Thursday, July 29, 2010

San Diego Comic-Con 2010: TV

(I'm going to attempt to recap some of my SDCC impressions by theme. Starting with TV!)

One of my favorite things about San Diego Comic-Con are the TV panels. As much as I love books, I also love story-telling in general and television is probably my second favorite form of it. I really enjoy checking out the panels for the shows coming up because it gives me a good chance to see if I'll be interested in watching them and also they tend to be MUCH less crowded. I have to admit the loss of LOST was extremely noticeable to me, but more on that later.

My first day at Comic-Con I had nothing to do with television, but my second day, Friday was almost completely devoted to it.

The first panel I went to was for the CBS reboot of Hawaii Five-O. Honestly, I expected this one to not be very crowded since it's off-genre, but I had misjudged the immense popularity of the panel following it. (They don't clear rooms between panels at Comic-Con so a good rule of thumb if you really want to see a certain panel is to go to the one before it). So when I arrived at the convention center, the line was already really long, and people were tweeting about being worried about getting in! I ended up only being in line for about 30 minutes, which for SDCC is really not bad. I enjoyed the clips they showed, and I especially enjoyed all of the hot actors that will be in this show. I was happy to hear from Daniel Dae-Kim that he had liked the ending of LOST as well. (I did, too, and still hope to blog my thoughts on it before the release of the DVD set) And lucky me, I also met up with Florinda during this panel. Even luckier for me, Florinda snagged one of the Vampire Diaries bags I was coveting and gave it to me. It's absolutely gorgeous and I'll show it to you in a different post. Many thanks for Florinda!

Florinda headed off to meet her husband at this point but I stayed for The Walking Dead panel. AMC has got to be the most exciting channel producing scripted drama today. They've brought us Mad Men, Breaking Bad (which I haven't watched, but will!), and in October they are bringing us the first serialized television show about zombies. Oh the love! The Walking Dead is an extremely popular series of graphic novels from Image Comics. The creator of these comics, Robert Kirkman, has been extremely involved in the making of the show and trust me...it looks awesome! I was really hoping AMC would release the official trailer but for now you can watch this leaked version someone illegally recorded! Tell me does it not look insanely good? This might the be the post-apocalyptic TV show I've been hoping for!



You can also check out the official AMC site for The Walking Dead.

I also sat in on the panel for NBC's The Cape which is a superhero show. They showed us the pilot which was fairly entertaining. I felt certain segments of it were a little bit confusing and the plot moves incredibly quickly. Having said that, I enjoyed it enough to consider tuning in this fall and seeing where they take it. I also just really love Summer Glau.

The Cape Panel
The Cape Panel at Comic-Con

Immediately following this one was the panel for Teen Wolf. I was all kinds of interested in this panel because I remember watching these movies with Michael J. Fox when I was but a young thing and the idea that MTV was creating a scripted drama inspired by these movies was almost too much. But for better or worse, I'm a huge fan of the paranormal and while we have vampire-centric shows that also have werewolves, I can't think of any (besides maybe Being Human) that are werewolf-centric. They showed us just the very first act of the show (I bet you can guess what happens) and I do think the show is fairly early in production...they don't have a premiere date or anything. But I'm really excited about it because they're taking away the cheese factor and aiming to make a show that's edgy. One thing they've changed is the sport...it will be Lacrosse instead of basketball which is really interesting itself. I only knew one member of the cast, but I think this will be a really fun show and I'm looking forward to it. And yay for MTV dipping its toes into scripted drama!

The new Teen Wolf!





My final TV panel on Friday was for Falling Skies. Falling Skies doesn't premiere until next summer on TNT, but once again, I'm looking forward to this show! It's a Steven Spielberg produced post-apocalyptic alien invasion show. I mean that's all you need to know right? Whee! Evil aliens destroying the earth! Also it stars Noah Wyle and Moon Bloodgood. I was skeptical they were going to be able to show us any footage, but they did have a short trailer. Apparently, a lot of people were disappointed by it, but I thought it was pretty awesome. I mean I feel so lucky that when I was mourning the loss of LOST one of the things I wanted was a post-apocalyptic show and now I'm going to get two. Yay! Admittedly this panel was fairly low energy...the cast doesn't really have much chemistry yet and there's not much to say since no one has really seen anything but I'll definitely be anticipating it!

Falling Skies
The Falling Skies panel with Noah Wyle and Moon Bloodgood

SATURDAY

On Saturday I attended three panels for shows already on the air: V, Fringe, and The Vampire Diaries

V--I have to admit I almost dumped V last season when it started to drag. I'm glad I stuck with it, though, because the season finale was pretty exciting. The panel teased things to come in the second season. Part of the reason I wanted to attend this panel is my love for Elizabeth Mitchell! The other reason is my favorite television writer, Jace Lacob of Televisionary was the moderator.

V panel

V Panel 2
The V Panel!

Fringe--I stopped watching this show halfway through the first season, but clearly I need to catch up on it, it looks like it's gotten a lot better! Also I just love Joshua Jackson! If you're wondering why I attended when I don't watch the show it's because it was right inbetween the V panel and The Vampire Diaries.



The Vampire Diaries--this panel was full of fun and energy. It's funny because last year when I attended this panel, most of the people were waiting for the Mythbusters panel and made fun of The Vampire Diaries. It was irritating for devoted fans like myself! So it was fun this year to be in the company of fans, and see a short teaser of the season premiere which looks AWESOME! I'm so excited with the direction this show is going. As a reminder, I'll be recapping it every week and inviting you to link up your recaps as well.

TVD panel

In Summary

Of the new shows I saw, I'd say I'm looking forward to them in this order:
The Walking Dead
Teen Wolf
Falling Skies
Hawaii Five-O
The Cape

Of the existing shows, I think they all look like they have promising seasons ahead but I'm really just excited for The Vampire Diaries.

Do any of these shows look good to you??? What shows are you most looking forward to coming back on air?

Amy

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