Congratulations. You're finally in charge!

I'm finally in charge. I'm finally Captain Janeway. If you live long enough...

That's a better way to look at it. You're not replacing Amanda Tapping...

No-one can replace Amanda Tapping. The fans say, How do you feel about having to fill Amanda Tapping's shoes?" I said, look, "I would rather wake up in the morning, go into the bathroom and see Amanda Tapping than me." So I understand how the fans feel. She's a great actress and a beautiful person. I, on the other hand, am a very good actor and a very beautiful person.

I understand there's going to be a journey for Woolsey this season.

Yes, I'm changing. I'm growing. I'm becoming less of a dick. I appreciate the fact that he's Richard Woolsey and not Dick Woolsey, because that would be hard. To go to work every day and have people calling you "Dick" all the time.

And part of his epiphany comes from just not being able to work the technology.

I had two or three very humorous moments, where I don't know how to use the doors, I don't know how to find the cafeteria... I'm the new guy. And also, because he's not sort of a people person, people don't feel comfortable walking up and saying, "Mr. Woolsey, the cafeteria's this way." But I am warming up, and people are starting to feel sorry for the fact that I'm kind of a loner. I think by the end of the season, all the regular guys are going to, if not love me, respect me.

And you have a thing where you have nine pages of dialog where you argue in front of a tribunal?

I have the big dialog days. You play a hologram on Star Trek, and you have to spew line after line. I spoke in paragraphs on Star Trek. So I think they liked the fact that I handled dialog pretty well, so they give me stuff to say. But on the other hand, now that I'm playing a human and not a hologram, I'm allowed to say things like, "Well, uhh," or "You know..." which I could never do before. I had to be precise and I could never funfer. Now that I'm just a person I can funfer occasionally. Not funfer like soap opera actors funfer when they can't remember their lines, which is one of my favorite things to watch. "Hey, uh, you know man." That kind of thing. I don't do that.

What was it like working with Andy Dick on Voyager?

The first day on the set, he said to me, "Hey your name is Picardo. It's so close to Captain Picard. Do the fans make fun of you?" And I said, "Excuse me. Your name is Andy Dick, and you're going to make fun of mine?" And after that, we got along pretty well. He's wild. That was the week that the TV Guide article came out about him while we were shooting. What should I say? It was very, uh, revealing. I know that he likes to expose lots and lots about his life. Which I admire and respect, but actually, you know what? I don't think my life is quite as exciting as his.

I think your life is way more exciting than his at this point.

I like that you think that.

On Voyager, you were playing this artificial life form. Unlike Data, you looked human, but you weren't. You were like the opposite of Data.

He was more human than me. Especially early on. Wow, you've got it all. In fact, the next time I get interviewed, I'm going to call you. Because you understand my role on Star Trek even better than I did.

Did you try to convey that you looked human but weren't?

I did try to do this sort of funny, Johnny-on-the-spot kind of... But Data also moved in this exaggerated sort of way. I liked being a know-it-all. Of course, he was a know-it-all too. But I was sort of a stuffy, arrogant, curmugeonly know-it-all, where he was a childlike, sweet and Pinnochio-like know-it-all. We were both know-it-alls. Is it knows-it-all or know-it-alls?

So what's it like going from a show like Firefly that's kind of gritty and down on their luck to a show like Atlantis where there's lots of fancy gadgets?

Everything's clean. Isn't it like super clean? I'm always afraid to put my hand on the glass. I'm just leaving fingerprints all over that set all the time. Everything's nice and gleaming. The best thing about it for me is that they're in their groove. They've been at it for so many years that they're very blase, and they shoot like 10 pages in 12 hours, which is unheard of. And we wrap every day at the 12th hour, which is also unheard of. So it's just like this well-oiled machine, they're all reading each others' minds or something. But I guess that comes after 10+ years of working together. I felt new for a bit, I don't feel that new any more.

Was it fun having the alien spore taking over your body? (Shakes her head.) No? Dude, alien spore!

No! It was the weirdest thing in the world. I was basically pinned to the bed literally, they had a prosthetic blanket that went over me, and they glued pieces of the blanket to my face. So once I was in, I was in. It took like half an hour to get out, and then another half hour to in, so if I really really had to go, they would let me out, but I knew it would be a big hassle, so I just laid off all the fluids and I went to the happy place, that's where I was. Yeah. That was so bizarre. I just laid there and David Hewlett (Rodney McKay) was feeding me at one point. It was a bonding experience. It wasn't that bad. I basically laid there and relaxed in a very comfortable bed. It could have been worse. An odd way of working, for sure.

So I understand that Dr. Keller gets tied up in the woods in like every other episode of Stargate. What's up with that?

Yeah, I don't know what that's about. In season four, I was kidnapped and bound and gagged. This year, it's happened to me twice so far. And I just read yet another script where I am again bound and gagged. I don't know what I did.

Is there a site somewhere where they're charging five dollars a minute? Is it a fetish thing?

Maybe that's what it is. I'm starting to wonder. It's a fetish thing. And it's the same writer every time that writes the episode where I'm being kidnapped. Maybe he likes seeing me dragged through the woods. I don't know what's going on. And you know what? I don't question it. I guess. At least he's writing for me.

So I understand Joss Whedon said you had to gain weight to play Kaylee. Was that annoying? Was it fun?

I was daunted at first by the prospect. He basically told me he wanted Kaylee to be voluptuous and rounded and womanly. So I stopped all exercise, cease and desist with the gym membership, went in the garbage, and I ate cheeseburgers for three weeks. It was bliss. And then I started to feel kind of full and I had no cravings, because I ate everything in sight. And then I was like, eh, this is boring. With Serenity he let me be myself and not gain the weight. So I was happy about that. I was sick of being full.

So in your mind, are Kaylee and Simon off somewhere spooning?

Making babies? God I hope so. I think that was the whole intention there.

You're like the only Joss Whedon character ever to have a happy ending.

That's true! Yet. I mean, who knows? He's doing these comic books now, Serenity comics, and and every time I read it I flip to the end to see if Kaylee is still alive.

We want you to be alive for Serenity II.

I know! You have to ask him. I get asked about Serenity II all the time. And I'm like I'm not the one who writes it. Talk to that guy. (Points at Joss.)

Does Doctor Who's popularity prove people love science fiction? Or is there something else going on?

I think it's both, actually. I think people do live scifi, and they love the bigness of it, and they love the big emotions. That's what I love about scifi, I love that things are writ large. I think that 's on a bigger canvas in a way. There's something extrarodinary in its [popularity]. I can't even pretend to know what it is. Children write to us, and they write stories and they draw pictures, and there's a real interaction and a real engagement, and they see the Doctor as their friend, and they go on adventures and they really are travineling with him and there's a great engagement of their imaginations, and I've never experienced that before. And obviously Russell T. Davies and Steven were enormous fans.

You weren't a fan before?

I dipped in and out, and expeirenced a little bit of it... I've become a huge fan now, through rediscovering the classic series. When I first worked on Doctor Who, [Russell T. Davies] sent me a viewing list. "This is what you need to know."

What was on it?

I knew you were going to ask me that. "Pyramids Of Mars," "City Of Death," which is my absolute favorite, "Talons Of Weng Chiang." "City Of Death" was the first time I really understood it, and started to understand that this show can do anything. You've got Tom Baker being amazing, you've got a shoot on a limited budget in Paris, exteriors only obviously. You've got the cheekiness of him going back in time to meet Leonardo Da Vinci, you've got the scale and the fun and the imagination that was gob-smacking. Personally the type of scifi I've never been able to engage in is things like Star Trek. I've never been a Star Trek fan. It's an amazing show. I can conaprpeciate it, but it doesn't connect with me, it's cold scifi. I love Smallville, I love Buffy. Stuff that deals with emotions and families, but has an extra element to it. It's a mx of the ordinary and the extraordinary. There are sesaons for scifi. There are times when i think psychologically nations want that feel-good factor, and the scale of it... the the confidence, the scale or the swagger of it.

So during times of war and crisis, people need scifi more?

Yes. You want your comedies, or your musicals, or your epic emotion, which is real emotion, but on an epic canvas.

When I talk about cold scifi... There's a huge cleverness to Star Trek which is tantalizing, but... I love Doctor Who and Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures... because ultimately they're all about how you live and the choices you make, and Doctor Who without question is at its best in the moments where the Doctor suffers and the Doctor has to make a choice, as opposed to the moments where you see this extraoridnary Time Lord genius traveling. If you're immortal, like Captain Jack, what does that do to your relationships? Sarah Jane, she's alone, but then she finds her family. She's fighting for her adopted son.

Torchwood has changed so much just in the past two years. And now it's being aired all over the place. I just saw that it's showing in Korea.

Torchwood does really well in Korea. It's really up there with CSI, they have some major imports from America, and [then there's] Torchwood.

Do you think Torchwood lost some of its identity in the second season when it became less racy?

I think it's the reverse. I think it started to find itself. Because I think season one, we made very fast. It's the fastest show I've ever gone through, from the development and the commission to actually being on air. It was a tight schedule. It dictates the tone sometimes, you're just really running for the finish. But as well as that we just really clearly wanted to earmark Torchwood as being different to Doctor Who. There was swearing in the first scene, and it was very clearly stated. [Then] we started to relax into it, and we started to find what Torchwood was to itself. Captain Jack is a larger than life character, and has a great sex life with Ianto. [People talk about] the sex, the sex, the sex, but actually there's very little sex in Torchwood. Where we got that reputation was episode two, where you did have the sexy gas alien monster. But beyond that, it was more about broken hearts and love. The Toshiko episode [with her lesbian lover] was not about lesbian sex, it was about she's finally found... something outside of work... [and then she loses it.]

