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COMIC-CON SKED: Sneak Peeks of Pilots & Panels for ALMOST HUMAN, THE 100 & THE TOMORROW PEOPLE

Vancouver-shot pilots have dominated San Diego Comic-Con’s Preview Night for years, largely because Warner Bros. Television has such a big presence here. 2013 is no exception with pilots Almost Human and The 100 and the New York-shot pilot The Tomorrow People — which has shifted production to Vancouver — all to be screened in Ballroom 20 on Wednesday night, July 17th.

Karl Urban & Michael Ealy. ©2013 FOX BROADCASTING CO.

Almost Human — Part-robot human Detective John Kennex and  part-human robot  Dorian are a buddy cop duo in future Los Angeles, where all cops must partner with androids known as synthetics.  The pilot was filmed all over  in Vancouver this past March in some familiar Fringe locations. It stars Karl Urban (John Kennex), Michael Ealy (Dorian), Minka Kelly, Mackenzie Crook, Michael Irby and Lili Taylor and is produced by uber-producer J.J. Abrams, Fringe showrunner J.H. Wyman and others. And if you miss the Wednesday night screening, you can catch the pilot at the Almost Human panel on Friday, July 19th, followed by a Q&A with cast and showrunners. The series begins filming in Vancouver after Comic-Con and FOX plans to debut it on Monday nights after the World Series, starting November 4th.

Panel: Friday, July 19th – 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in Ballroom 20.

Eliza Taylor . Photo by Cate Cameron –  ©2013 THE CW

The 100— A nuclear apocalypse kills humanity on Earth but fortunately not everyone is on the ground. Twelve space stations are in orbit and come together to form the Ark. Read More »COMIC-CON SKED: Sneak Peeks of Pilots & Panels for ALMOST HUMAN, THE 100 & THE TOMORROW PEOPLE

RENEWAL: FALLING SKIES Renewed for Fourth Season & Headed for Comic-Con

TNT ordered a fourth season of sci-fi summer hit Falling Skies today with [12] new episodes to be filmed in Vancouver under a new showrunner David Eick (Battlestar Galactica). Shot here since the second season, this series about a small band of insurgents fighting against an occupying alien force remains the top summer drama on basic cable in the U.S., averaging almost 6 million weekly viewers after DVR playback is counted.

It’s a family show in a post-apocalyptic setting featuring Tom Mason (Noah Wyle) and his three sons — the eldest Hal (heartthrob Drew Roy), once-harnassed middle son Ben (Connor Jessup) and youngest son Matt (Maxim Knight) — and now one baby daughter with pediatrician Anne Glass (Moon Bloodgood). Other surviving resistance fighters in the 2nd Mass (Boston insurgent group named after the 2nd Massachusetts of the American Revolution) include Captain Weaver (Will Patton), Maggie (Sarah Carter) and frenemy John Pope (Colin Cunningham).

Related: Noah Wyle & Will Patton Shoot Dream Sequence in Gastown

WEEK: June 24-30, 2013

COMIC CON SKED: 20th Anniversary Reunion of THE X-FILES on Thursday, July 18th – Updated

The Truth is Out There. [Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are confirmed for TV Guide’s Celebration of the 20th Anniversary reunion of The X-Files — the daddy of Vancouver-shot sci-fi series — at San Diego Comic-Con  with show creator Chris Carter and several writer-producers on the panel.  Thursday, July 18th, at 3:30 pm in Ballroom 20.]

Read More »COMIC CON SKED: 20th Anniversary Reunion of THE X-FILES on Thursday, July 18th – Updated

CONTEST: PSYCH-Os Vote for One of Three Possible Season 8 Episodes. Winner Announced at Comic-Con – Updated

Update: Filming of Psych season 8 in Vancouver extended to August 23rd.

How could Psych-Os not vote for the “Food Truck” storyline in the season 8 episode contest for fans? Snacks are so important to Shawn and Gus (James Roday and Dulé Hill below). Can you imagine the shenanigans if these two have their own food truck full of snacks when they go undercover to solve the mystery of a murdered Santa Barbara food truck owner?  The USA network officially ordered two more episodes of Psych today for a total of ten in what is likely the final season  — one greenlit by the network from five additional scripts and the other to be voted on by fans from three possible storylines below. Start voting tomorrow: Psych Season 8 Viewers Choice.
  • FOOD TRUCK – When the well-known owner of a beloved Santa Barbara food truck is mysteriously murdered, Shawn and Gus, fans of delicious flavor, are determined to solve the crime as only they can. They go undercover as proprietors of the PSYCH Naptime Food Truck, and soon discover that the high-profit world of Santa Barbara’s mobile food business is cutthroat, insular and a place of many secrets – many of them worth killing for.

