Sci-Fi Storm

Naveen Andrews, who played Sayid on ABC’s Lost, was a surprise panelist at Comic-Con for ABC’s upcoming Once Upon A Time In Wonderland (a spinoff of the hit ABC show), where it was announced that he is joining the show as the evil wizard Jafar. Andrews most recently appeared in the Sky1 series Sinbad, now currently playing on Syfy in the U.S.

Also on hand were cast members Sophie Lowe (Beautiful Kate, Alice), Michael Socha (Being Human, Knave of Hearts), Emma Rigby (Prisoners Wives, Red Queen) and Peter Gadiot (The Forbidden Girl , Cyrus) and co-creator and executive producer Edward Kitsis, who was a producer on Lost and is also an executive producer on Once Upon A Time.

AMC debuted the trailer for Season 4 of The Walking Dead at Comic-Con…but have no fear if you are like me and weren’t there…you can watch it right here!

Season 4 premieres October 13th, with 8 straight episodes…the remaining 8 will air starting in February.

The stars of Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, were not scheduled to appear for the Sherlock panel at Comic-Con – but they did make an appearance – via pre-recorded videos, while co-creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss and producer Sue Vertue were in person. Freeman appeared in his full Bilbo costume plus sunglasses, asking the audience to scream a lot and ask the panel a lot of “belligerent questions”, while Cumberbatch joked that he was there for a Star Trek: Into Darkness press junket.

The audience enjoyed a scene from the second episode of the upcoming third Sherlock series, where Holmes (Cumberbatch) delivers a Best Man speech to the groom, Watson (Freeman).

The geek community knows about bullying. Now the geek community is working to stop it. And it will get a boost at San Diego Comic-Con on Sunday, July 21st (4:00pm Room 4), with its first anti-bullying panel.

The panel, moderated by author Carrie Goldman (Bullied: What Every Parent, Teacher, and Kid Needs to Know About Ending the Cycle of Fear), who is also the mother of Katie, the girl who got teased for loving Star Wars, will cover all levels of bullying, be it wearing costumes, body shapes, gender roles, LGBT issues, etc. And it’s not just bullies vs. geeks – it’s geek vs. geek sometimes. (Hint: Don’t wear your Star Trek uniform to a theater when Episode VII premieres…)

The panel will include Adam Bouska and Jeff Parshley (founders of NOH8), actor Brad Bell (Husbands), actress Chase Masterson (Star Trek: Deep Space 9), author and journalist Bonnie Burton (Girls Against Girls: Why We are Mean to Each Other and How We Can Change), journalist Jenna Busch, actress and Her Universe founder Ashley Eckstein (Star Wars: The Clone Wars), and TV writer/producer Jane Espenson (Once Upon A Time, Husbands, and far too many other things to mention but you’ve watched them).

Participating organizations include the Anti-Defamation League, Cartoon Network’s Stop Bullying: Speak Up, the Girl Scouts of the United States of America, the International Bullying Prevention Association and the United Nations Association.

San Diego Comic-Con kicked off formally today (have I mentioned yet that I’m not there again this year? :() and so far, most of what I’ve seen is Twilight, Twilight, and Twilight. However, there are a few cool things to be seen. One of the best may be the “The Walking Dead Escape”, set up over at Petco Park.

THR has a video giving a glimpse of it before unleashing the “survivors” (and the walkers) in it (see below). It’s a post-zombiepocalypse obstacle course, where “survivors” can pay $75 and take a run at it, which could take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour to complete. Spectators can pay $15 just to watch. And it will include 650 “walkers” in full makeup done by The Walking Dead‘s own Greg Nicotero and his team.
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Check out this recap of last Friday’s episode of Grimm (if you haven’t seen it yet, watch it here!), then watch the preview for next week’s episode, “Cat and Mouse”, which airs this Friday!

Then, check out the third video, and find out how NBC wants to send you and a friend to San Diego Comic-Con!
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If you took the surviving heads of Matt Groening and a bunch of other Comic-Con all stars, and put them on a panel in the 31st century, how would it pan out? Futurama lets us know – and gives us a peek into the future.

A couple more tidbits (probably the last, until the chaos is digested): Chuck is gonna get a mom – and she is more than a match for his Dad, Scott Bakula – none other than Terminator-killer Linda Hamilton. Gone-toting bad-ass mercenary mom, anyone? Also, the “Guess who (or Who) is now over, with Mark Ruffalo getting the role for the upcoming The Avengers feature. And finally, Ronald D. Moore spoke about what Starbuck was: although intentionally left nebulous (the more specific he got when writing, “the less interesting she became”) Moore saw her as a godlike entity but didn’t like to be called God, having gone through a resurrection of sorts.

Some more tidbits: Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane said that they will not do another Star Wars spoof after the upcoming Return Of The Jedi spoof (of which a preview was shown). “This last one almost killed us,”, MacFarlane said, saying that doing them was “too expensive”. However, Indy might get the treatment in the future…

A little more news coming out of Comic-Con: Caprica will return in January for the second half of its freshman season (is it really still the same season if it airs a year after the first half?) and Ronald D. Moore is confident that with the plot picking up we will see a second season; and in Stargate Universe‘s second season, we can expect to see Dr. Rush (Robert Carlyle) return to his self-deterministic ways when he discovered the bridge of the Destiny; Eli get a new love interest and also visit his grandmother (in Carlyle’s directorial debut), and the discovery of a larger overall mission for the residents of the Destiny. Also interesting was a discussion about the unique shooting style, with multiple hidden cameras on set.