Speaking of Toshiko, one of my favorite episodes in season two was the episode with Toshiko and the World War I soldier. It seems like Torchwood is often at its best when it deals with war.

I think it's a very romantic show. Tosh having that relationship from World War I is very romantic and emotional, and painful and the loss of someone that young and thinking about what those men went through — those boys went through — it's painful. Torchwood's tone is never risque for the sake of being that. When it's risque, it is always about the story and haivng a little twinkle in your eye.

My favorite Who spinoff is actually the Sarah Jane Adventures. I love how Sarah Jane has actually managed to become sort of a version of the Doctor.

She has her sonic lipstick. He's called the Doctor, he makes people better, that's a running theme across all the adventures in his life... She is like the Doctor, with her team... it's a sunny show. We always film it in the summer. Elisabeth Sladen is amazing. How can a woman look that good? She's got so much energy and vicacity. I think actually it's quite a moral show, and not in a preachy way. It's about what choices do you make, like Doctor Who and how do you live with them and how to stand up for the things you believe in. And there's a cost to things, and Sarah Jane suffers. And how this lonely woman suddenly finds a ready-made family and how brilliant that is

Speaking of which, I was sad to hear that Maria is leaving the show, but I hear a new family is moving in across the street from Sarah Jane?

We are two weeks away from wrapping the shoot. The new family is called the Chandras and their daughter Rani. They bedded down really well as characters. They come in in episodes three and four. It's an imporant story. It's also about what does it mean to Sarah Jane to lose Maria. That loss all plays out in important ways.

Top Julie Gardner image from Ewan and Donabel on Flickr.

In the episode "The Hub," Baltar was suddenly much more comic, much more silly. Talking to the Cylon centurion, yelling at the hybrid. Was that a note you received, or something you decided to do?

Only in the sense of, I knew there would be this huge explosion. I'm very much of the school that what I will give with one hand, I will take with the other. So because he's going to look like he's going to die, and he's going to say these dreadful things that he thinks in his mind about, "Hey, I'm absolved and it's okay," that that's so serious, it would throw you if the beginning of this thing was not that way at all. So it was kind of, just trying not to endgame so much. But the material lent itself to being kind of silly.

Do you think Baltar is the guy we're constantly waiting to get hiscomeuppance? And yet he always lands on his feet?

That could be. It could be that way. It's really odd. I actually realize now that I'm so much more fond of him than other people. No, I really care about that man. I feel so sorry for him. But yeah, I suppose on some level, he does subvert your idea about where he's going to end up. And it does look like, the episode's always threatening, "We'll expose you! We'll find you!" Etc., and then somehow like teflon he's squeezed out of it, he's somewhere else.

The Democratic Duo - although that really should be with a lower-case "d," as I'm sure neither Campaign Boy nor Campaign Girl would openly endorse either party for fear of swaying your vote - spent last Saturday and Sunday at the convention reminding everyone to do their civic duty this November:

Straight from their headquarters at Campaign.com, the pair has the tools to help Americans exercise one of their greatest superpowers - voting. Campaign Boy and Campaign Girl are armed with information on voter registration, the candidates, and the issues to help voters determine the fate of the universe.

Fate of the universe? What do these two superheroes know about the Obama vs. McCain clash that the rest of us don't?

[Campaign.com]

It's easy to think that this year's SDCC was a poorly-ran, over-attended mess if you've been paying attention to some of the press complaints that have leaked out from the show:

Anyway, we are posting this after midnight because there is no filing room. We were directed to an outlet in the hallway for all our computing needs. We promise to never bitch about the burnt gratis coffee in normal press rooms again.

Wait, sorry; that was just press whining. I meant press complaints:

[A]t Comic-Con, the press pass is essentially a complimentary pass that grants access to nothing that isn't covered by a regular four-day badge. This policy worked fine as recently as four or five years ago, before the crowds hit six figures and there was far less press covering far fewer mainstream events. But when folks from Variety, the L.A. Times and countless other legitimate press outlets who have busy schedules of events and panels to cover are told to stand in line for an hour or two with everyone else just to get in to a panel, it interferes with those outlets ability to cover the event and — by interfering with their ability to do their job — makes them testy, angry and overall unhappy with the show.

It wasn't just those waiting in line who found themselves unhappy with the show, however; con guests weren't so happy, either:

"It's really hard getting into the parties,” explained Colin Ferguson, who plays U.S. Marshal Jack Carter in the Sci Fi series “Eureka.”
Sedan-sized balloons promoting “Fringe” carried this come-on: “Imagine The Impossibilities.” OK, here's one: crossing the Gaslamp, by limo or cattle car, without becoming mired in gridlock. And once you reached party central, you had to run the name-checking, ID-inspecting gauntlet. The list keepers took no chances even, it turned out, if you were a guest of honor.
“With all the restrictions,” said Ferguson, who was due at the EW/SF shindig, “it takes 15, 20 minutes to get to the parties you are supposed to go to.”

While the Washington Post wasn't impressed with the sea of hype ("Comic-Con is all about the buzz. The kind of buzz you get when living in a vacuum," they wrote, despairingly), The Hollywood Reporter was just one of many places to openly wonder whether Comic-Con Jumped The, uh, Fridge?:

There is talk that despite the high numbers of conventiongoers, or maybe in spite of them, Comic-Con as a measure of geek cool may have reached a tipping point.

Critics are pointing to the scheduled appearances by tabloid mainstays Paris Hilton, who will join Thursday night's panel for Lionsgate's "Repo! The Genetic Opera" as well as host a party, and fellow party girl Kim Kardashian, who is supposed to hit DC Comics' party Friday night before appearing at a "Disaster Movie" panel Saturday. When Comic-Con becomes fodder for the Us Weekly crowd, has the event nuked the fridge? Folks wonder.

Sure enough, when Jaime King feels as if there's too much Hollywood hype, then something's definitely out of whack:

Slowly but surely the entertainment community is taking over to promote their projects here even though they have absolutely nothing to do with comics. What's next? A panel for 'Deal or No Deal'?

Comic book retailer Chuck Rozanski foresees disaster:

San Diego is about to lose its crown as the top comics show in America. With fewer than 100 real comics booths left in the entire show, this convention is now a primarily media event... The people on the San Diego committee have been so busy sucking up to Hollywood that they let their core group of comics dealer support wither and die. Is it any wonder that they took the comics characters off of the banners they traditionally place on the lampposts around Sand Diego, and instead have a new motto of “Celebrating the Popular Arts?”

That feeling was compounded by the news that IDW Publishing announcing midway through this year's convention that they won't be at next year's. Publisher Ted Adams explained:

The show has never been a profit center for us. It's a marketing cost. I think it's reasonable to expect that a comics publisher has to have a marketing cost associated with attending Comic-Con. I don't expect it's reasonable to expect that the show is going to be a break-even or a profit center.

(It's worth reading other comic pros' reactions to that news to see a much less downbeat assessment of comic publishers importance at the con.)

Comic-Con International's Director of Marketing David Glanzer tried to respond to some of the criticism in a recent interview:

You know companies sometimes think of our event as a marketing opportunity. And while that’s certainly understandable, we don’t look at our event as a marketing opportunity, we look at our event as much more than that. So if it's just somebody who wants to spend money and take X amount of booths, that isn’t something that we would entertain. We want to make sure we have a diversity of content on the floor and also in programming. This year we have even more programming than we have in the past, and we try to make sure it’s diverse... The decision to stay in San Diego was made knowing that we were going to have to forgo growth. A major part of that reason was because there has been talk of expansion of the convention center... We haven’t seen any movement on an expansion, and that has us very concerned. If nothing happens, as in a groundbreaking or some other solid movement, by 2010, we’re going to have to explore options.

That means we're in for potentially two more years of sold-out passes and Hollywood taking over the con, right? Well, maybe not; movie industry eyes are undoubtedly going to trained on Paramount's big three geek-friendly 2009 releases (Star Trek, GI Joe and the second Transformers movie) to see whether the studio's lack of presence at this year's con affected both buzz and box office. After all, there wasn't a Watchmen-esque Dark Knight presence at last year's con, and that seemed to turn out alright... As comic artist Aaron Alexovich notes, there are other - potentially cheaper - ways to tell (more) people about your project:

The engine behind all this insane expansion is the big Hollywood machine that rattled and churned and got itself twisted around in the direction of “geek culture” a few years ago. Which is great; more attention for the comic world is a good thing. But I can’t help but wonder when the great Hollywood behemoth is going to realize you don’t need to hurl a million dollars into Hall H to sell Watchmen to nerds. Nerds, as it turns out, can occasionally be found on the internet.

Additionally, with so many media-noses out of joint after this year's con (Personally, I thought it was fun to post stories while sitting on the floor of the hallway, but then, I also secretly wanted a fedora with a card in it that said "press," so you can pretty much ignore my opinion), it's not impossible that next year may also see a smaller press turnout, as well. Will 2009 be the year that San Diego Comic-Con begins to move back towards some semblance of comprehensibility for everyone attending?

