It took a little more than three months, but it appears an end to the Writers Guild of America strike is at hand. All that is needed for writers to come back to work is a majority vote on Tuesday, which means writers could be back at their laptops as early as Wednesday.

The networks, and increasingly viewers too, had made plans for a strike that would take us into the summer. But this settlement does make it possible for the season to resume on its more or less regular course by April, with a full May sweeps. But networks will be deciding on a show-by-show basis what is worth their while to bring back for a few more episodes before summer, and what programs they might as well put on hold for another six months.

Sitcoms have a shorter production schedule than hour-long dramas -- recall that the CBS Monday shows and NBC's Thursday shows began disappearing from the air before Thanksgiving -- and it will be relatively easy to get them rolling again. The Office had finished scripts that remained unfilmed because its actor-writers led by Steve Carell shut down production as the strike began; so getting that show cranked back up will be relatively easy. The end of the strike also means that Scrubs will get a true series finale, as it had only one episode that was unfinished when the strike was called. Dramas will take longer to come back, but many of them will back on the air by April if their networks so desire.

Networks will have to weigh bringing back certain serialized programs that cobbled together makeshift "season ending episodes" when it looked like the strike might last for months. This is a particular issue for new series such as Pushing Daisies and Chuck, which have already suffered a critical loss of momentum -- should they be revived for just a few episodes before putting them on hold yet again, or is it better to do a total relaunch in September? The call has already been made on Heroes; there's not enough time to go through a new mini-cycle before season's end, so that's on hold till the fall. 24, likewise, will almost certainly be held until January 2009, unless Fox makes the very unlikely call to run it during the summer.

Early indications are that Lost will eventually have more episodes than the eight already filmed, although whether they will be able to do another eight as originally planned (or if ABC will even want them to if they can't finish by May) is as yet unknown. Given that the need for a true cliffhanger is greater on Lost than on any other show, a decision will need to come quickly. The settlement of the strike also means that there will be little disruption for summer cable programming such as Mad Men and Big Love, although FX already announced that The Riches and Dirt will air only the seven episodes of each that were finished for this season rather than shoot for a full slate of thirteen.

The end of the strike also means that the Oscars can go on as planned, with stars and the red carpet and Jon Stewart getting everyone to laugh at how silly all this labor trouble was. The impact of this dispute will still be felt into the new season -- pilots have been badly disrupted, which means a lot of these stopgap reality shows may still be around in September. And then there's the possibility of a Screen Actors Guild strike in the summer. But rather than worry about something that might not happen, we might as well celebrate the good news.

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