At the end of 2012 the cast members who have survived the massive floods and volcanic destruction on Earth head over to Africa, the new center of the world. What happens next has just been picked up by ABC as a television series that Emmerich is helping out with. We got the chance to find out more about his post-post-apocalypse series at the 2012 press day.

io9: You may dislike sequels but I hear you are interested in making a TV series sequel to the this film called 2013?

Roland Emmerich: But that's something different. It's something like Lost, which has a totally different feel to it. It's more than a little bit like District 9. These ships show up in Africa and [in] Cape Town there are survivors, and they are not happy people. Because they were left behind. And how do you start a new society? It has no visual effects, it's all about characters. What will the future bring? Hope for us?

Will 2013 have to happen pretty quickly after this movie is released? Do you have any actors or additional writers in mind?

They just made a deal with ABC. And we're very happy about that. I'm already discussing with the people that write and try to help them with what this could be. The original idea is from [2012 co-writer] Harold [Kloser], me and Mark Gordon. Mark is big in TV so Harold and I had an idea. Because there were a lot of things we couldn't incorporate in 2012. And we thought it was interesting what happened after all this. When we were writing the script we had to end it at one point and we left it very vague. They discovered that Africa is still existing. It has just risen a couple thousand feet. But that's it. And we ended on a really really small note about a little girl who overcame her fear. It was a very small way [to end]. Which was also kind of for us something very personal and poignant. [In the sequel] people would expect visual effects but it will be only what happened between people. We can do that on a TV show week after week after week.

It's just the fact that they come off their shiny arcs to a destroyed Cape Town. And it's not the bright and happy future everybody was envisioning. It's same old problems.

The panel was reluctant to address the elephant in the room, or indeed the voice actors who weren't. Show creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen made it clear that they love their voice actors, that they absolutely want them to come back, and that they are still very much in negotiations to do precisely that.

What they were very happy to talk about were the adventures that lay ahead for the Planet Express crew. David X. Cohen confirmed that the conclusion of Into the Wild Green Yonder, which found Leela and Fry finally kissing and the Planet Express ship heading into a wormhole to escape Zapp Brannigan, will be addressed in the first episode of the new season.

These aspects, however, won't be the main focus of the first episode, but instead lead into what he described as "a fairly literal rebirth for the series – shield your eyes!" He also confirmed that Fry and Leela's relationship will be more clearly romantic next year, but they won't necessarily be the most successful couple and will have their ups and downs. David X. Cohen suggested that, in the end, it's their destiny to never quite get it together.

The rest of the writers present discussed some of the other scripts they are working on. Patric Varrone is writing an episode that deals with a 31st century version of Twitter, which the villainous Mom now controls. They are hoping that the episode will allow for some degree of fan participation via Twitter while the show airs, but the details of this are still being worked out.

Fry and Leela won't be the only couple next season. Mike Rowe is working on an episode that brings Amy and Bender together. He called the pairing, "a seriously hot and heavy relationship. Bender is nude for a lot of it. It even ends in marriage." Indeed, Amy and Bender's marriage becomes a major political issue as society's opinion on robosexual marriage is explored, with Proposition Infinity standing in the way of their matrimony.

Ken Keeler will focus on Leela and Zapp's relationship in an episode that finds them stranded on a distant planet. The panel confirmed there will be more "Anthology of Interest" episodes, although they haven't started working on the one for next season. In what sounds one of the biggest Futurama episodes ever made, Matt Groening detailed an episode wherein Fry and the Professor use a time machine that can only travel forwards in time to skip ten minutes ahead. However, because it's Fry and the Professor we're talking about, something goes wrong, pushing them first ten, then thousands, then trillions of years into the future.

David X. Cohen also discussed an episode they've been meaning to do since the first season, as they will finally explain how the Professor came to hire someone as blatantly incompetent as Dr. Zoidberg. The writers had always assumed the Professor would have to owe Zoidberg for something big time to have repaid him with a job, and so this episode will show what Zoidberg did for the Professor all those years ago. Dr. Zoidberg isn't the only character's backstory that will be explored next season, as the panel also confirmed they are working on the secret origin of Scruffy the janitor.

All of this sounds fantastic, but I'm still not sure whether I could even consider watching these episodes without the original actors. David X. Cohen put it all as optimistically as he could: "Keep your fingers crossed. What is going on right now is business and we're hoping for the best." That, for now, will have to do.

Last night at the Wrath Of Con party at Comic Con we got a few seconds with Trek and Transformers screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, and eked out a little Trek update for everyone.

I know there was a meeting about Star Trek a little while a go, have there been any more additional meetings at all? Any little update you can give us about the next film?

Roberto Orci: Nothing was decided [at the last meeting]. It was really about, hmmm. You know what, I'll give you a tidbit. [They said to us] 'We thought maybe you could do that as like 2 and 3.'

Think about what it means! Could the second movie end on a cliffhanger that will directly lead into the third? Will there be a story arc that spans the next two films? Also if they are trying to incorporate an idea into both 2 and 3 this could mean that we could have a third movie quickly after the next. It's simply exciting that they are thinking that far into the future.

When asked whether he thought The Plan would be the last we've seen of BSG, Olmos was adamant that there will be another film:

As a matter of fact, I've got to tell you right now. Because of you all, what you're doing, because of the love for that world...I can guarantee that this will not be the last movie.

Olmos told the press roundtables he believes the "Plan" DVD will sell so well, the economics will guarantee more movies. Plural. And he notes that they photographed the Galactica sets in insane detail, so they can recreate them digitally any time they want.