Ask us again this time next year.

Flickr images by Andy Castro (Signage) and ColorBlindPicasso (crowd).

According to Marvel's Director of Merchandising, Damon Nee, the show brought the show to a standstill:

Traffic stopped all around the booth as fans craned their necks to take in the costumes... Well, the models in the costumes.

Maybe people were so stunned by the tackiness that they lost the ability to use their legs? It's definitely a possibility with outfits like these:

That's right. It's the cast of the long awaited What If Marvel's Superheroes Were Played By E!'s The Girls Next Door.

Marvel say that these costumes will be available in time for Hallowe'en this year, with their official letter of apology to signficant others of superhero fetishists who were forced to wear said costumes by their partners being available the next day.

Marvel Fashion Show Recap [Marvel.com]

We asked Browder if he'd ever appear on Stargate Atlantis, and he hauled producer Brad Wright over to help answer the question. Wright wouldn't make any promises, but did say he hoped to feature Browder in another direct-to-DVD Stargate movie soon.

When we asked Browder how he feels embodying heroic archetypes like Farscape's Crichton and Stargate's Mitchell. He was super modest: "I let someone like Brad write it, and I just say the words. My job, in a lot of ways is the easy job... my job is just the fun part. I get to go out and do the boy stuff and do the fun stuff, I don't think I think about the heroic archetype. That's something the writers take care of, and the directors and the editors."

Browder had some practice being villainous when he was being mind-controlled by Scorpius in Farscape. Would he like to play an out-and-out villain sometime? Yes, he said. "I think it'd be a lot of fun. Now, wearing prosthetics on a full-time basis — that's not fun."

We asked Tapping about the difference between the gadget heavy Stargate and the more low-tech setting on Sanctuary, and she said Sanctuary is much more "steampunk." Actually, the making of Sanctuary is much more high-tech, because it's entirely shot in greenscreen. But there's less technobabble and fewer gadgets, because her character is 157 years old, and she borrows from all different eras. She said it's a bit weird to be shooting in greenscreen all the time, and she gets a "green chromakey headache." But the good news is that the show's art department shows the actors a really good representation of what the scenes will look like when they're done, so they know what they're reacting to.

In Sanctuary, Tapping plays Dr. Helen Magnus, who protects the "abnormals" (the mutants that society has deemed deviations, but who may actually be the next step in human evolution.) So she's sort of like Professor X from the X-Men, except not bald, "and hopefully prettier," she said.

And she confirmed that she'll be in at least a couple more episodes of Stargate Atlantis this season, plus a third direct-to-DVD Stargate movie.

It's... a Burger King Joker, I guess? Or perhaps an Emperor Joker? But what with a conference center full of Heath Ledger-alikes, it was nice to see a different take on ol' smiley.
And here's the Joker's Dark Knight nemesis, looking just as impressive as he did with millions of dollars' worth of CGI behind him.
You can just imagine the conversation here, can't you? "Okay, I'm gonna be Arnold Terminator. I'll look bad-ass and have blood all over me. You can be the other guy from T2. Here. Stick this on your hand and dress like a cop."
Dear DC Comics:
This is why a Question movie would look awesome.
Am I the only person who finds this Plastic (Wo)Man strangely sexy? If so, forget I said anything.
He may play a faceless hard-ass in the Halo videogames, but in real life? The Master Chief is a nerd just like you and me.
Hulk Smash! Or, if his plush muscles are anything to go by, maybe he'll just cuddle you to death.
The stars of Star Wars: Episode 2.5: When Those Clones Were Kids.
Sadly, when you tried to open up his chest in real life, it was already full of blood and guts and shit.
While I didn't see any Doctor Mrs. The Monarchs - and shame on all of you for that, collective Comic-Con attendees - this awesome Dr. Henry Killinger (complete with Monarch Henchman) almost made up for it.
No, your eyes really aren't deceiving you; that really is Teela and Evil-Lyn cosying up to the terrifying mascot of Mattel, "Matty". I'm telling you, Matty freaked me out last weekend.
Now that he's lost his main squeeze to a freakily-headed corporate mascot, poor Skeletor has nothing better to do than just hang around the con, heartbroken.
There are two children who are going to grow up to resent their parents. Do you think that when the little girl hits puberty and starts rebelling against her mom and dad, they'll make her wear the Dark Phoenix outfit instead?
You know what makes this Starscream so great? The incredibly happy, smiling face. He may be a murderous killing machine out to enslave humanity, but look at him - He's so cute!
Possibly the best outfits of the entire con - Human Tie Fighters. The only thing that would've made this better would be if someone had thought to decorate the entire con like the surface of the Death Star, so that at the end of Sunday, they could've run around it, while a gang of kids dressed as the Millennium Falcon pretended to shoot at them before shouting "You're all clear, kid! Now let's blow this thing so we can all go home!"

Four Days, Four Hundred Cosplay Photos. Welcome to the Ultimate Geek Gallery [Maximum PC]

So once we hashed out the whole "Helo always does the right thing" meme, which I totally believe, we asked Tahmoh if we were going to see him go darker in Dollhouse. In Dollhouse, Penikett plays Paul Ballard, an FBI agent who is investigating the mysterious "Dollhouse," where you can hire a mindwiped puppet who can be programmed to be anyone you need him/her to be.

Penikett says that unlike Helo, who is a "family man" who's all about his wife and kid, Ballard is a lone wolf, with nobody in his life. Ballard used to be a rising star within the FBI, but his belief in the shadowy mind-erasing Dollhouse has ruined his credibility. He's "hanging on to his job by a shoestring," and the Bureau is disappointed with him.

And Ballard is curious about the Dollhouse and its technology. Could he be curious about it because he'd like to hire an "Active" for himself? Or does Ballard secretly want his own mind erased? Penikett hinted that it may be the latter. Ballard has some things that he wants to forget, and the Dollhouse's technology could help him leave his past behind.

Penikett also says the majority of his scenes in the original Dollhouse pilot are with Eliza Dushku. He's excited about the new pilot, because it's "like getting a second chance... You do a project, you have a timeline, you do a great job, and then suddenly you see another opportunity to basically do a test sequence." This lets creator Joss Whedon do an episode before the pilot and introduce the premise a new way.

The first half of my talk with Colin Ferguson got cut off, but it went something like this. I asked him about the fact that Jack Carter's rebellious sister, Lexxie, is coming to town. How is it that the strait-laced Jack has a rebellious daughter and a rebellious sister? Ferguson responded that Jack is actually the rebel — the only conservative one in a family of bohemians. Like Michael J. Fox's character in Family Ties?, I asked. That's exactly how he sees the character: like Alex Keaton, Ferguson said.

I followed up by asking: So is Sheriff Carter sort of a co-dependent figure? He spends a lot of time cleaning up after the messes that everyone else in town makes. Ferguson laughed and said, pretty much. And that's where the video started working, apparently.

Ferguson: Pretty much.

io9: And you're keeping it together for them.

Ferguson: Yeah, I think so. If you look at how he likes to work in town, he's a law guy, but he sort of thinks outside the box, and and I think that's the way it works best, anyway.

io9: And I know it's going to be more funny on Eureka this year? It was darker last year.

Ferguson: Yeah, we're going lighter this year. I think they went really dark last year, and not that it was right or wrong, and now they're like, we're going to go lighter.

io9: One last question. Do you think the show is going to get away from doing homages to things, the way it does now?

Ferguson: I don't know. I think we use that as one of our templates. You sort of have your five or six templates that you go to, and one of them is the serialized aspect of the show, and another one is sort of, people look at their favorite type of movies and they go like, "What's our version of that? What can we do with that?" And that's really fun to act. You can play out all sorts of fantasies.

And then we got to talk to producer Jaime Paglia:

io9: So I understand season three of the show is going to be less dark?

Paglia: Yeah, I think so. Season two, I definitely wanted to do justice to the storyline with Henry, and it was sort of a dark place that he was going to, and we had to sort of push boundaries with that storyline. And we had to, I think, push boundaries in that direction. There are times that we may have gone a little darker than our tone would normally be. To me, if there's a theme for season three, it's renewal. We're renewing old friendships and relationships, and putting to bed some of the past darkness for some of our characters as those demons are kind of dealt with, so getting back to the light side of Eureka was kind of a goal, and it's going to be kind of fun.

It's a little hard to hear our question at the start of the clip, but basically we asked Helfer if Six would be sad if she succeeded in wiping out the humans, because then who'd appreciate her beauty? Helfer responded that maybe the other Cylons would still appreciate Six's beauty, but also that Six doesn't gain validation from being admired for her looks. She gets validation from doing her job, and her gorgeous looks are just a means to that end, preserving the Cylon race.

We followed up by asking if maybe whoever created the human-looking Cylons designed Six to be the most beautiful? And she responded that she doesn't think Six is any more beautiful than any of the other Cylons. (Yes, even Dean Stockwell.) But maybe, she conceded, Six is the most glamorous — but that was only because her most important mission was to get on Gaius Baltar's "good side" to get the defense codes. For Six, it was all about the mission.

And Helfer's been very happy to play other versions of Six, such as the rebel Natalie, who are less glamorous and more obviously brainy and badass. She's glad people are finally seeing the strong, competent woman she always thought Six was, instead of being distracted by the big blonde hair and the slinky dress.

io9: You've said that season two will feature John Connor stepping up and becoming more of the hero we know he's going to be. How do we build up John Connor without tearing down Sarah Connor?

