From a post on CNN’s Reliable Sources headlined “Summertime Sadness”:

Summer is coming to a close, but Hollywood is still stuck in strike Hell.

In the nearly four months since the Writers Guild of America, West, went on strike, television schedules have been shaken up, movies and shows have been bumped, once-glamorous red carpets have gone dark, and the laughter of late-night has died.

A few weeks ago, when the pain of the enduring stalemate began to cause a wince, studios moved to reinitiate talks with the writers, eliciting a sense of cautious optimism in Tinseltown. It seemed that after an exhausting summer, rife with endless hours of picketing and rhetoric fueled by inflamed passions, hope was on the horizon.