So what could the next Battlestar Galactica hold? When one fan noted that Bill Adama is still alive at the end of the series, Olmos half joked that he'd considered Adama's further adventures on Earth:

In fact, I've got the entire script around them. I know exactly what happened to him. Let me put it to you this way: when we next see Adama, it will be in a very rustic log cabin and there will be a knock at the door and it will be his old friend Colonial Tigh saying, "We have a problem."

And then there's Olmos' idea for BSG/Bladerunner mash-up:

If you watch the series from the beginning, the miniseries to the end. The last thing that David wrote, Trisha, Number Six, says, "This has all happened before and it will happen again." And Baltar says, "Maybe it won't. Maybe we'll learn." At that very moment, I want to put Blade Runner in, and you'll see a direct descendant of Adama take on the Replicants.

While it's unlikely that either idea will make it to the screen, it's clear that the gears are turning in Olmos' head for a new BSG project. and at the press roundtables for "The Plan," Olmos elaborated on his idea that BSG is really a prequel to Blade Runner — making Caprica a prequel to a prequel. The ending of BSG "led right into Blade Runner like a glove." When you've watched the full run of both Caprica and BSG, "you're going to be able to lay it down and it runs into Blade Runner."

So what's going on in "The Plan?" Olmos says it started out feeling like a clip show, but then they pounded on the script until it became a coherent story that will take your breath away and make you want to watch the whole show from the beginning, all over again. He made sure your pressing questions were answered — including one question that nobody had thought to answer originally: Who put that note on Adama's desk? We'll discover the truth at last.

We also got a chance to talk to Ronald D. Moore in the press roundtables, and we asked him about Cavil — it felt like Cavil suddenly became the main villain of BSG in its final episodes. Will "The Plan" finally show us how Cavil was the main villain of the piece all along? That was part of the reason, says Moore:

We were looking for a point of view of to do in "The Plan," with the concept of doing the Cylon point of view on the first couple of years. He was a natural fit to do that with, [and it] helped solidify his mposition in the mythology of the show.

Sounds like he'll be reprising his role as Commissioner Gordon. After he revealed the big news, he said, "You didn't hear that from me." A Warner Bros. representative sitting next to me in the packed auditorium expressed surprise. "They didn't tell us that," she said. This is the first time we've had direct confirmation that there will be another Batman, and that Oldman will be in it.

Whedon did a group interview last night as part of his Paley Fest appearance, and sounded as though he hasn't given up on a second season of his mind-wiped slaves-of-the-rich show:

The chances are] not very good but in limbo. Obviously our numbers are pretty soft, and there it is, but we live in hope. I'm really proud of the episodes that are coming out. More than that, I can't really ask.

He still holds out hope for renewal. Fingers crossed! (Although the ratings numbers, for both Dollhouse and Sarah Connor, do remain pretty discouraging.)

And Whedon explained how the show's post-apocalyptic thirteenth episode, which stars Felicia Day and won't air on Fox, came out. Apparently, both Whedon and Fox agreed that he had fulfilled their order for 13 episodes, counting the unaired pilot and 12 regular episodes. But Fox insisted that they needed a thirteenth episode for overseas distribution, or the season would seem too short. So Whedon said:

I'll tell you what. I'll shoot a post-apocalyptic thriller that's all on our sets in six days with a cast of four other people, then we'll pepper it with different bits from our regular cast, and we can do it all during the schedule. It'll cost you half. I can do this.' And I was so in love with the idea that I just came up with off the top of my head, and that's what it turned into. It's one of the best episodes we've ever made

And Day told Sci Fi Wire she plays "a post-apocalyptic fighter girl" and hinted the episode takes place on the Dollhouse's regular sets.

Meanwhile, Sarah Connor Chronicles writer Ashley Edward Miller Twittered that we shouldn't take Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello too seriously when he claims the show is already canceled, since he said the same thing before season two, and midway through season two:

Time for Ausiello's semi-annual SCC termination report. False again. (Remember "sets were destroyed" report? Now you know context, people).

(For the record, Sarah Connor Chronicles has no standing sets, as anybody who's watched the show can attest.) For his part, showrunner Josh Friedman settled for Twittering:

Waiting for Michael Ausiello to tell me what I'm supposed to do now with my career.

So what would happen if Sarah Connor Chronicles gets a third season? Actor Brian Austin Green spilled a few details to Comic Book Resources, and it sounds fantastic:

The third season is going to be incredible, if it happens. There were no intentions of this being a series finale. It was absolutely a season finale. There's a plan where this can go and it's so good....

You have this episode where John Connor travels to a future where John Connor never existed. I don't know if people completely get it because we work on a string theory, which we've dealt with during the season. We dealt with that with Jessie, in the future that she came from there was Charles Fisher, who tortured everyone. In the future I came from, he never existed. I don't remember him. We were still together within these parallel futures but they were still different and they still had their own paths. This is the same concept. For John Connor to travel to a future where he never existed, where Kyle Reese never left, where Derek and Kyle are still fighting side by side, where Allison (the human Cameron was based on) is still very much present, what becomes of John? What better situation for somebody to grow up in and become the future leader than that? Than to be fighting in what he's been trying to prevent? Not just being the top dog, being listened to for everything, but having to actually listen and follow.

And he clarified that, despite that crackle of lightning at the end, Sarah Connor did stay behind in the present. And John Connor himself may have sent Catherine Weaver back in time to create an alternative to Skynet. He also talks about Derek's undramatic death scene, and how the producers always planned to bring him back in the alternate future. It sounds like if we get a third Sarah Connor season, Derek will be back full time.