Friedman: I don't know that you don't. I think, dramatically, when you're looking for conflict, to keep characters always with the same problems and the same attitudes gets boring. Everyone knows what Sarah Connor is, and that the thing that's most important to her is her son. And it's not about making her a good hero or tough or alpha, it's really about how you can be the toughest person around, and [it's still a problem] if your primary relationship, in her case with John, is suffering in some way. She still kicks ass, we have a lot of that, but how important is that if you have a problem in your primary relationship? So it's less about john becoming a hero, and more about John moving away from home and becoming an adult. It's just more problematic when he does that.

io9: We've been wondering. What is this thing with Terminators having names? Like Cromartie? He uses that name in the first episode when he's masquerading as a school teacher, and it becomes his name for the rest of the series.

Friedman: It becomes his name for the rest of the series, for those who need to call him something. Obviously, they don't have real names — it just helps us identify them.

I have something which I've never told anybody, which I will tell you: I am determined to never use the word "Terminator" in the show. I don't like it in the dialogue — it sounds weird to me. I think it was when I was watching The Sopranos, and I realized after five years, that I had never heard the word "Mafia." And finally it was said once, and the guy who says it gets killed. And it was really interesting that they'd never said that word. After our first episode [of Sarah Connor] I realized I never used it in that episode, and I said I'm going to see if I can go without it.

io9: So we know nobody named Connor will die on this show, and they'll never avert Judgment Day. Is the show's suspense mostly around the other characters? Does Brian Austin Green have a target painted on his forehead? Or is more about the relationships?

Friedman: [Laughs] I think partially, it's the relationships. I think when someone says the apocalypse is not going to be averted, well, yes. They're going to try as hard as they can to avert it. [But that's not what the show is really about.] In the first movie... the Terminator's not coming back to stop John Connor because John Connor is going to stop the Apoclaypse. [Connor] is going to save mankind. Skynet is, in a way, a rapid dog chase around the dog park. [The real issue is] will this boy in our show become what he needs to be to save the future? Skynet is probably inevitable.

By sending back a Terminator [Summer Glau] to be with John Connor, you're changing his character inherently, and what does that change him into? And what dos that mean? Is he becoming a different leader in the future? And i think this year we will see more ramifications from his relationship with [Glau's] Cameron. He has sent her back to help and protect, but the intensity of that relationship can't but affect him in the future, and I think that is something that is problematic.

io9: So how does that affect him? Does it make him more emotionless, because he's spending his formative years hanging out with a robot? More cautious, because he's living with a bodyguard?

Friedman: I don't know that those are the only two choices. It may make him more dependent on machines, than the original iteration of John Connor. John and Sarah have completely different attitudes towards Terminators: Sarah hates them, she's like a racist. They come back and try to kill her. [But for John] the function of Terminators in the movies was always as a father figure. Terminator 3 sort of abandoned that family dynamic, and who is this Terminator to John. So I think John has always had a more open idea about what they can do, he's repogrammed some and sent them back because he thinks of them as a little more mutable, which I think is potentially problematic or complicating his attitude to them in the future.

io9: So the show really isn't about stopping Skynet?

Friedman: [It's more about the fact that] we're going to die, what are we going to do from now until then? How are we going to live our lives? that's what the show's about: what are you going to do with your day knowing you're going to die? They think they can stop [Skynet], but we as fans think they're not going to stop it. But hopefully we're interested in watching them try to stop it. And are they going to be in any shape to deal with what happens next?

io9: So one of the most exciting things for me about the early SCC episodes was the Heathers riff, with the hazing and the girl who kills herself. And then it vanished. What happened to it?

Friedman: I was diasppointed. It was mostly cut for length. I was on strike from episode 2 to episode 9 in terms of editing. There were a couple of rough cuts of episodes 2, 3 and 4 when I left. We had shot most of the season, and I did not edit most of them. We had [high school] storylines that extended through most of those episodes. It always ended up being the things that got cut when it went long. I made all the writers watch Brick before we started. I was such a fan of it. High school is dangerous. It's dangerous on that Heathers level, interpersonally, and also it's a scary place. There was no safe place for John. You couldn't say, send him to high school, and have him say: "Mom's off saving the world, and I'm off with my wacky robot sister." The suicide and the blackmailing — I wanted it to be life and death, and I had a plan for it.

io9: So is that stuff gone in season two?

Friedman: This year, it's pretty much gone. For a while anyway. [It's a tough question] Do you cut away from Sarah being chased by a cyborg, to John in English class? We tried to make them kiss each other. We had a Heroes writer on our staff. I said to her, "We're taking the cheerleader, we're putting her on the roof, and we're having her jump. And she's dying." I wanted people to realize it's not going to be a fun place.

io9: Some people ask why is John in high school in the first place? Why isn't he hiding in a bunker?

Friedman: That would be a show where they're not going to learn anything. John Connor is a leader of people, he's not just a guy in a tank. He has to convince people to do stuff. How does that boy learn how to lead? And yet not be so above the radar where it's a problem? He's not a hothouse flower. How does that guy know how to lead people if he's just under his mother's wing all the time? That was how I rationalized it. [At first, I didn't want to have John in school at all.] I just wrestled with it. And then I had a really good plan.

io9: So there's a new love interest for John, and Cameron gets jealous?

Friedman: I'm always going to look at John and who's on one shoulder, and who's on the other shoulder, and what are they whispering to him? There are various triangles. This is a kid that everyone wants a piece of in some way, and everyone wants to influence in some way, and [there's kind of a battle for his ear. And who's going to influence him?

io9: One thing i liked in season one was the focus on the female characters in episodes like the Heathers episode and the "I married a Terminator episode." Is that going to continue?

Friedman: I think it is a feminist show, in a very matter of fact way. Sarah is who she is. Cameron is not technically female, but she's a representation of a female. Shirley Manson is in the show now. She's in a lot of episodes. [At this point, he gestured at Manson, doing another interview, and I realized that I'd been sitting two feet away from her for half an hour without noticing.]

We actually have another character, played by Busy Phillips [from Freaks And Geeks], a character who lives next Sarah who is 8 months pregnant. The actor actually is 8 months pregnant, she is only in 3 or 4 episodes before she gives birth. We really show her body and show her pregnancy, which for me is a really interesting thing. I've taken a lot of flack from people who think she's too pregnant on the show. We have an episode where she's wearing a skirt and a bikini top. And you realize, you never see that on television. You never see pregnant women on television. You see fake pregnant women on television. It's throwing some people off. You see some of the dailies, and people are like, "She's huge." In these scenes with Sarah and John Connor, who are these little dark lean pieces of beef jerky. It's important for people to see that, if you're going to put on the sexy robots, you need to put on other representations of women and the female form. Not for political reasons — I do it because it works on the show, and there's a reason thematically. She's like the alternate version of Sarah Connor, if Sarah wasn't Sarah Connor. She's a single mother, pregnant with a son. She's Sarah, if everything was okay. That's kind of what I wanted to do, and really show how full she is of life and how the other characters are death-oriented. I think this show does work for women, I think it should work more than it does, and I'm pretty sure it will.

io9: Will Busy Phillips be in more episodes after she gives birth?

Friedman: I hope so.

Photo of Josh Friedman by Josie SF.

Want to know about all the exclusive clips we saw of upcoming movies scheduled for next year, plus pore over interviews we did with their directors and stars? Learn more about what to expect from The Day the Earth Stood Still, Terminator 4: Salvation, Watchmen, Tr2n, and Wolverine.

One of our coolest discoveries at Comic-Con was that there was a Bryan Singer-helmed Battlestar Galactica reboot in the works back in 2001, which got derailed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in the United States. After we posted about that, we got an email from Tom Desanto, exec producer of that suppressed show, who sent us images of the cylons they had created for the 2001 show, which look pretty awesome. We also got a sneak peek at the next 10 episodes of the show, which apparently include a lot of firepower. We also got some face-time with show creator David Eick, and asked James "Baltar" Callas about his leadership secrets.

We got a little hopped up on the reboot of GI Joe, whose dark, near-future TV series Resolute will re-introduce audiences to the super-soldier character of yore. Apparently the budget for the GI Joe flick is bigger than the one for the first Transformers movie.

We got some amazing exclusive interviews, including with the new showrunner for Doctor Who, Steven Moffat. And there were also some sneak looks at the upcoming Who X-mas special from Russel T. Davies.

And we adored hanging out with Matthew Fox, (Jack from Lost), as well as the recruiters at the Dharma Initiative booth.

Plus, we spilled the beans on what's next for Heroes.

In the world of comics, there are new retro developments in the Superman comic, and a really big announcement about a new writer on Batman (yes, it's Neil Gaiman — we are not kidding, mega-fans). You can expect a massive Spider-Man revamp from Marvel, as well as a book based on a Philip K. Dick short story. You can see our full coverage of every single comic book revelation at Comic-Con here.

Probably the coolest upcoming TV show making its way around Comic-Con was Dollhouse, from the brain of Joss Whedon, who also had a special announcement about his web series Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog. I know it's kind of mean, but we made fun of Knight Rider after hearing way too much about KITT.

Meeting the cast of Fringe, along with show creator JJ Abrams, charmed our socks off and made us a lot less skeptical about this mytho-scifi show about a fearless intelligence agent and her mad scientist sidekicks. We were also pretty excited about everything Stargate, and everything Clone Wars.

