couldn’t tell you."

For a gallery of photos from the picket line, click here.

For full coverage of the strike, click here.