Walking Dead Season 2 Panel as SDCC - TRAILER

I am excited to learn 'Walking Dead' will return the day before my birthday - what a treat! Yes, Zombies and post-apocalypitic television is exactly what I yearn for the night before my birthday, what can I say, I am a geek.

We already saw the Season 2 special AMC Poster that is available at SDCC and now we get a trailer.... (See end of this post) and now MTV has exlusive photos from Season 2:

Rick Grimes and his fellow zombie apocalypse survivors trekking through the blistering forested heat of Atlanta. He's not alone, thankfully: Daryl Dixon is leading the pack with his trusty crossbow in hand, while friendly faces Andrea, Carol, Glenn and Rick's wife Lori hang in the background.

EW writes:

At Comic-Con, The Walking Dead panel just announced the second season will debut Sunday, October 16 at 9 p.m. — a couple weeks earlier than last year and at a different time. They also revealed the season will open with our heroes fleeing the Center for Disease Control — no time jump.

“There’s an expectation now,” says creator Robert Kirkman. “First season, nobody knew what was coming. I can say it’s made everybody work harder. It’s empowered us to try harder. We’re taking that seriously and really trying to deliver.”

Hitfix live blogged from the panel, click if you want to read more.

More... 11:24 a.m. Chris Hardwick is our moderator. He welcomes Frank Darabont, Gale Anne Hurd, Robert Kirkman (loud applause) and Greg Nicotero.

11:24 a.m. Gale Anne Hurd announces that Season 2 of "The Walking Dead" will premiere on Sunday, October 16 at 9 p.m.

11:26 a.m. Once again, "Walking Dead" will be a part of AMC's "Fear Fest" block.

11:26 a.m. Robert Kirman heard about negotiations with AMC after Darabont and Hurd made the pitch. "You've got to hand it to AMC for being a network that had the vision to try something this crazy." They note the number of networks that didn't have the vision to do this. "And now they all want a zombie show," Darabont cracks.

11:27 a.m. "I was doing the comic and thinking 'Well, I'll always be doing the comic,'" Kirkman says, recalling the years of pitching "Walking Dead" in other mediums.

11:27 a.m. Chris Hardwick makes it clear that he loves "Dream Warriors," calling it his favorite "Nightmare on Elm Street." Darabont goes into a story of writing the script with Chuck Russell in a cabin in Big Bear. They wrote the script three weeks before "Dream Warriors" began shooting. And now you know!

11:29 a.m. "When I grew up in Pittsburgh, I just assume that everybody loved zombies," Nicotero says. "With this, we were really determined to follow the spirit of the art work and push things further," Nicotero adds, saying that he goes so far as to cast every single zombie performer. There's a zombie school in Atlanta where they train the extras on how to be zombies. That's not a nice thing to call Emory! [I kid. I kid.]

11:31 a.m. "You can shoot me in the face!" Hardick gushes, saying he'd love to play a zombie.

11:32 a.m. Hardwick tells a story about scaring people at a party by loudly explaining how "Walking Dead" was a realistic depiction of a zombie apocalypse. "But you're no stranger to scaring girls away," Kirkman interjects.

11:34 a.m. "It's a bit of pressure knowing that everybody loves the show. And there's expectation now," Kirkman says, adding that those expectations have "empowered us to try harder." Darabont adds, "This year we have a room of writers who know the show."

11:35 a.m. "Partner with the most talented people you can find. Three of them are sitting up here. If you can do that and you have great underlying source material, that's what a producer does," Gale Anne Hurd advises.

11:36 a.m. Comic-Con premiere trailer. Here's what we see: POV shot of Jon Bernthal running. Very intense. And behind him? An army of zombies. He fires a shotgun aggressively. Empty city streets. Flashback to what Rick experienced when he came out of his coma. And the events of last season. We're leaving Atlanta. "The end of civilization... Was just the beginning." We're on the road. "The strain of survival... Takes its toll." Several people from the core group are splitting off. Tensions. An explosion. A breakdown on the road in a traffic jam. And here come the zombies. Lots and lots of zombies. A set piece in a sea of stalled cars. Pretty evocative. Hey, a quote from HitFix! Gotta see if it was my review or Sepinwall's.

11:42 a.m. It was Sepinwall's review.

11:42 a.m. The cast finally comes out. They all come out together, so I can't tell you who got the most applause. Harwick asks if this is Andrew Lincoln's first Con. He replies, "This is my second Con, but it's still just as scary."

11:44 a.m. "It's the greatest job I've ever been involved in and it just keeps getting better and better," Lincoln says. Sorry, "Love Actually."

11:44 a.m. "You work as hard on a failure as you do on a success," Sarah Wayne Callies says. And yet she still was excited when the numbers came out and they got another season. "They're the best television scripts I've ever seen," Callies says of the Season Two scripts. "The most dangerous things out there are the monsters inside," Callies says of the season's theme.

