Comic-Con Gets Hot for TV Guide Magazine

What happens when you take a couple of aliens, a doofy superspy, two burgeoning superheroes, and a vampire diarist, and throw them all together? A lot of whoopin' and hollerin'. At TV Guide Magazine's Hot List panel at Comic-Con on July 23, some of television's most genre-riffic stars — V's Morena Baccarin, Elizabeth Mitchell and Morris Chestnut; The Cape's David Lyons, Keith David and Summer Glau; No Ordinary Family's Julie Benz; Human Target's Chi McBride; Chuck's Zach Levi; and Vampire Diaries executive producer Kevin Williamson — gathered for the ultimate Con-vergence.
Talking about their shows to a standing-room and frequently screaming crowd in the "big room" (the San Diego Convention Center's Ballroom 20), the panelists played along with TV Guide Magazine executive editor/moderator Craig Tomashoff as he grilled them on everything from upcoming plot twists to their favorite childhood sci-fi shows.
Williamson revealed that Vampire Diaries had just finished filming their first episode of the new season and said fans can count on the hour to "wrap up the cliffhanger" they left us with back in May. McBride noted that his character Winston would take on more physical stunts next season. And Levi, whose very mention sent the room into a frenzy, maintained a steady flow of funny, joking that Chuck would be adding vampires to the mix as a ratings ploy, and that prep work for his action scenes involved "a lot of carbs."
For Benz, the panel gave her a chance to describe exactly what her upcoming drama No Ordinary Family is, calling it "part The Incredibles, part Heroes, with a little Brothers & Sisters," and to explain why she picked the ABC project as her series follow-up to Dexter. "Because I got the job," she deadpanned, adding that in actuality, she "had to jump through hoops for the role."  Likewise, The Cape cast got to preview their mid-season show, which casts ER vet Lyons as a disgraced cop who dons a costume to fight crime, with Glau as his ass-kicking sidekick. "It's the genesis of a superhero," he says of the series. And based on the crowd's enthusiastic response to the preview clip, it may also be the start of a hot new favorite for comic-book lovers looking for their next caped crusader.
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