Early reviews of DreamWorks' Bee Movie are not likely to improve the buzz surrounding it. "Infectiously amusing? More often than not," writes Jan Stuart in Newsday unenthusiastically, while adding that it "keeps the urbane humor flying after a business-as-usual opening." Kirk Honeycutt in the Hollywood Reporter sounds even less ardent, writing, "The film labors too hard for its comic moments and never discovers a cartoon logic that will allow bees and humans to interact."

As the Writers Guild of America and the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers resumed negotiations today (Wednesday), the expiration day of their contract, it was still anyone's guess whether the writers would walk out after midnight tonight or whether they would continue to work while negotiations proceeded. Each side issued statements Tuesday saying that it was preparing a modified proposal. However, the two sides remained far apart, published reports observed. Nevertheless, trade reports suggested that the writers will work for at least a few days without a contract while negotiations continue. "The emerging consensus is that WGA leaders won't start a strike until next week at the earliest," Daily Variety observed today. Meanwhile, the Walt Disney Company has become the latest studio to warn writers about the "script validation program," which requires members of the guild to submit copies of their scripts to guild headquarters if a strike occurs. "This written material, in any and all of its forms," the studio said "is the sole property of the Company, who owns all such material in its entirety. As such, writers are prohibited from giving, sharing, or otherwise depositing such material with the WGA." The guild characterized Disney's notice as "unlawful and discriminatory." The combative rhetoric over the issue represented yet another reason to suppose that a strike, if not imminent, is almost certainly unavoidable.

Shrek proved to be particularly green for DreamWorks Animation whose revenue tripled its third quarter to $160 million, with about 57 percent of that figure attributed to Shrek the Third. Net income rose to $47 million from $10.5 million during the comparable quarter a year ago. The earnings announcement comes just days prior to the Friday's release in about 3,900 theaters on about 7,000 screens of the Jerry Seinfeld animated feature Bee Movie, which is expected to become the top film of the season. Paramount Home Video is also set to release the DVD version of the film on November 13. The company said that it also plans to release a superhero spoof, Master Mind, produced with Ben Stiller's Red Hour Films, in the fall of 2010.

In the latest online copyright brouhaha, the British tech-news website The Inquirer reported Tuesday that YouTube has sent a letter to a woman who posted a 29-second video of her baby in which the child bopped to the music of Prince's "Let's Go Crazy." The woman, Stephanie Lenz, said that she was told that Universal Music Publishing Group had demanded the video be removed. "It was Universal Music Publishing group, and I was afraid that they might come after me," she told the Inquirer. She eventually hired an attorney who was able to persuade YouTube to restore the video. But Universal has fired back with legal action of its own.

Robert Goulet, a bona fide Broadway star, who appeared in such productions as Camelot, The Fantasticks, Man of LaMancha, and Dreamgirls, but who generally played a caricature of himself in movies like Beetlejuice, The Naked Gun 2 1/2, and Toy Story 2, has died of pulmonary fibrosis at age 73.

For the second week in a row, post-season baseball gave Fox a hefty lead in the ratings. Three of last week's top-ten winners were Red Sox/Rockies World Series telecasts, according to Nielsen Media Research. ABC's new Samantha Who? also proved to have strong running legs as it continued to produce the best ratings of any newcomer. Fox's House continued to generate big numbers as it topped ABC's Grey's Anatomy among younger viewers for the first time, thereby becoming the No. 1 drama in that demo. For the week, Fox led with an average 8.6 rating and a 14 share. ABC placed second with a 7.4/12, slightly ahead of CBS with a 7.2/12. NBC trailed with an average 4.4/7.

The top ten shows of the week according to Nielsen Research: 1. Dancing With the Stars (Monday), ABC, 13.7/20; 2. MLB World Series Game 4, Fox, 12.6/21; 3. Grey's Anatomy, ABC, 12.2/18; 4. Dancing With the Stars (Tuesday), ABC, 11.8/18; 4. Desperate Housewives, ABC, 11.8/17; 6. MLB World Series Game 2, Fox, 11.1/18; 7. NCIS, CBS, 10.9/17; 8. House, Fox, 10.8/16; 9. MLB World Series Game 1, Fox, 10.5/18; 10. CSI: Miami, CBS, 10.4/17.

Tuesday night's Dancing With the Stars results show drew a 12.1 rating and an 18 share to put ABC ahead in the overall ratings for the night. But Fox's House, which also aired in the 9:00 p.m. hour, attracted more 18-49-year-olds, even though its overall rating was a 10.3/15, well below Dancing's. At 8:00 p.m., CBS's unheralded NCIS continued to pull in audiences, averaging a 10.4/17.

Last week's wildfires in Southern California fired up the ratings of each of the network nightly newscasts, with ABC's World News With Charles Gibson drawing its largest audience since February. (A Gibson-hosted 20/20 special on the fires Tuesday night also performed well in the ratings.) With Gibson reporting from the fire lines, the newscast averaged 9 million viewers for the week. NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams recorded about 440,000 fewer viewers. Williams flew to California too, as did CBS's Katie Couric whose newscast averaged 6.6 million viewers. Among the key group of adults 18-49, the Gibson newscast again led with 2.8 million followed by NBC with 2.6 million and CBS with 2 million.

When Mel Karmazin presided over CBS and later, when he was the the No. 2 man at Viacom, he made three efforts to combine the network with CNN, he said in an interview on Fox Business Network. "The first person I tried to do that transaction with was Ted Turner. I subsequently tried to do it with Gerry Levin. I subsequently tried to do it with [Richard] Parsons. All of them felt, at that time, that they did not want to sell CNN," Karmazin said. Noting that neither CBS nor ABC has a cable news outlet today, Karmazin added that if he were running either network, "how could I not be thinking about the benefits that could be accrued for shareholders by combining CNN with one of those news organizations?"

Only five to ten 30-second spots have yet to be sold for next year's Super Bowl, which airs on Fox on February 3, Advertising Age reported Tuesday, citing a media buyer and another person familiar with the situation who said that the telecast was 90-percent sold out. Fox declined to comment on the figures. The trade publication said that ordinarily a few spots remain to be sold up until the last minute, when they're disposed of cheaply. Jeff Gagne of Havas's MPG media buying unit, told AdAge, "Last year, you could have bought a sale in the 11th hour, and now it's just weird to even consider that if you want to be in there, you've got to act in November."

A new survey by the National Latino Media Council has found that Hispanics have made significant progress in landing jobs in television over the past year. In a statement, Ésteban Torres, head of the Council, said that efforts to persuade the networks to foster diversity "are now bearing fruit, and it is not unreasonable to expect that the present numbers will continue to climb and that there will be no backsliding."