As A Result Of The WGA Strike, Could We See.....

[Julius Leonard Marx]

"Star Trek: The Next Generation" recycled scripts written back in 1977 for the aborted "Star Trek: Phase II" series during the last strike.

The problem is that there aren't many "legacy" series like that right now, with a lot of old storylines to pull from, and with cable networks rerunning old series and others available on DVD, the wholesale recreation of old scripts like with "Mission: Impossible" wouldn't go over as well as it did in 1988.

Heck, if "reality" programming is really the answer, why not have NBC and Schlatter revive "Real People?"

Recycling scripts is nothing new. A lot shows have done it. Most notably, Lucy. I Love Lucy story-lines kept popping up in the Lucy Show and Here's Lucy. And many I Love Lucy scripts were recycled from My Favorite Husband. Jack Benny re-used scripts, story-lines and specific jokes repeatedly.

Mission: Impossible is good for recycling because the story lines are so convoluted and mostly about movement so it's hard to tell what's going on (and hard to remember what's happened). MI is now on ALN which few people receive.

Rockford scripts might still work, but who could be James Garner?
Maverick scripts would even work but again, who could be James Garner? Jack Kelly and Roger Moore both tried. (Moore didn't do any better trying to be Sean Connery either.)
Magnum scripts might work and Tom Sellick might still be able to play the role.
Hawaii Five-O scripts could work and Tom Sellick could play Garrett, too.
The networks all have movie studio affiliations and access to a lot of scripts that could be re-shot as made for TV movies.
And old scripts could be shot changing the names of the characters and giving the show another title.