July 29, 2007

  • - Saturday re-cap - San Diego Comic-Con -

    Panels, Panels, Panels, and the Masquerade. That's the theme for today, and I pretty much just stayed upstairs at the panel rooms from 10AM to 7:45PM. I did not once step foot in the exhibit hall / dealer's room this day, but I should make up for it Sunday. The plan for the day was to stick with three areas, "Ballroom 20," "Room 6CDEF," and the photopass area outside the Masquerade ball.

    First up in Ballroom 20 for me was the world premiere of the "Bionic Woman" pilot episode. This is the updated version from the classic 1970's TV series, and it feels quite a bit more like the show "Alias" than anything else. It was a fine pilot, except it just didn't keep my interest as much as I was thinking it should have. The panel did have stars of the show present including the new Bionic Woman herself; Michelle Ryan.

    Following that in the same room is the "TV Guide Hot List," which included people representing several different shows like the 4400, Jericho, Kyle XY, the Bionic Woman, and Heroes. This honestly wasn't that interesting of a panel except for the fact you've got people like Skeet Ulrich and Masi Oka in the panel. The problem is that the TV Guide moderator just doesn't "get" Comic-Con panels. The guy kept asking the guest stars questions that are more apt for a one on one interview, as opposed to something we attendees at the comic-con would really want to hear. Bbooorrriiinnggg. There was some levity coming from Masi Oka and Tim Kring representing Heroes, and I was honestly surprised that when the Q&A finally started, most of the questions were for the star of Kyle XY.

    The next panel was the one that most of us were waiting for; putting up with that TV Guide thing, just to guarantee our being present for the Heroes presentation. This was an enjoyable panel brought primarily by the very humorous cast from Heroes, from Greg Grunberg, Masi Oka, Hayden Panettiere, to Adrian Pasdar. They showed us clips from the show, and some of the extras found in NBC.com. The big deal however was the spoiler clips they showed us for Season 2, which they told us not to tell people what they are. I'll respect their wish, but I'm sure you'll end up seeing those spoilers online somewhere. Now the bigger deal for me is that they got Kevin Smith to write an episode of the Heroes anthology show.

    That's it for Ballroom 20 for me, and I'm off to Room6CDEF. First up was the Supernatural panel which had one of the stars Jensen Ackles showing up. Unfortunately *that* moderator from TV guide was also the moderator for this panel, and is just about as uninteresting as he was before. Jensen had some funny stories about working with Jared Padalecki though, and the many questions about how great the soundtrack of the show is was pretty cool.

    Following that was the appearance of the "two Rays," Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen. Poor Ray Bradbury, he is in a motorized wheelchair and the lift to get him on the stage was stuck for a while, before they could figure out how to get him out of it. You know, I am aware of how important these two men are to the industry, but I honestly originally was just there to save a spot for the next two panels. It's a good thing I stuck around though, because Ray Bradbury in particular is a very fascinating guy with a lot of good stories in him. Great sense of humor too, plus not afraid to talk politics as well.

    Next up is the world premiere of the TV pilot to "The Sarah Connor Chronicles," which is the TV series that follows the story after Terminator 2 ended. By this point, I was able to be near the very front of the room, and was actually a couple of feet away from stars Lena Headey. Lena Headey is probably more known for being the queen in the movie 300, and now seeing her in person, wow is she a gorgeous woman who looks younger than she looks on the screen. The TV pilot itself was very very good. It really is the most logical followup to the Terminator movies, if you ignore Terminator 3 that is. What's more of a delight is that Summer Glau; from Firefly / Serenity, is the new Terminator that is sent to protect John Connor. She just kicks ass overall, and it's no secret that those of us in the audience loves her. It was a great panel, and wow am I excited to watch this series when it finally arrives on TV next year.

    To end my panel day at Room6CDEF, is "Smallville." They showed us spoiler clips for the upcoming season, as well as appearances by stars like Erica Durance, Justin Hartley, and the new supergirl of the show; Laura Vandervoort (hot!). This was also an entertaining panel that was a lot of fun, and despite my many criticisms of the show, I'm honestly still looking forward to it. One humorous moment was right before the Q&A section started, they announced that the first 15 questions will get a signed authograph t-shirt from Laura Vandervoort herself, and as soon as that was said a rush of people went up to the mike.

    Afterwards, I went to go get something to snack on, and proceeded to the photopass area outside the masquerade ball. I found my spot to take pictures and I have to admit that this year is sorta a mix bag for me. There are a lot of great costumes this year and a lot of huge ensemble entrees, but I just wasn't "feeling it" while I was taking photos. Looking at the TV monitor behind me, I wasn't missing too much from the skits that the cosplayers were doing, although there were some notable good ones. I also still have a problem in how  disorganized the photo director was in telling the people how to pose and such, and for once we actually heard complaints from the cosplayers themselves with his direction. To top it off, because of the fact that my camera was on for a very long time this day filming video and non-stop picture taking, I went through both my sets of batteries. I ran out of batteries at the very last entree, and could not take anymore pictures. I decided to just leave at that point, just in case I feel too bad about not being able to take photos of any more cosplayers that I might run into. Sure enough, I count at least 15 more photo ops that I would have liked to have taken.

    I went back to the hotel, ate some complimentary popcorn, and now have to once again deal with the wonky internet connection here. I'll have to put in the photos and hotlinks later on an edit, not to mention the videos too. I'm going to go sleep as the last day is fast approaching. I have decided that I now only have plans to attend one panel for Sunday, and the rest of the time I'll just be roaming the exhibit hall / dealer's room.