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If you want to watch a Gen-Xer get wistful, just ask them about MTV in the 1980s and '90s. MTV wasn't just an endless repository for music videos and short films (which would have made the network significant on its own); it also dictated a great deal of the generation's cultural attitudes. There was a punkish, puckish outlook in the '80s as punk, New Wave, and Hip-Hop all rose to the fore, gleefully tearing down old music traditions and setting up something that could be intense, playful, or sometimes just plain silly. The 1990s adopted a great deal of angst, as the disaffection grunge generation and poetic alternative rock came into prominence. In 1994, it wouldn't be strange to see a Hip-Hop music video, a suicidally dark industrial music video, a tender ballad, a heavy metal music video, Nirvana, and a weird novelty act like Green Jellÿ all in a row.

As the WGA strike enters its 100th day, a stalemate has emerged between writers and the AMPTP after a new round of negotiations failed to get off the ground last week.

With pickets growing across Hollywood and the rest of the country as the entertainment industry virtually shuts down in the face of the historic double strike, determination hasn’t wavered for many striking writers and actors.

“It’s a high moment — the fact that we’re 100 days … and still people are still showing up and still doing the work,” WGA captain Calvin Starnes told TheWrap.

For Starnes, the highest moment of the strike thus far came from a moment of unity between labor unions as “hot labor summer“ spilled into other industries fighting for similar protections.

“Going down to the Teamsters rally, Ups and hearing so many great union leaders speaking — [Teamsters VP] Lindsay [Dougherty], WGA negotiating committee Chris Keyser — that was really cool,...

Exclusive: After making its first ever single-camera comedy pilot order last year to I’m Not Dead, written by Frasier alum Jon Sherman and produced by Electus, the cable network is re-teaming with Sherman and Electus for a new comedy project, which has been put on fast-track development. The untitled workplace comedy revolves around a 30-something woman as she navigates the executive ranks among her old-school male counterparts while her 20-something male assistant tries to make it amid his female-dominated peers – two fish, a big corporate pond, and very little water. “Jon’s contemporary take on a workplace comedy is a universal concept that we are really excited to explore,” said TV Land Evp Keith Cox. “With him and the Electus team at the helm, we can’t wait to see the uncomfortable situations the characters will face and what comedic boundaries they will push.” Sherman executive produces the project...

Royal Pains, which stars Mark Feuerstein as the go-to Hamptons “doctor for hire”, has cast Frances Conroy (American Horror Story, Six Feet Under) in a multi-episode story arc for Season 5 of the USA Network series. She will star as Blythe Ballard, a member of the Hamptons “royalty” who lives in the estate next to Hank (Feuerstein) and Evan’s (Paulo Costanzo) residence, Shadow Pond. Also cast are Callum Blue (Smallville, The Tudors) in a recurring role and Stephen Bishop (Moneyball), Kevin Kilner (House Of Cards), and Liza Lapira (Don’t Trust the B— In Apartment 23) in guest-starring roles. Ben Shenkman has been upped to regular for the show’s 13-episode fifth season, which is set to premiere in the summer. Season 5 production began last week. It moves to Savannah, Ga, then internationally before returning to its Brooklyn and Long Island home base. The Universal Cable Prods-produced series is written...

The Killing co-star Kristin Lehman has lined up her next series. Lehman has been cast as the lead in Motive, a 13-episode drama series for Canada’s CTV. Written/executive produced by Daniel Cerone (The Mentalist, Dexter), Motive follows divorced single mom Angie Snow (Lehman), a feisty female Vancouver homicide detective who matches wits with killers in a dangerous cat-and-mouse game. Lehman, repped by Domain, manager Perry Zimel and attorney Diane Golden, will next be seen in features Loft and Arthur Newman. Missi Pyle (The Artist) and veteran Elliott Gould have boarded TV Land’s single-camera comedy pilot I’m Not Dead Yet. Written by Jon Sherman based on an Israeli format, the Electus-produced project it is about a man (Ben Falcone) who finds out that he has a rare heart condition that could cause him to die at any moment and decides to finally start speaking his mind and live life to the fullest.

Jay Mohr and Ellen Woglom (Outlaw, Californication) have joined Josh Cooke as co-leads in TV Land’s multi-camera comedy pilot Brothers-In-Law, while Ben Falcone is set as the lead of TV Land’s other comedy pilot, the single-camera I’m Not Dead. Written and executive produced by comedy veterans Bill Martin and Mike Schiff (3rd Rock From The Sun), who will serve as showrunners, Brothers-In-Law revolves around the family dynamic between a husband (Cooke) and the eccentric new boyfriend (Mohr) of his wife’s fraternal twin sister (Woglom), who have nothing in common but the sisters constantly force them to bond. Scott Stuber is executive producing the pilot, with Quan Phung producing. Actor-comedian Mohr, managed by Barry Katz, recently recurred on ABC’s Suburgatory. Woglom is with Paradigm and Sanders.Armstrong.Caserta. I’m Not Dead Yet, from Ben Silverman’s Electus, marks TV Land’s first single-camera pilot. Written...

As TV Land gears up for its biggest originals push yet, the newly rebranded Viacom-owned network has ordered two cast-contingent pilots: I’m Not Dead Yet and Brothers-in-Law. Dead, an adaptation from the Dbs produced Israeli format Zanzuri, marks the network’s first single-camera comedy. The project, from Ben Silverman’s Electus, centers on a man who finds out that he has a rare heart condition that could cause him to die at any moment, so he opts to finally start speaking his mind and live life to the fullest. Dead is written by Jon Sherman (Frasier) with

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Exclusive: TV Land has given cast-contingent orders to two new comedy pilots, the single-camera I’m Not Dead Yet from Ben Silverman’s Electus and the multi-camera Brothers-In-Law, executive produced by Scott Stuber. I’m Not Dead, based on the Dbs-produced Israeli format Zanzuri, marks TV Land’s first single-camera pilot. Written by Jon Sherman (Frasier), it is about a man who finds out that he has a rare heart condition that could cause him to die at any moment and decides to finally start speaking his mind and live life to the fullest. Silverman is executive producing, with Electus’ Jimmy Fox co-executive producing. Written and executive produced by comedy veterans Bill Martin and Mike Schiff (3rd Rock From The Sun), who will serve as showrunners, Brothers-In-Law revolves around the family dynamic between a husband and the eccentric fiancé of his wife’s twin sister, who have nothing in common...

Exclusive: TV Land has reached to a foreign land for its latest comedy project. In a competitive situation, the cable network has picked up for development an U.S. version of the Israeli format Zanzuri from Ben Silverman’s Electus. Frasier alum Jon Sherman will write the adaptation, which centers on a family man who suffers a heart attack on his 40th birthday and discovers that every man in his family has died of a heart failure at that age. He then decides to go for it, grabbing life by the balls, and the people around him begin to see the difference. Zanzuri hails from Dbs, Israel’s sole satellite television provider. Iac-owned Electus has strong ties with the Israeli TV industry. In 2010, the company partnered with Guy Hameiri’s Abbot Reif Hameiri Production Co. “We have numerous deals in the Israeli marketplace, we see it as hotbed of creativity,...