With Heroes and Desperate Housewives officially out of new material (get it? We’re saying that they never had any original material to begin with—zing!) talks resume between the writes and producers after a four day hiatus.

The WGA is expected to give a counteroffer to the producers’ proposal from Thursday. The writers were unhappy with the producers’ offer of a fixed $250 annual residual for online streaming video for one-hour dramas; writers get $20,000 for reruns on TV.

In the mean time, networks are preparing for a season of reality TV. CBS will run a winter season of Big Brother and NBC has already increased its reality TV quotient to its saturation point.

Few are optimistic that this counter offer will lead to a resolution. Well, at least the YouTube clips related to this strike are entertaining.