11:46 a.m. "Every stage of the way, every person I've met... have just only made this better and better and it has been capped by you, because I think that the 'Walking Dead' fans are the best in the world," Bernthal says, calling "Walking Dead" fans the "smartest" and "most badass."

11:48 p.m. "Every script is gold. I'm working with my friends who are so good at what they do and I think you're going to be so thrilled. If you're a fan of the 'Walking Dead' graphic novel, I think you're going to be so thrilled this season," Laurie Holden says.

11:50 a.m. When asked about his character's up-beat attitude, Jeffrey DeMunn says, "I guess he's just so terribly nearsighted he doesn't realize the trouble he's in." Frank Darabont called Jeffrey DeMunn and said, "Hey Jeff, how'd you like to come down to Atlanta to kill zombies?" And DeMunn said yes.

11:52 a.m. "You wake up. You do a tick check.. check for ticks... You just check everywhere... You check for ticks. You go to work. You take it all in. You sweat your butt off and then you go home and do another tick check," says Steven Yeun on his daily routine. Apparently ticks are a major problem on the "Walking Dead" set. "There's ticks where we shoot. And sometimes, you know, they're small. You don't notice them. One of them climbed... my mountain... and planted a flag... right on the peak... of my mountain," Yeun elaborates. Yup. That's just about enough information. Perhaps too much. Maybe.

11:54 a.m. The crowd loves Norman Reedus, who bought himself a big truck that gets him approving glances from "rednecks" down South. He loves Georgia. "I may never leave," he says. And the best part of Reedus' job? "Dude, I run around with a crossbow and shoot zombies in the brain."

11:56 a.m. "Robert Kirkman, you did my podcast a few months ago," Hardwick begins. "Are we plugging your podcast now?" Kirkman interjects. The purpose of the intro is Kirkman's confession that in the event of a real zombie apocalypse, he'd kill himself. "Yeah, I'd jump off a bridge," Kirkman says. Hurd says, "Read the comic book, learn the rules."

11:58 a.m. Any Season 2 teases? "It picks up about five seconds in an overlap with the end of the first season. It's literally them driving away from the CDC. There's not of this bulls*** 'Six Months Later' stuff," Darabont teases.

11:59 a.m. First crowd question is about possible casting on Michonne and The Governor. Robert Kirkman suggests "Ed O'Neill" for both roles, because he wants to meet him. "And my second go-to is John Stamos," Kirkman jokes. Darabont adds, "We're actually having those conversations as we speak."

12:01 p.m. Do any of the actors do their own stunts? "I did pretty much all my stunts apart from taking my horse down. Even the driving and I only learned to drive four years ago," Lincoln says. Jon Bernthal hedges, but adds, "We do as much as we can ourselves. It's an incredibly game group of actors and an incredibly game crew. Best crew in the world." "When you get bruises and cuts, it's like you've earned your day. It's like your war wounds," Holden says.

12:03 p.m. Reedus is asked which is weirder, "Walking Dead" or working on a video with Lady Gaga. "By far this is the best and the weirdest. It doesn't get much weirder than this, so I'd say this one. I love Gaga, though. She's super-cool," Reedus says.

12:04 p.m. What advice does Greg Nicotero have? "Just constantly document what you do," Nicotero have. You have to study what people have done before and what people are doing now. Nicotero got a complimentary phone call from Rick Baker about the makeup on "The Walking Dead," which he called "astounding."



12:07 p.m. "I've done 800 movies, this is one of the best projects, because I get to be with these people every day," Nicotero says.

12:08 p.m. "He is going to blow your mind this year," teases Callies about the performance by the actor playing young Carl this season.

12:09 p.m. Robert Kirkman apologizes for not taking Andrew Lincoln to a Cracker Barrel while he's been in the South.

12:11 p.m. "I think the plan is to get there but it's not something we can rush. We have to take our time with it," Kirkman says of the evolution of Lincoln's Rick versus the evolution of Rick in the comic.

12:12 p.m. The fake blood doesn't taste gross. It's just corn syrup. But the stuff that gives zombies their black teeth takes disgusting. "There are little black puddles all over the set," Nicotero says. They've streamlined the zombie-making process. It only only requires 90 minutes to prep a hero zombie.

12:14 p.m. The last question is about Jeffrey DeMunn and his theater work. "The two disciplines feed each other is the one thing I can say," DeMunn says, noting that doing theater tunes up the memory as well. "They add an energy to each other, but beyond that, I have no idea how 'Death of a Salesman' helps you kill a zombie.



