The Dream Factory strike has turned into a 4-month nightmare. The labor dispute between the 9,000 members of the Writers Guild of America and the 217 companies represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has lasted far longer than anyone expected, and all the worst-case scenarios developed by industry people early in the strike have come true.
The fall television season - the launching pad for the networks' new series - has been wrecked, and programmers are scrambling for something - anything - to fill the void. The networks' share of the television audience, already diminished by independent television stations, cable TV and home video, has shrunk even further.

And thousands of people who work in television - actors, crafts people and service workers - have watched their savings evaporate.

"Everybody's suffering," says Lynn Tomes, a Gary Mann graduate whose household has been doubly affected by the strike.

Tomes is a camera operator by trade and has worked in and around Hollywood since 1973, including a long run on "The Love Boat." His wife, Kathy, is a camera technician and has worked in television for the past 11 years. The strike has handed them the longest hiatus they have experienced in their careers. They're glad to be able to spend some time with their three children, but they are eager for the cameras to roll once more.

Both were working on the series, "Our House," which was canceled by NBC. Cancellations are part of the business. It's not unusual to be without work for a few months in the spring, between the times shows wrap up one season and begin again for the fall.

And strikes occasionally interrupt production. You save your money when you're working for the times when you aren't. "You do the best you can," Tomes says, "but there are very few people who anticipated a four-month strike."

Kathy has been unemployed since "Our House" ended production. Lynn has been a little luckier. He worked for three weeks on Lindsay Wagner's TV movie, ''The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Dickerson Story." He also worked a couple weeks on a pilot that didn't sell and a couple more on another made- for-TV movie, "The Great Diamond Robbery."

But the strike has resulted in unemployment on a scale never before experienced by the people who make Hollywood run. Lynn said he ran into a cook who works for a company that caters TV shoots; the man was unemployed for the first time in more than 20 years.

Elizabeth Geddes is a partner in the Geddes Agency, a firm with offices in Chicago and Los Angeles, representing more than 125 actors. She says the strike has had a devastating affect on her clients and the industry, down to the secretaries who work in the studios and the janitors who clean the sound stages. "Business are being closed down. Homes are being lost," Geddes says. The toll of the strike "is so far-reaching, it's unbelievable."

The people who run the networks would probably agree. Ten years ago, the networks made claim to 90 percent of the people watching television at any given time. They dominated viewing the way Michael Jordan dominates the basketball court.

But the networks' audience share has shrunk to around 70 percent, losing 9 percent during the 1987-88 season alone. The cable and VCR industries are experiencing a boom at the very moment the networks are watching their hopes for a revitalized future walk the picket line.

The networks are siding with the producers, talking about the need to control costs in a diminished advertising market. The presidents of ABC, CBS and NBC have all said they're prepared to face the new season without the striking writers. If need be the new season will be made up of the few shows made by independent production companies who have signed contracts with the Writers Guild; "reality-based" series written by news writers, who are not on strike; variety shows, on which performers use material developed for live performances; and reshooting old scripts with new actors.

The sticking issues are the writers' demand for a greater share of the revenue from the sale of syndicated TV series abroad and the producers' demand for a new formula for computing the writers' pay for the one-hour drama.

The producers say the one-hour drama, a staple of the television schedule, is troubled by escalating costs and a weak market and want the writers to share the risks. The writers respond that the sliding pay schedule the producers want would be impossible to police.

The two sides engaged in marathon bargaining sessions Saturday, Sunday and Monday and indications are that pressure is mounting on both sides to end the dispute.

The Tomeses are among those who would be delighted to see the strike end. They understand the arguments made by both sides, recognizing some justice in both positions, but they believe it's time for the two sides to reach a compromise.

"I talk to people, and they're just heart-broken," Kathy says. "They're losing everything they've worked for."

Her husband says it more simply: "All I want to do is go back to work."