The Candidates and The Late-Night Returns

Even so, the Writers Guild put out an APB to members telling them to picket the shows, while insisting guild leadership would make clear to the news media "nothing at all personal or defamatory is intended" and they were picketing the companies for which the shows are produced -- not the hosts. Officially, the guild says Leno, O'Brien and Kimmel are being forced back on the air by their employers.

Even so, many writers who work in late-night TV broke ranks and are refusing to participate in those picket lines because, they say, it is unfair to the hosts.

"I am not picketing today," Chris Albers, monologue writer for O'Brien's "Late Night," told The TV Column.

"I don't want to be part of any picket of any special show and host," continued Albers, a past Writers Guild East president.

However good the guild's intentions, the news media are sure to cover this story as picketing going on against the three late-night hosts; already, Albers said yesterday, he's seen headlines to that effect.

Other late-night writers with whom he'd been in contact also felt the pickets would hurt show hosts who "aren't fortunate enough to own their own shows," as Letterman does.

"We shouldn't punish other hosts because they're not capable of making [the Worldwide Pants] deal because they don't control that destiny. It's been unanimous among every writer I've spoken to," Albers said.

"Letterman has his writers back -- that's enough of an advantage. I don't think we need to punish these guys more than that."

"Dave was able to get a deal because Dave has his own company," Leno told his audience last night. "I don't blame him for getting a deal -- God bless him. We have to go by ourselves up against the CBS machine." Leno said he went back to work because when talks broke down between the writers and the studios "we have essentially 19 [writers] putting 160 [staffers] out of work."

As some striking writers had predicted, getting Letterman back on the air proved far more damaging to the AMPTP than keeping Letterman off the air.

Last night, Rockette-ish dancers sported "WGA on Strike" placards, and striking writers from other shows -- including Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report," and two of NBC's "Law & Order" dramas and Albers from O'Brien's show -- read the show's nightly top-10 list, this time titled "Demands of Striking Writers":

10. Complimentary tote bag with next insulting contract offer.