Seth MacFarlane’s relationshipo with the FOX network has always been a little, shall we say, contentious. Of course, having a TV show that was canceled by the network, only to be resurrected again when the DVD sales receipts came in didn’t help matters. But after returning to the FOX line-up for a few years now, and enjoying great success (enough to launch a spin-off), Seth MacFarlane and FOX seems to be on good terms — until that blasted writers strike happened. Now MacFarlane is walking the picket line, and FOX is threatening to go ahead and finish up three episodes that were mostly in the can before the strike with or without MacFarlane’s input. Now MacFarlane is steaming and FOX, well, FOX is doing what all the networks are doing — they’re moving right along as if the strike isn’t happening.

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However, FOX and the show’s production studio 20th Century Fox TV are apparently doing the final work on this coming episode without MacFarlane, and potentially three other episodes MacFarlane tells Variety were “relatively close to completion” before the strike began. MacFarlane acknowledges that the network and studio can legally do this, but adds that he strongly hopes they will reconsider the decision, bluntly telling Variety he thinks “It would just be a colossal dick move.”

True enough, Seth. But remember, my friend: the loyalty of your viewer needs to be repaid in kind as well. They spent all those years being loyal to your show, and they won’t like it when you stop giving them new episodes, or when a season is cut short because you want to make a few bucks off those DVD and those mysterious Internet revenues. Slowly but surely, the viewers will start thinking you are doing a “dick move” by striking and denying them their new episodes, something they may feel (rightly or wrongly) they have deserved after years of loyalty to you.

The worm turns slowly, but it eventually turns…