  • TELETHON – In a classic “How-dunnit” case with a PSYCH twist, Shawn and Gus investigate a murder that Shawn is convinced was committed by the beloved host of Santa Barbara’s annual Children’s Hospital Telethon. There’s only one problem – the host was seen by hundreds of thousands of people on live television during the exact time the murder occurred elsewhere. Can Shawn steal the show, poke a hole in this rock-solid alibi, and prove the host did it?

Read More »CONTEST: PSYCH-Os Vote for One of Three Possible Season 8 Episodes. Winner Announced at Comic-Con – Updated

BIG READ: Vancouver Productions Working the Comic-Con Craziness

Published July 9th, 2012 on Vancouver is Awesome

How’s this for Comic-Con craziness? Comic-Con tweeted Twilight fans today asking them not to start lining up outside the San Diego Convention Center three days before the convention starts on Thursday like they did last year. The anual geekfest doesn’t want them to erect another Camp Twilight tent city either. Any Twihard or TwiMom who tries to line up earlier than tomorrow or brings more than a chair and a sleeping bag with them, risks not being among the six thousand-plus lucky enough to get into the final vampires & werewolves panel at lunchtime on Thursday. If asked to leave, they’ll miss seeing exclusive footage from the mainly Vancouver-shot The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn 2 and celebrity trio Kristin Stewart, Robert Pattison and Taylor Lautner in person. Organizers have scheduled the final Twilight movie as the first official panel in marquee Hall H so that Twilight teens and their Moms can’t ruin Comic-Con like they have in the past.

[Update: A Twilight fan who’d been camping outside the San Diego Convention Center since Sunday was struck and killed by an SUV on Tuesday morning while rushing to cross the street to get back to the lineup which Comic-Con organizers were moving. Fellow fans are trying to organize a moment of silence in her honour during the Breaking Dawn 2 panel.]

Once the Twihards have gone home, Comic-Con is free to fly its geek flag until Sunday night, epitomized by what could be 2012’s hottest panel — the 10th Anniversary reunion of the cast (and creator) of space western Firefly, featuring Canada’s own browncoat Nathan “Captain Tightpants” Fillion. Is cult TV once again dominating big budget movies at Comic-Con with Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and The Big Bang Theory panels all in high demand too?

Maybe, maybe not. Iron Man 3 is a hot ticket, as are the Warner Bros./Legendary Pictures and Sony Pictures panels in Hall H. Who doesn’t want to see footage from The Hobbit, which just wrapped filming in New Zealand? Or get a first look at two other mainly Vancouver-shot movies: the upcoming Superman reboot Man of Steel starring Henry Cavill (seen below filming a shirtless green screen rescue scene in North Vancouver) as part of the Warner Bros. panel on Saturday afternoon and mysterious space station movie Elysium starring Matt Damon (link to first official photo) and Jody Foster as part of the Sony panel on Friday afternoon. Vancouver director Neill Blomkamp will be on hand with his stars to answer questions about the followup to his Oscar-nominated first feature District 9. It turns out Elysium is the name of a vast space station constructed by a company called Armadyne where the very rich live in the year 2159  (want-ads for Armadyne  popped up at last year’s Comic-Con, the start of a viral campaign for the movie). The rest of us –- the 99% if you will — live on the over-populated, ruined planet Earth below. A bald, buff  Damon is Max, who goes up against Foster as hard-line government official Minister Delacourt [corrected], who will stop at nothing to enforce anti-immigration laws and preserve the grandious lifestyle of the citizens of Elysium in space (the mansion set below on Kent Hangar field could be on the space station).

Read More »BIG READ: Vancouver Productions Working the Comic-Con Craziness

PSYCH Films on July 4th And Returns to Comic-Con Next Week for 4th Year in a Row

I didn’t expect to see Psych —  American TV’s hottest fake psychic detective agency — filming on the most American holiday of the year:  July 4th, Independence Day.  I walked up to the set inside a Tudor-style apartment building on the southern edge of the South Granville neighbourhood in a rare bit of Vancouver sunshine. James Roday (fake psychic Shawn Spencer who solves crimes for the Santa Barbara police department with his superior observational skills); Dulé Hill (Shawn’s BFF and reluctant sidekick Burton “Gus” Guster) and Maggie Lawson (Santa Barbara police detective Juliet O’Hara and Shawn’s girlfriend) sat in their cast chairs outside, on a break from filming. Timothy Omundson (Santa Barbara police detective Carlton “Lassie” Lassiter and Shawn skeptic) joined them after hitting the craft table. It’s the first time I’ve seen Lassie on location this season.

Next week, more than four thousand lucky PSYCH-Os (either dressed as a pineapple or carrying one) will have the chance to both see and hear from all four leads at the standing-room-only, people-turned-away Psych panel at San Diego Comic-Con.

Read More »PSYCH Films on July 4th And Returns to Comic-Con Next Week for 4th Year in a Row