And of course, there were a lot of frakkin toys, and we've got the pictures to prove it.

The feature film based on the scifi cartoon is supposed to come out in 2009. A lonely scientist, Doctor Tenma, builds Astro Boy to replace his son that died in a tragic accident. Astro grows and begins to fight crime around the world, but his biggest challenge is overcoming robot haters.

In Stargate Worlds, you'll be able to form a squad of online friends, or venture out into the Gate-verse on your own. You can also decide whether or not you want to be a good guy or a baddie (myself I'd rather be a soldier over a System Lord). The game will be released December 30, 2008.

Seriously, people: Abrams had even complained about the fact that Paramount wouldn't let him show anything two weeks ago. Did you really think he was joking? Still, Entertainment Weekly suggests that the lack of the hoped-for-despite-everything footage ) might have had something to do with the people behind Fringe:

For days, there had been lots of buzz that executive producers J.J. Abrams (pictured), Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman were going to use the panel to debut a few minutes from Trek (which was directed by Abrams and written by Orci and Kurtzman, and is set for release next May). Zachary Quinto, who plays a young Spock in the new movie was even in attendance. But almost 40 minutes into the session, it seemed certain that Abrams had no intention of unveiling the much-anticipated footage, despite comments from insiders around him who said he actually had three minutes from Trek ready to debut... So what happened? One key source says Fox, the network that will air Fringe, may have nixed Abrams' plan at the very last minute (a Fox spokesman could not be reached late Saturday).

Now, I've got no problem with people blaming Fox for things that are, you know, actually their fault, but this is kind of ridiculous. We'd been told, more than once, that Paramount was going to have no presence here at Comic-Con and not show any footage from their upcoming movies. We've had JJ himself complain about that decision. It's not like we've been given any inclination that Paramount was joking around, and that they were ready to let something slip, and that it's a completely other studio that ruined everything... Sometimes a phaser is just a phaser, media people.

Did Fox nix a 'Star Trek' preview at the 'Fringe' panel? [Entertainment Weekly]

The Smallville producers showed a new season eight trailer, which included footage from previous seasons, but also new footage of Green Arrow, Aquaman, Black Canary and new characters Davis Bloome/Doomsday and Tess Mercer. New clips included Clark getting the stuffing beat out of him in Russia, Chloe saying that she's nothing special, while trying to get away from an attacker, and Chloe and Jimmy together. And Metropolis in ruins. Green Arrow shoots Clark, and then we see an S-pendant in Clark's hand. And Doomsday saying: "There's something out there, and whatever it is, it can kill you."

The big announcement at the Smallville panel was that Geoff Johns will write an episode of the show, introducing the Legion Of Superheroes, Clark's buddies from the 30th and 31st centuries. It's a kind of goofier, more futuristic version of the Justice League, where everybody has "flight rings" that allow them to fly, and most characters have one super-power that's spelled out in his/her name, like Matter-Eater Lad or Lightning Lass.

Also, the producers repeated their previous statements that they would keep the "no tights" rule for Clark, but relax the show's old "no flights" rule. They said they wouldn't rule out a cross-over with fellow CW show Supernatural. Tess Mercer won't just be replacing Lex as head of LuthorCorp, she'll also be Clark's boss at the Daily Planet. Chloe will be developing new powers, and other new attributes, this season. Also, it was hinted that the footage of Metropolis strewn with rubble was the result of Doomsday putting the big crazy smackdown on Clark's ass. Picture of Smallville Comic-Con bag from Seat 42F. [Thanks To Smallville Podcast and Wizard Universe]

What was the blueprint for Fringe? Abrams told reporters earlier that it came from a student film he'd done that was a comedy version of Altered States.

Fringe sounds great and all, but if Abrams really wants to give us something cool, he'll redo that slapstick version of Altered States one day — maybe with a little music? Who doesn't want to see a guy singing about regressing to homo erectus?

An original story developed by X-Force writers Craig Kyle and Chris Yost, Hulk Vs. Wolverine is an direct-to-DVD animated feature with just about every villain (or, in one or two select cases, antihero) who's associated with the Weapon X program, and has what can generously be described as a pro-impalement policy. While the infamous "gingerbread Logan" scene from Damon Lindehof's Ultimate Wolverine Vs Hulk wasn't featured, the scene with Deadpool making jokes while chasing after his freshly sliced-off arm almost makes up for it.

Other big pluses for the feature include a nifty little flashback segment utilizing designs from Barry Windsor-Smith's classic Weapon X storyline, a compact running time that works its hardest to feature an explosion every 90 seconds, and witty dialogue (particularly when the above-mentioned Deadpool is on the scene), as well as Deathstryke, Omega Red and Sabretooth.

In a brief panel after the screening, writer/supervising producer Kyle mentioned additional upcoming features, such as Hulk Vs. Thor, which he promises will be "equally as violent, but in a different, epic, gods-smashing way." If they manage to retain the right amount of wit, blood, fanservice, cameos, and concision, Marvel and Lions Gate will have potential hits on their hand. Hulk Vs. Wolverine is currently scheduled for Blu-Ray and DVD release in January 2009, but if positive word of mouth pushes the release closer to the 2008 holiday season, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.

Dan Didio hinted at another announcement earlier in the panel by accident, saying "Okay, so we got Battle For The Cowl - Oh shit! Cut that," before moving into a Q&A session where the new writer of Booster Gold was announced (creator Dan Jurgens is taking over writing as well as art), we were promised new focus on Aquaman, and given hints about the identities of future zombie supervillains in Geoff Johns' The Blackest Night (Will we see zombie Jor-El or zombie Earth-2 Superman? "Anyone dead is eligible," said Johns - Except for Garth Ennis' Hitman).

The announcement itself came in the form of a thirty-second video at the end of the panel, which showed a Bat-Signal shining on a coffin while the words "Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader?" appeared on screen. The story - written by Gaiman and drawn by Andy Kubert - will begin in January next year, but no details were given on where it will appear or in what form. But it's beginning to look a lot more like Batman's definitely going to disappear at the end of RIP, if not die outright...

IDW's Saturday panel at Comic-Con also included Editor-in-Chief Chris Ryall mentioning that the company was talking to various "big name" authors about a line of upcoming adaptations of classic science fiction novels. IDW's Ideas And Dreams [Comic Book Resources]

Even though creator Josh Schwartz called the second season's first episode "like a new pilot for us," the show isn't looking to recreate itself when it comes back to screens; the new season will follow through on plot threads left over from the show's first season, cut short by the writers' strike, including Casey having to choose between his duty and his relationship with Chuck, the struggle for assistant managerdom of the Buy More and even a return by secret agent man Bryce "at the most opportune time."

Not that the series will just be resting on its laurels: New characters being added will include Chuck's long-lost love Jill (to be played by The Fast And The Furious' Jordana Brewster), new Nerd Herder Emmitt, and - most excitingly of all - Captain Awesome's parents, the Awesomes. Other guest stars will include former Julie Cooper Melinda Clarke, Sin City's Michael Clarke Duncan and - as we've already reported - tragic celebrity's Nicole Ritchie.

In terms of plot, we can expect to see Chuck get the chance of a normal life when a new Intersec is created, the CIA have to make Chuck into a faux Bill Gates in order to impress a girl and, in a plot that may or may not be a joke, Chuck's boss Big Mike to fall in love with Morgan's mother. Apparently, you can take the showrunner out of The OC, but you can't take The OC out of the showrunner.

Chuck returns September 29th.

[The Futon Critic]

These detourned versions of Sideshow's Oversize Darth Vader figure are just two of many on show at the con (including an MC Vader, complete with turntable). Admit it; if The Clone Wars had characters that looked like this, you'd all be much more excited about tuning in when it premieres this fall.

[Sideshow Collectables]

Abrams once again reiterated that Fringe will have standalone episodes, and won't get mired in a crazy mythology that nobody can follow. He also says that he and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have a strong sense of where the story is going, and where it should end, though they don't have a set amount of time they plan to spin it out. Orci and Kurtzman have been involved in the show from the beginning, he said, and they are really co-creators. Apparently Orci is the big conspiracy nut of the bunch.

Earlier, in a press conference, Abrams confirmed that the show would be very dark. It's hard to imagine how you could go darker than Lost, but apparently we're in for that. Abrams likes to lurk in that middle area between mythology and science, so he can certainly veer into weird territory and he guarantees that it's going to get a lot weirder than that first episode which was leaked online. (He still denies that they wanted to leak it, and if that's true he and his fellow creators have been awfully nice to the fans about it — nobody's been sued for swapping it around.)

Of course people were clamoring for Star Trek news, and we got some. They're putting on the finishing touches, and Abrams told reporters that they would essentially have a finished movie by December, though the release isn't slated until May of 2009. He also revealed that he has become very "intimate" with issues around warp core breaches. Apparently we will see some major warp core action, which is always a good sign. As long as they don't have that glowy blue column thing from Next Generation.

Also, most importantly, there will be a Cloverfield 2 (as we've been reporting for a while), but it won't be a sequel. It will be something "surprising," said Abrams. Tomorrow, we'll share with you what Abrams told us on video about what the most important monster feature is, from the perspective of a guy who has created a lot of monsters.

Hat tip to the Futon Critic's awesome liveblog of the event.