Here is the Season 2 trailer:




[VIa EW]

Big Bang Theory Panel at SDCC

Hit Fix live blogs Big Bang Theory panel today at Comic-Con. I am so jealous to be stuck at home with dry socket from wisdom teeth surgery and not in the room listening myself....


12:36 The panel is introduced -- "Welcome, everybody, to the Comics-Con -- by Howard Wolowitz's mom. She introduces a blooper reel from seasons past. It turns out that the show's stars have difficulties talking with their mouth full. Jim Parsons breaking is quite charming and Kaley Cuoco breaking is kinda adorable. Shocking, I know.

More...
12:44 p.m. Chris Hardwick seems to think the media didn't recognize "Nerd Culture" before "Big Bang Theory." But wait. "I don't think we were doing a show about Nerd Culture. We were doing a show about people we liked," Bill Prady says, while Lorre says it's about "extraordinary people," not nerds. "For those of us who are members of a particular group, sometimes we don't see ourselves depicted on television and it was fun to be part of doing that," Prady adds.

12:46 p.m. What did the actors think when they first got the scripts for the show. "I really wanted to say these words that they had written for Sheldon," Parsons says, adding, "I really thought that if I could learn them, I'd be able to do that to their liking. And they did. They liked it and they hired me." Parson says, "I didn't try to make him sympathetic. I didn't try to garner any empathy for him," though he says that he always had empathy for and with Sheldon saying, "He is what he is. And he's a lovely fellow."

12:48 p.m. "Kaley digs nerds, too," Cuoco says in response to Hardwick's question about Penny's love for nerds. The crowd enjoys this pandering. "It's been unreal and we're just riding this wave as long as you let us," Cuoco says. Of last year's broken leg, "They worked around it and I hopped around and the writers were great and helped me out." Lorre instructs us to go look at the episodes where Penny spent time standing behind things.


12:50 p.m. Hardwick is buddies with Johnny Galecki. Lorre recruited Galecki before there was even a script. "It really wasn't until the first table read when I heard everybody do their thing that I thought, 'Now I get it,'" Galecki says. Is he referring to the original pilot or to the one CBS actually picked up?

12:52 p.m. Johnny and Jim are going head-to-head for an Emmy. Is there tension or physical altercations? "That's not the working environment we have. I don't head-butt."

12:52 p.m. Asked about last season's Bollywood number, Nayyar replies, "It was really cool shooting that scene with Melissa. She's a great dancer and a very good singer and very Indian... inside of her system. You know what I mean... Like, you know."

12:54 p.m. Does Simon Helberg get to do an improvising on "Big Bang Theory"? "No. I mean, how could we make up those lines? We'd have to be insane. I can't even imagine how they're written down." It's discussed that both Helberg and Rauch have dueling Mrs. Wolowitz impressions. "You don't want too many of those voices floating around the stage," Helberg says. They each do their impressions and there's little doubt that Rauch is the winner. "Face, Simon. She faced you," Hardwick says. "She's little, but she's strong," adds Helberg. "It's the Indian in me," Rauch says, providing the perfect capper. She has a background in standup comedy. Who knew?


12:40 p.m. Chuck Lorre comes out first. I wonder if he's seen as many Charlie Sheen-related t-shirts around the Con as I have. Lorre is joined by Bill Prady and Steve Molaro on the production side. In terms of stars, it's Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons (with long hair and a hint of a mustache), Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg (bearded and filming us), Kunal Nayyar, Mayim Bialik (the crowd LOVES Blossom) and Melissa Rauch (very Kristen Bell-esque without her glasses on).

12:43 p.m. Chris Hardwick is moderating this one as well.

12:57 p.m. Why, pray tell, did Mayim Bialik get a PhD? "I fell in love with biology when I was a teenager, when I was still working on 'Blossom,'" Bialik says. Did she audition for the show? "I'm sorry to admit that I'd never watched the show. I'd heard of it. I was told they wanted a female Jim Parsons and I said, 'Who is Jim Parsons?'" Apparently Bialik's resume just has her PhD listed under "miscellany." "That's where it goes. It doesn't go under TV or Film. It goes under miscellany," says Bialik, who admits that she gets a "twitch" whenever something in the script doesn't sound right.

1:00 p.m. What's going to come from last season's cliffhanger? "There will be a resolution and we think whichever way you came down on what happened, you'll be happy with how it works out," Prady says cryptically.

1:01 p.m. Jim Parsons hasn't continued his playing of the Theramin, but he says that he did his own musical stunts with the instrument. "I did, to the best of my ability, learn. I did that," Parsons says.

1:02 p.m. Kaley Cuoco doesn't know what TARDIS is or stands for. She's unapologetic.

