If it hadn't already ruined so many holidays, scotched so many near-term plans and threatened so many peoples' livelihoods, the strike might be enjoyable for the look it offers through the showbiz looking glass. Since the diplomacy -- or call it the compounding mutual belligerence -- depends on the statements and gestures of a few, they begin to become highly symbolic figures.

The latest to come on stage is Screen Actors Guild president Alan Rosenberg, whose statement was circulated to the writers as well as his own sizable membership yesterday. It's worth repeating the opening paragraphs verbatim to convey the sheer force of SAG's commitment:

Dear Writers Guild of America Members, I am writing to you on behalf of 120,000 proud members of Screen Actors Guild who stand with you in solidarity as your strike continues. We believe that now more than ever, we must remain strong and even more committed to achieving our common objectives. We are proud to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with you and SAG will be there for as long as it takes.

Your fight is our fight. Our National Executive Director Doug Allen and I are working around the clock with Patric Verrone and David Young to coordinate our strike support efforts. I'm sure you have seen some of the thousands of Screen Actors Guild members who've been walking the picket lines in Los Angeles, New York and around the country for the last six weeks.

I and other Screen Actors Guild representatives have attended your negotiations and your negotiators have been reasonable and professional. The AMPTP put draconian rollbacks on the table, wasting months of negotiating opportunity. The AMPTP walked out of negotiations twice...most recently after an unreasonable ultimatum that WGA withdraw six key bargaining proposals including several relating to new media compensation.

It is time for the AMPTP to return to the bargaining table.

The announcement seemed to help the guild form a response, in strategic terms, to the recent evident reluctance by the traditionally self-empowering Directors Guild to fully back the writers. On Thursday, the DGA had announced they would begin meeting with the AMPTP about their own forthcoming contract soon after Jan. 1--barring a return to closed-down negotiations between SAG and the studio side. This move brought kudos from AFTRA and IATSE, two unions whose support of the writers has been anything but assured.

The moves surrounding the negotiations were side lit by other significant steps on the television side of the war of nerves with an earlier one from David Letterman's Worldwide Pants Company that he would be returning to the air. He will predictably be bashing the network "weasels," to use his familiar phrase, even as he interviews some publicity-hungry film stars who may gain the WGA's blessing to appear with him.

As this was being written, NBC announced Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien will be joining Letterman, with O'Brien telling Variety, "I will make clear, on the program, my support for the writers and I'll do the best version of 'Late Night' I can under the circumstances."
The riposte from WGA president Patric Verrone was, "NBC forcing Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien back on the air is not going to provide the quality entertainment the public deserves."

The SAG solidarity declaration ration and the promise of the returning shows overshadowed the news that had led into the weekend, which was the WGA's insistence that they demand direct negotiations with the various company bosses, in hopes of skipping past Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The AMPTP and the guild would end debating via press release the legalities underlying this effort, but the studio and network chiefs soon issued their own statement declining that path. The AMPTP's statement read in part:

This is merely the latest indication that the WGA organizers are grasping for straws and have never had a coherent strategy for engaging in serious negotiations," Hiestand said. "The AMPTP may have different companies with different assets in different businesses, but they are all unified in one common goal -- to reach an agreement with writers that positions everyone in our industry for success in a rapidly changing marketplace."

Also thickening the plot today was the movement, as reported in the Los Angeles Times, for the writers to find ways to end-run the companies' lock on the means of distribution:

Dozens of striking film and TV writers are negotiating with venture capitalists to set up companies that would bypass the Hollywood studio system and reach consumers with video entertainment on the Web.

At least seven groups, composed of members of the striking Writers Guild of America, are planning to form Internet-based businesses that, if successful, could create an alternative economic model to the one at the heart of the walkout, now in its seventh week.

Three of the groups are working on ventures that would function much like United Artists, the production company created 80 years ago by Charlie Chaplin and other top stars who wanted to break free from the studios.

"It's in development and rapidly incubating," said Aaron Mendelsohn, a guild board member and co-creator of the "Air Bud" movies.

Even as strike pundits keep predicting a deepening of the stalemate as the holiday break distracts the company execs (and embitters those put out of work), such gestures seemed certain to keep the pot stirred for the coming week.