BSG and Caprica:

I asked Eick whether BSG's ending would tie in with the prequel series. Did the development of Caprica spell any changes for how BSG ends? No, said Eick. The two shows have been totally separate since Caprica first went into development a couple of years ago. "They were on two separate tracks," and BSG's ending has been planned out "in broad strokes" for a long time.

So does that mean we won't see any Caprica characters in the tail end of BSG — such as Daniel Graystone or his daughter Zoe? Eick confirmed that nobody from Caprica would be turning up on BSG. "It's a prequel, so we don't have to deal with that kind of cross-pollination, since it takes place 51 years before the BSG miniseries."

The BSG TV movie:

It's not a done deal yet, says Eick. If it happens, it'll be like Razor in that it'll "involve a unique perspective on a story you thought you knew." He won't reveal when in the show's past it takes place, but it delves into "territory that the fans would be familiar with, and offers new perspective."

Lee Adama actor Jamie Bamber says it's "highly unlikely" that he would be in the TV movie, now that he's starring in Law And Order: UK. "I don't think the story is intended to be a Lee story anyway, from what i know." He wouldn't mind going back and reprising the role of Lee, but he feels like the show has ended well and he won't lose any sleep if he never plays Apollo again.

On subverting expectations:

Eick says having the title Battlestar Galactica helped the show. "I don't want to say it lowered expectations, but it created a climate of expectations that it was going to be a certain type of show that it didn't turn out to be." People expected something goofy, funny, escapist or silly from a show with that title — and maybe BSG would have been more popular if it had been more escapist — but that wasn't the show Eick and Ronald D. Moore were making. And the show, as it was, took people by surprise.

On being a secret cylon:

I asked Michael Trucco (Sam Anders) how he tried to convey Sam's unease within his own skin after Sam found out he was a Cylon. Trucco said that sense of unease was "exactly what i was hoping would come across." He wanted Anders to have a sense of not just confusion about being a cylon, but "actually loss of identity." Everything Anders felt was true was wrong. The sky is red instead of blue, and it's always been red in spite of what you might think. Everything Sam thought he stood for was upended, and he was a "man without a country," not knowing what he was. And of course, Anders was paranoid about Starbuck finding out, after she said she would put a bullet in his head if he was a Cylon.

Trucco's only regret about playing Anders was the show didn't explore his feelings when he thought Starbuck was dead at the end of season three more.

The Gaius Baltar leadership method:

When I realized I was about to be sitting next to James Callis — who comes across exactly like Gaius Baltar in person, but much nicer — I had a question I was burning to ask. As Baltar, he's been a political leader and a religious leader. How are those two different ways of wielding power different?

His answer was very Baltar-esque: "Political power on some level is leading from the front, and it's a very ego-driven... Lots of smiling and glad handing. And being the religious guru is about searching for something internally. The third eye doesn't look outwards, it looks inwards." (When he said that last part, he got that Baltar mock-serious look on his face.) He also said he was very relieved he would never have to be "this guy" any more.

The trailer begins, and John Connor (Christian Bale) is on the radio looking beat as hell. The radio sparks and asks him how many survivors? Connor rasps into the radio quietly, "One". "What?" cracks the radio with indignation, and Connor screams "One!" and gets up and walks away. Around him is a burnt landscape strewn with Terminator remains. Next, we see a tied-up Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), face to face with a pissed-as-hell Connor. He leans in towards Marcus and leers as he says, "If I let you go, you'll kill eveyone in this room... You know me, we've been at war. Before I ever existed." Which pretty much seals the deal that Marcus is a Terminator. Next you hear Marcus asking blindly outside what day and year it is? He's met by a young Kyle Reese who leans in and says, "Judgment Day." And then later he yells out "follow me if you want to live." It's amazing how the new Kyle (Anton Yelchin) has captured many of the original Kyle's ticks, including the toothy grin. Then there are a few Mad Max-esque car and motorcycle chase scenes, with Kyle shooting a huge shot gun. Tanks roll over skulls, and then mammoth robot feet crush more skulls. Marcus appears to be escaping with a young boy from the Skynet human research facilities (where humans are kept in pens). Actress Moon Bloodgood (Journeyman) stands topless in the rain and gives the sexy eye to Marcus (Ooh, love connection). John Connor says, "This is not the future my mother told me about." He sounds depressed, then he yells out, "You tried killing my mother, you killed my father, you will not kill me!" Overall, amazing.

So what else does T4 have in store for us. We know that the film takes place after the bombs have dropped in the year 2018. McG won't say what year the big boom takes place, but did tell us in the panel that they took science into consideration, making sure that enough time would have passed for the air to clear so humans could breathe. Sam Worthington concurred, "we studded what flora and fauna would look like in the future after terrible radiation."

Terminator 4 will be a multicultural rainbow of death. Race, sex and religion matter not to John Connor's human resistance, or at least to T4's director. McG told the fans at the comic con Terminator Salvation panel that there won't be a bunch of, "lilly white people running around running things." Which is why rapper Common is helping to lead the resistance.

Sam Worthington also remarked that you couldn't be a pansy to go toe-to-toe with Christian Bale and McG agreed, "You need an actor who can stand up in a two shot and so many actors, that's not for them. You could see the tension in the clip, where Bale says you tried to kill my mother, you tried to kill my father. I won't let you kill me. I think he stands well against him"

The look of the film will be dirty, McG called it "a greasy, grimy and brutal world that we saw earlier from Cameron in Aliens." He also later revealed in round tables that he wouldn't do the film without Cameron's blessing. But was mum about Arnold being back, as it would spoil the movie (which means yes, and it's already been reported that there will be a younger version of Arnold's terminator).

The director seems to be really taken with the fact that we are all doomed. And stated, "Science fiction is over. We live in a world where we can clone sheep. Be careful when you create life because the life you create may kick you in the ass."

In a panel moderated by Kevin Smith (who admitted, "I have nothing to do with the show, which is probably why it's so good. There was a rumor last year that I would be involved, but fucking Ronald D. Moore nipped that one in the bud"), the cast and crew of "the single best show in the history of television" (Smith's words) talked about what made the show so good, refused to spoil the identity of the final Cylon, but did reveal who was almost one of the final four.

The panel started with David Eick and Ron Moore discussing the downbeat ending of Revelations, where - spoilers! - everyone finds Earth:

Eick: We knew we had to end the midseason with something. We argued about whether to reveal that Baltar was the fifth cylon or... wait a minute.
Moore: The end of the first half was almost the end of the show, because of the writers' strike. We were all, well, that would kind of suck. "They get to Earth and it sucks. Thank you! Goodbye!" ...There's a fair amount of, what do we do next? And then the story continues in unexpected ways. There's a tremendous amount of unheaval. It's not really the most happy-go-lucky ten episodes we've ever done, which I'm sure doesn't come as a surprise.
Eick: Lee gets REALLY fat this time.

Eick and James Callis also explained how it had taken him so long to come to terms with the contradictory nature of Gaius Baltar:

Callis: In an American story, the bad guy gets more tail, is that it? I found making the first stuff... when you're preaching that you love god, can you be a complete nymphomaniac on the side? Does that make you less spirtitual? It took me three years to work that out. There are so many people who have goodness in their heart, but they're obsessed with something. One particular thing. These last few reasons, I've found that Gaius makes peace with himself on that.
Eick: These are the kind of discussions we have when, in the script, it says "And then Baltar has sex with her." An hour later, we're like, James, please, go have sex with her.

Katee Sackhoff, meanwhile, also had a hard time with her own character's flaws:

It's nice, I guess, to be a role model? It's a little scary at times, I guess. I hope that people teach their children to take Starbuck's bad and throw it away, the drinking a lot and sleeping around... Use protection. I'm just rambling a lot now, because I have no idea to answer that question... There's a fine line that we've tried to walk with her, where she's very good at her job, and then there's a fine line of turning her into some kind of superhero. There's a fine line of what's realistic and what's not.

Jamie Bamber admitted that Apollo had taken on the traditionally female role in the series, and kept having to be rescued by Starbuck, to which Sackhoff told him that it was okay; he should just sit there and look pretty instead of worrying. Bamber did praise what he called the show's "gender blindness," however:

The show is groundbreaking in many areas, especially the way it deals with genders. The men and women on the show, they shower together, fly together and still sleep together. It doesn't matter.

The revelation of the show's four final Cylons came as a relief to Michael Trucco, who plays Anders:

I'm just a freeloader up here. I'm the Johnny Come Lately. Katee Sackhoff I thank sincerely for my existence. It was like winning the lottery... It was a dream job. I stuck around, and at the end of season 3, they give me a script that says you're a cylon and I'm like, fucking wow. Guess I'll be around for awhile... Aaron Douglas was the first one to tell me [I was a cylon]. He was like, dude dude dude, you heard? We're gonna be Cylons. And I was like, shut up. They don't even know my name on this set. They're even calling me Steve.

Eick admitted that, even up to the decision being made, the producers were wavering:

It was like Gaeta? Anders? Gaeta? Anders? for awhile.