1:02 p.m. Favorite moments? "My joke is usually that kissing Kaley was my favorite part of the season," Bialik says, but Amy's kiss with Sheldon was her actual favorite. I don't understand Jim's favorite. Kaley recalls the dancing scene in which a old man grabs her ass. Johnny actually references a Cuoco moment and a Rauch moment and a Nayyar moment. Good for him. Nayyar's favorite moment was being trained to properly sing the song for his Bollywood scene. Helberg's favorite moment was wrestling with Nayyar "On and off camera," and wearing the one-piece wrestling uniform and being sweet with Rauch. And Rauch lists the Penny/Sheldon acting lesson as her favorite scene, along with the New Year's Eve look between Leonard and Penny.

1:09 p.m. The first fan question is about when Sheldon is going to experience additional intimacy. "Sheldon seems singularly devoted to science," Bill Prady says, as he says every year.

1:10 p.m. Parsons gives a "Bazinga!" to a recently returned soldier.

1:11 p.m. What still challenges Parsons about Sheldon? "I don't know what he's talking about a lot of the time. That's what Mayim's for these days, which is actually sad but true," he says. Parson notes that because of the dialogue, it's hard for anybody to phone anything in.

1:13 p.m. Do they pull any nerdiness during down time? Nobody can think of anything. "I don't know if we're pranksters," Kaley says. "We make a lot of fun of each other," another castmember (I think Nayyar adds). The question comes from a first-time Comic-Con attendee and they all want to give her an answer, but they can't. "Oh Nancy. It's your first Comic-Con. You'll think of something better next time," Cuoco says.

1:15 p.m. Sara Gilbert won't be returning to "BBT" any time soon because of "The Talk." Sorry.



1:16 p.m. How was Amy Farrah Fowler developed? Specifically her love of double-entendres? "Mayim is a very sexual actress. She's a dirty, dirty girl. As writers, we try to write to the strengths of the actors," Lorre says. Prady clarifies that Sheldon and Amy both missed out on certain "normal" experiences growing up an he says, "The differences between Sheldon and Amy is that Amy games. Amy wants to have the experiences she didn't have." Bialik describes it as a suspended adolescence that Amy is in and adds, "Yes, I'm a very sexual actress."

1:18 p.m. "What was your favorite nerd encounter?" a fan asks the stars. "I think this is mind right now," Cuoco coos.

1:19 p.m. Galecki's first screen kiss was with Bialik, 20 years ago.

1:20 p.m. "I'm always surprised by the variety of people who are fans," Helberg says, recalling a confrontation with a giant tattooed man in a parking lot. "I ran over him," he says.



1:22 p.m. There was actually debate last year in the episode in which they said Sheldon's first kiss was with Amy, rather than with Leonard's mother. "As an actor, I count both of them and I'm honored to have done both of them. Kissed both of them..." Parsons says. "And then a child came up [to the podium]."

1:23 p.m. "Was it embarrassing singing 'Soft Kitty' and rubbing VaboRub on Jim?" a small child asks Kaley, who responds, "Madison, one day you'll learn to appreciate that." And Parson adds, "Frankly, it was more awkward for me. I had to bare flesh." They ask Madison if this was her first Comic-Con. "NO!" she says.

1:26 p.m. "Did the show help you find your way into the sciences? Then that's beyond our wildest dreams of cool things the show can do," Lorre tells a fan. "We like to say that 'Cheers' brought people to alcoholism and we bring people to the sciences."

1:27 p.m. Who is their favorite "villain" who has appeared on the show? "I didn't understand the question," Nayyar says. Helberg repeats the question in an Indian accent and Nayyar responds, "I love the way I'm half-Jamaican." Parson likes the frenemy status with Kripke, though he also loves having Wil Wheaton on set. Yes, Wil Wheaton gets a good round of applause and Hardwick tells people to sing the "Stand By Me" theme to him.

1:35 p.m. "Sheldon isn't autistic, he's Sheldon," a fan says, thanking the producers for not clearly declaring his status. But the next question has Parsons saying that his first grade teacher mom hears that it's good to see people like sheldon functioning in the world. Ultimately, though, Parsons just agrees that Sheldon is Sheldon

1:36 p.m. The last question? The obligatory, "How are you like your character?" query. "Every year, we get asked this question," Nayyar says. Everybody looks at him like he's being mean and Nayyar adds, "Just because I'm foreign, people don't get my intonation." To this, Helberg responds "Just because I'm foreign make a donation?" But on to semi-serious answers? "I live next door to people," Cuoco says. Rauch follows suit with, "Both myself and Bernadette are really short" and Galecki agrees, "I have that in common with your character, too."



That's all, folks...

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Man, my husband and I would LOVE to meet the cast of Big Bang Theory, it is one of our most favourite shows. The cast, the scripts, the whole thing is just fantastic, and I don't only say that because we are big geeks ourselves ;)