MANILA, Philippines—Hollywood writers have unleashed the dogs of war on the studios, but come hell or high-definition daytime dramas, the TV shows must go on—even if on a much smaller screen. Make that a 10-inch browser window.

Twelve weeks and five days later, the airwaves are awash with reruns and recycled programs as the US writers’ strike continues to rear its ugly head. Considering that online royalties are a major issue of the strike, it’s a little ironic that TV viewers have been tuning into the Web to satisfy their primal need for pre-crafted dialogue and reality-based entertainment.

Fortunately, there is an unlikely savior for the famished couch potato, who’s had to subsist on a South Beach diet of low-carb DVDs and transfat-free Xbox games to keep his recreational sanity.

The prophets of new media foresee the messianic arrival of MySpaceTV.com—the main competitor of YouTube—which is testing out the director’s chair (and the writer’s pen, for that matter) through a series of episodic shows made exclusively for the Internet: Webisodes.

So until the embattled Writers’ Guild of America and the studio lords call a ceasefire in their epic War of the Wages, here are some hot, click-worthy options for your online viewing pleasure.

Quarterlife
www.myspace.com/quarterlife

Call it “Reality Bites 2.0.” But instead of a self-absorbed, 20-something filmmaker bent on uncovering generational truths with the help of her bulky camcorder, you have Dylan—a self-absorbed, 20-something writer (and low-level fashion magazine employee) afflicted with a chronic case of blogorrhea.

Her video blog, however, has a less than noble purpose: gossiping about the aspirations, hang-ups, and relationships of her six highly artistic—but hopelessly aimless—post-graduate pals, most of whom are artsy filmmakers and aspiring actors.

It’s sort of like “Gossip Girl,” but with far less sugar-coated status issues and way more cheesy, pseudo-existential dialogue (“Why do we blog? We blog to exist.”).

Not surprisingly, “Quarterlife” (www.quarterlife.com) is the brainchild of Emmy-winning producers Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the same TV veterans behind cult classics like “Thirtysomething” (which dealt with the angst of being in your 30s) and the short-lived Claire Danes-Jared Leto starrer “My So-Called Life” (which dealt with the angst of being in your teens).

Now, with so much buzz over their new online-only series, the dynamic duo of Angst TV is ready to fill the gap in the continuum: the self-conscious limbo where your whole life isn’t ahead of you anymore, but one-quarter over.

Roommates
www.myspace.com/roommates

Who can resist the come-hither appeal of four highly attractive girls of questionable virtue? Especially if we’re talking about blonde and brunette hotties who play games of Truth or Dare, pamper themselves silly in a hot tub, and prance about in skimpy bikinis for three minutes each day.

1.2 million viewers, apparently—and those were the show’s first week figures alone. But “Roommates” isn’t a glossy, repackaged version of “Girls Gone Wild” and “Dorm Porn.”

In fact, there’s no more spring breaks in sunny Cabo for these fresh college grads, who are reluctantly compelled to join the ranks of the workforce—well, so to speak.

The tagline speaks volumes about the show’s slightly twisted premise: “When college ends, the real party begins.” And here’s the twisted part: “Roommates” is a show within a show, a faux reality series that follows a group of ex-sorority sisters who move into a swanky L.A. crib to willingly camwhore themselves to a camera crew, all in the name of career advancement.

The girls brag (more like squeal, really) that they’re “making Internet history,” perhaps too young or too TV-phobic to be aware of the fact that “Big Brother” and “The Real World” already own the copyright to such a claim. But therein lies the show’s bizarre charm—aside from the voyeuristic factor, of course.