Asked by Smith for their most kick-ass moments from the show ("It sounds wrong when I say it," complained Callis. "Kick-arse."), a certain theme started to appear:

Michael Trucco: When I came on the show. My Mexican standoff with Helo and Sackhoff.
Sackhoff: When Galactica fires its cannons. They're really neat. I like it, it's neat. My other one has to do with guns as well... The Mexican standoff with Trucco reminded me... When Helo and I rescued Anders, our stuntguy gave me two machine guns and says, "You can have two machine guns" and I'm like awesome. Trucco: The propguy didn't hand you two guns, Sackhoff fucking demanded two guns.
Sackhoff: Jamie always asks me, why are you always the only swat guys in a t-shirt, and I'm like, why not? I just did it. The two guns, why not? Two are better than one.
Helfer: I got to shoot some guns. Finally. James and I, we started the first scene of the miniseries having sex and we finished the main shooting [of the series] with shooting.
Callis: Filming the end of Battlestar was like being in Apocalypse Now.

Producer David Eick has an entirely different favorite memory, however:

Eick: It's hard to pick one... Hard to identify one as the best. For me, the most memorable moment was watching Starbuck and Number Six pound the entire living shit out've each other for an entire act at the end of season one.
Sackhoff: We beat the living crap out've each other. I think we became friends that day.
Eick: They wouldn't kiss, though, no matter how much I begged them.
Sackhoff: They always said that if the ratings dropped then they'd do that fight again , but with Jello.
Tricia Helfer: Thank you for keeping the ratings up.

As to what to expect from the finale of the series, no-one was really giving anything away, especially not the identity of the final Cylon; Ron Moore did offer "I can tell you it's someone you've seen. It won't be a guest-star," leading David Eick to joke, "We didn't even have to recast Boxey." The cast did feel that the finale lived up to everything that had come before, however:

Bamber: The ending is an ending. It's utterly sublime and a perfect way to finish the show. It took me by surprise. I remember the final readthrough was a disgraceful exhibit of tears and lower lip wivvering as we got to the end. It does everything justice.
Tahmoh Penikett: I die a horrible death, so that's closure [for me]. I'm joking - Well, maybe I am. No, the final two episodes are perfect. There's a lot of closure to a lot of the storylines, but there are still some questions, which are the way that things should be.

Before the panel closed with the trailer for Caprica, Ron Moore explained what made Battlestar Galactica work for him:

I thought the original show had such a great premise that they couldn't stay true to in their day. Let's take that and take it seriously and be bold. Let's never be afraid to make a mistake. You try to raise the bar every single episode, year in year out, right to the very end.

Buckell said it's daunting to keep up with the tech field, especially when a movie like Apollo 13 feels like steampunk. He added:

For all of the computing power they had, they were using nuts and bolts and analog machines and flipping switches. It's amazing they did it with the tech they had. I don't think scifi raised our expectations — the Apollo program did it. It did something amazing, and we're now just catching up to doing that stuff again without being completely nuts.

Foster joked:

Somebody should write a book about a science fiction writer who can never finish a novel because the technology keeps changing and he has to keep rewriting it. Of course, I'm not going to write that book. My favorite scientific developments are ones nobody sees coming. One of my favorites from the last few years: Chocolate is good for you.

Aguirre mentioned that she "goes dateless" with her books, meaning that she completely avoids the question of how far in the future they're set. But she also reads Wired and Discover to find out what kinds of technology is emerging. She explained:

I came up with a weapon called a disruptor, based it on the work of Australian researchers who were able to teleport some atoms. I wondered what would happen if they never perfected it, and all it did was scramble your guts instead of teleporting you. You'd turn it into a weapon so that people's guts would come out and they'd die of shock. That's what I like to do in SF.

When an audience member asked the panel about what they thought of longevity technologies, the responses were pretty mixed. Sawyer plugged his new book, Rollback, which is all about longevity. Zakour made the observation — which many have already discussed — that marriages wouldn't be the same. You couldn't stay married to one person for hundreds of years. Stross took the long view, however, saying that marriages are the least of it: If you had a society where nobody was dying, you'd be dealing with a culture so dramatically different that it's practically inconceivable.

Buckell had one of the most interesting responses to that question, which was to point out the economic stresses that longevity would cause. He pointed out that social security in the US is the largest part of the federal budget largely because people are living longer than ever before. Stross jumped in to add that in Japan, the average age of rice farmers is quite old, and that he thinks part of the reason the Japanese are building robotic exoskeletons is to help the elderly continue farming well into their 70s. Buckell agreed, and pointed out that our greatest advances over the next decades may arise from the unintended consequences of a population essentially outliving its bodies. Hart followed up by saying that longevity also changes the way women live their lives, because now it's likely that women will live almost half their lives post-menopause. Which is another historical novelty whose consequences we can't predict.

Are there caps on technological advancement?

The conversation moved on to talk about how technologies will affect our bodies.

Aguirre thinks we'll reach a point when you can resculpt your body, as long as you can afford it. People will have bodies designed for certain functions, with incredible specialization. To go to Mars, for example, you'd want adaptations instead of a space suit. Stross said that that issue opens a political can of worms. He believes that conservatives think humans are hardwired, while liberals think they are mutable. With tech that can change humans at a fundamental level, at least one group will see it as a threat (and I think you can guess whom he meant).

Hart asked Zakour rather sarcastically whether the hot babes in his books are all a result of genetic tweaking. He replied, after spluttering a bit, that they probably are. He believes that women are going to become more beautiful, while men remain average. "If you look at TV," he explained, "You get average guy and babes, so that's where society is going." Because TV is where our society is headed?

Sawyer thinks a lot of this advanced biotech and nanotech isn't really about beauty at all. "It means that just one lone mad person could bring the whole species down," he concludes.

In a nutshell, the panel was bookended by a little drama about the Dharma Initiative's recruiting program. A European man named Hans (I think) was there talking about the extensive recruiting program, and he said that they'd hoped to find the best and brightest at Comic-Con. Instead, Dharma found a "truly pathetic" level of ability among the Comic-Con attendees — including producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. The exceptions were six random people, who were brought up on stage and then led away to go to the next level of Dharma initiation.

And then at the end of the panel, one of the Dharma finalists ran back with a video camera of secret recordings he'd made in the Dharma inner sanctum at Comic-Con:

He ran around screaming that people deserved some answers after four years of mystification, and Cuse and Lindelof called security. But security was mysteriously unable to keep the man from playing his tape, which showed scientist Marvin Candle. Candle's real name turns out to be Pierre Chang, and he's an astrophysicist from Ann Arbor. He's been brought to this godforsaken island to study Einstein thingies, and now he knows that he and his colleagues are going to be killed in a purge. He's sending his video forward in time 30 years, to a time when George W. Bush is president and there's something called the internet. And he's imploring people to reconstitute the Dharma Initiative, travel back in time and change history to save him and his colleagues. He says, "TIme is not only of the essence, it IS the essence." Whoah! And then the Dharma Initiative guy got up on stage and said the Initiative was withdrawing sponsorship, and the panel had to end.

Other stuff that Damon and Carlton (and special guest Matthew Fox, who showed up halfway through) said:

• The island did not travel when the hatch imploded, but something did happen.
• We'll see more of Locke and Jin on the show. "Dead is a relative term," and there's still a lot of story to be told about those characters.
• Their favorite episodes are "The Constant" (Carlton) and "Exodus" (Damon). Damon adds that he really liked season four, and he admitted the show has had its "ups and downs."
• They reiterated that getting an end date for the show has really reinvigorated it in terms of giving it energy and purpose.
• We will see Rousseau's story this year, but it won't exactly be a flashback. We're done with flashbacks and flashforwards, but there will be some time-jumping excitement anyway. There will be storytelling on and off the island, and in different periods of time.
• Vincent the Dog is fine and will be in season five — and will survive until the end of the show.
• The Jack/Kate/Sawyer triangle is central to the show, and we'll see more interesting permutations of it over the next two seasons. And Kate will see Sawyer again.
• The nameless extras in the Zodiac boat with Farraday, stranded with the island gone, may be toast, but "things are looking up" for Farraday himself.
• Speaking of Daniel, he has a little notebook that tells him stuff that's happened, and stuff that will happen soon, and it's going to figure prominently in season five.
• Richard Alpert is "quite old," thanks to the island's mystical properties, and we'll see more of his history this year. We'll also see him barefoot in "the near future, pun intended," so we'll find out how many toes he has.

The Q&A at the Heroes panel wasn't particularly exciting, but it was made up for by the showing of the entire premiere episode, which was pretty much non-stop crazy. Various sites were liveblogging the panel, and here's our synthesis of all of the synopses that made it online.

So, in a nutshell, we start four years in the future, when evil future Claire has a gun on evil future Peter. FP begs FC to let him go back in time to the "day they all found out." She shoots at him, but he stops time and ducks out of the bullet's path. Then he puts on a bitchin trenchcoat and goes back in time to shoot Present Nathan. Claire sees the news of Nathan's shooting and phones up to ask if he needs some of her magic blood. But it's too late — Nathan is DEAD! For like a second, then he's all better.

Claire's at home when Sylar busts in on her, saying he wants what she has. (I don't think that blonde hair would look good on Zachary Quinto.) She tries to get away, but he's using his telekinetic powers to lock all the doors and stuff.

Hiro finds a DVD of his dad talking about his "destiny" which leads him to a safe that he must never open, so of course he opens it. It contains another DVD of his dad saying "I told you never to open the safe!" And then talking about how only one with pure blood can safeguard the Heroes. And then there's an envelope with a chemical chart — which Daphne the speedster steals before Hiro can read it.

Meanwhile, Mohinder and Maya talk about stress levels and how adrenalin can boost your superpowers. Somehow, from Maya's blood, Mohinder manages to synthesize a vial of Promycin stuff that will give superpowers to anyone.

Matt confronts Present Peter about the fact that his fingerprints are on the gun that shot Nathan. He tries to read Present Peter's mind but just gets fuzz. And then Present Peter turns into Future Peter, and uses telekinesis to push Matt out of the room, gun in hand.

Nathan goes to church and talks about how he was brought back from the dead for a reason, and how he saw God and now he has a purpose. Future Peter is going to try and shoot Nathan again, but instead he takes Nathan back to his hospital room, still rambling about angels and shit. And then it turns out Linderman the super-healer — who isn't dead, duh — saved Nathan's life. Linderman tells Nathan they're meant to do great things together. Malcolm McDowell FTW! Meanwhile, Niki/Jessica talks to a governor about Nathan.
Claire locks herself in a closet, totally stymying Sylar, whose powers don't work on closets. Then Sylar finds files about Level 5 and starts reading them. Claire sneaks up and stabs him, but that doesn't slow him down. Then he grabs Claire and cuts the top of her head off. Ooky. He pokes around in her brain and finds the source of her powers. Sylar says he's looking for answers before he bleeds to death. Claire asks if Sylar's going to eat her brain, and he says that's disgusting. Sylar finally gains Claire's ability, and pulls the knife out of his chest, healing himself. He almost leaves Claire dead, but puts her skull back together, and she heals as well. He says neither of them can die.

Maya wants Mohinder to destroy the vial of Promycin, but he's excited by the idea of anybody being able to have powers. Mohinder almost destroys the vial, but injects himself instead.

Hiro wants to find out why Daphne is stealing the heroes' secrets. Ando thinks this means another trip to the past, but instead it means a visit to the future. And then we see Future Hiro and Future Ando, having an argument. Future Ando — who has superpowers — zaps Future Hiro with a red fireball. Yatta! Present Hiro runs around the corner and sees Future Tokyo being destroyed in an apocalyptic hell.

Angela is at the side of Nathan, whispering to him. Turns out her superpower has something to do with giving Nathan weird dreams. And then she asks Future Peter what he's done with her son. FP says Present Peter is somewhere safe. And that's when we see the big bald guy locked up in Level 5 shouting that he's Peter Petrelli.

Matt is in the desert, where Future Peter put him. He finds a cool painting of the world exploding on a big rock. Linderman is standing over Nathan in the hospital, while Mohinder beats up some thieves with his newly acquired super-strength. We pan from Mohinder's super-hands to the desert mural of the world exploding, while Mohinder talks about stuff.

[10th Wonder Podcast and SuperheroFlix]

The Archie heroes - The Shield, The Web and The Jaguar and many other characters with a definitive article in front of their names - will return under the guidance of JMS in the Brave And The Bold series, which will take its time in reintroducing the franchise, giving each character a two-part origin followed by one issue solo story: "It's a great opportunity," said Straczynski of the chance to revive an entire franchise.

The Milestone characters - created by Dwayne McDuffie, Michael Davis and Denis Cowan in the early '90s to reflect a more multicultural society than the traditional whitebread heroes - have been trapped in publishing limbo since for the last decade, even with the successful Static Shock cartoon that ran from 2000 - 2004. Now McDuffie gets to bring the characters back, and into the DC Universe, in the Justice League of America series... except for Static himself, who's going to join the regular line-up for Teen Titans.

These moves are part of a very definite decision on DC's part to diversify their line: "We're looking to expand the DC Universe," explained DC Executive Editor Dan Didio. When asked what would be next, Didio explained that if he could get his hands on Hanna-Barbera characters like Space Ghost, The Herculoids and The Galaxy Trio, he'd be very excited. Grant Morrison was more adventurous: "Marvel's next!"

Whedon says he's had a man-crush on Penikett for quite a while. He's a big fan of BSG, and loved Penikett and wanted him to be the FBI agent who investigates the Dollhouse. He keeps getting closer and closer to Echo, Dushku's character, but then she becomes somebody else. Whedon said Tamoh could talk articulately about his character without even having read a script. Suddenly he stops. "Wait, is the term man-crush? Or bro-mance?"

Whedon acknowledges that there is worry that the show is a niche show or that they're failing. That's not the case, he insists.

Dushku says her favorite scene in Buffy was the "dance-kill" scene where she was just dancing in a bar and killing people. "We had a lot of dancing and killing in that show." Whedon said the moment in Angel where Dushku was in the alley saying "Kill me I'm bad," he would start crying. "You're so full of it," Dushku says.

Dushku describes the oft-told tale of Dollhouse's inception, which came out of a conversation about what she'd like to as an actor. She says Whedon "makes the words party on the page." He got it, he knew what she was thinking, he went to the bathroom, and "He came back and it was Dollhouse." She says he "fully puts me at ease and it's fun work and fun livin." She says the show is "a personality playground and I'm ready." Whedon says, "I'm not ready."

An audience member asks what the difference is between Faith and Echo. "Echo we don't know much about. We're trying to figure that out, and she's a different person in every show. I might bring some fury and funny to it."

Whedon says, "Faith and Echo both have a lot of pain to go through. Eliza's good with pain and crazy." Dushku says she emails Whedon emails about her life and he puts it into the show. Last month, she was in Iran and Peru, and she's been telling Whedon about her adventures there. "It's true — I get these bulletins bout where Eliza is today — it's all true in Dollhouse. This is a documentary."

Penikett says he's wrapped up shooting BSG and he doesn't want to talk about it too much on stage because he might cry.

The fans are about to kill a person who goes up to the mic and dares to admit she's not excited about the new show, which doesn't seem "as much out there" as his other shows. Whedon makes a face, the fans boo, and then he replies:

This show is a little different — there is a fantastical premise, but it is modern-day and it's people without vampires and spaceships. But you should know everything I do is about people. That's what I tell stories about. Echo has a removable personality, she's different people all the time, and she's trying to figure out who she is between times. Each time she meets Tamoh, she's a new person and their relationship is really twisted. Every relationship on the show is going to be really twisted. Questions of identity are going to be twisted in ways I never have before, and it's going to be really exciting.

"Take that, girl!" says Dushku. Later, she calls Whedon "a career brassiere." Whedon says, "That's the t-shirt I'm not going to wear."

Whedon says that the thing about Dr. Horrible was that he wanted to get that vision out there, because he didn't think a network would want a superhero musical. With a show like Dollhouse, he says, every scene requires you to ask if it's amusing and engaging and you have to deal with executives too. Fox has ways they want things to go, and the way they want action to pop. It's not that different from doing a show like Dr. Horrible. Except with Horrible, we didn't have sets or a dolly or . . . time.

With network, you need to know what they want, and communicate them. I've worked with execs who don't know what they want . . . or don't know what they don't want. But these are not those people. We've been clear about the way this show will go.

Whedon says he has no deaths planned for Dollhouse, unlike in Firefly. Then he jokes that he'll kill anyone who pisses him off. He says somebody might die at some point, but right now they're just coming to life. "Gimme a break, I don't kill everyone!"

Penikett talks about his first scene in Dollhouse. He says he was so taken by Dushku that he kept forgetting his lines every time Whedon would say "action." He flubbed his first line, which was supposed to be "How did you hear about the Dollhouse?" and instead he said, "How did you hear about the Mallhouse?" He added that Helo, his character from BSG, is very different from Paul, his Dollhouse character. "I'm really intrigued by him but I need to get to know him better over the next few episodes."

Whedon says there could be singing in Dollhouse. "Because after all she's everybody's fantasy, and and some of those must be geeks like me! So there could be some singing. We'd have to work up to that though. Not right away."

Whedon says he has several ideas for more indie productions like Dr. Horrible. "It's a dark and crowded place in my head, I have a lot of stuff in here. I want to do them all. But first I want to do a little bit of [Dollhouse]. Hopefully a lot," he grinned. He's incredibly excited about figuring out who Echo gets to be every week, but he's most excited about the Dollhouse itself. He said he's intrigued by the people who work there and Paul's investigation of it, and the way Echo's personality evolves, as well as the twisted relationships that everybody forms. "That to me is the thrill," he says. "It feels like a premise that can be sustained for a long time."

Is there a common thread between Buffy and Dollhouse? "It's probably a search for the soul," says Whedon. "Vampires are considered unpeople, and so are Actives. So it's really about Echo's search for her soul."

Dollhouse is influenced by A.I., The World Can Never Let Me Go, and Collateral because Whedon thinks it's a great L.A. movie. He says, "This will be feistier than I'm used to. I go a little Ang Lee, but the way I'm filming it, it will be more visceral, a frenetic ride. That part is challenging."

Whedon reassures us that the original pilot will air as the second episode, not the last like in Firefly. He says it was a challenge to go backwards and and reshoot. I did some things that weren't right for the network that I'm shifting around — I'm not changing the premise, cast, or heart of the show. It was just about how we get people into the world. The world will be there and I get to play.

"And I get to wear my leather pants," Dushku says.

"I made the vital mistake of not giving Tamoh any shirtless scenes but that has been rectified," Whedon adds.

Penikett isn't the only shirtless boy we'll see. In the extended clips we saw at the beginning of the panel, most of which have already been online, we saw a co-ed shower scene (the dollhouse apparently includes a co-ed shower).

Whedon says there will be webisodes.