TVSquad

As part of the Torchwood panel, it was announced that a series three of Torchwood was given a greenlight just this morning. It will of course air first in the UK, then will come to the US shortly afterwards.

Check back for more news later on the Torchwood panel and more.

After the Kings panel, then attending a bit of the Battlestar Galactica 20th reunion panel (more on that later), I headed over to get in the enormous line to Ballroom 20 (within which you can fit four Kings rooms) for the Doctor Who panel. Writers Julie Gardner and Steven Moffat were up there talking about the show and taking questions from the attendees. Since I don't watch the show, you'll have to deal with what seemed to be the highlights based on crowd reaction and what I thought sounded cool. Rich Keller will hopefully listen to my recording later and update if need-be.

Read on for the highlights.

Finally, after sweating through the line outside to get into the freakin' place, I'm at the first panel for Comic-Com 2008. First up is NBC's Kings. Joel had some things to say about the show during last week's TCA coverage, and this was a bit more of the same. The biggest difference this time being that fans of the show and the actors are able to get up and ask questions, rather than a bunch of grumpy reporters (sorry Joel, had to say it).

I'm going to start with some bullet points, then update later on with details.

Mad Men is that rare show that is damn near perfect. Of course, I say "near" perfect though I can't figure out what fault the show has. Everything, from the acting to the writing to the direction to the set design to the music to the costumes - is so well done. Heck, even the secondary characters are drawn in a way you hardly ever see on a television drama.

OK, it is perfect.

Rich Sommer plays Harry Crane, the Sterling Cooper ad exec with the glasses and bow tie. The character is so well written and Sommer plays him so well. You know guys like Harry, whether it's 1960 or 2008. He's the nice, married guy with glasses, but he's not so nice that he isn't above joining in on the sexist talk with his buddies and drinking too much.

Rich was nice enough to talk to me via e-mail while he was filming the second season of the show, which debuts this Sunday (new day) at 10pm on AMC.

Cartoon lovers and comic book fanboys/girls rejoice!

Cartoon Network will be making Firebreather, The Vanishers, and Mice Templar as part of their slate of original movies. Despite the network's name, only two of these comic books will be developed into animated films. The Vanishers will be produced as a live-action movie.

Here are the weekly TV ratings, by number of viewers.

What, no America's Got Talent in the top spot or Wipeout in the #2 spot this week? Nope, thanks to FOX's All-Star Game. Wipeout fell all the way to #7, beaten by repeats of Criminal Minds and CSI.

CBS' Flashpoint came in at #18, which explains why they moved Swingtown to Fridays at 10 and put Flashpoint on Thursdays at 10.

1. MLB All-Star Game (FOX)
2. America's Got Talent (NBC)
3. MLB All-Star Pre-Game Show (FOX)

The Teen Choice Awards will feature a dance battle between two of the toughest, roughest, street-est (not a word, I know) dance crews around. No, Lil C and his crew won't be there crumping. Miley Cyrus and Mandy Jiroux's M&M Cru will battle ACDC, the dance crew featuring Jon M. Chu and Adam Sevani of Step Up 2: The Streets. The two crews are BFFs and they challenged each other back in April. A more heated rivalry has not been seen since TuPac and Biggie. Yeah! Totally street. "Street" is even in the name of the movie.

The Teen Choice Awards have some other performers and appearances lined up too. But they're not "street" so who cares? Shia LaBeouf, David Archuleta, James Marsden, Sophia Bush, Josh Holloway, Scarlett Johansson, Zac Efron, Pink, JoJo, Kristen Bell, and Hayden Panettiere are some of the other names previously announced. Mariah Carey is slated to perform her new single, "I'll Be Lovin' You Long Time."

The Teen Choice Awards will air on August 4th at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Fox.

We talked about the presence of a Lost viral-esque booth appearing at Comic-Con this year, and during preview night it was already in full force. They had a sign-up sheet for taking an "eligibility test", where I believe you went into that booth there in the picture to the right, answered some questions and then got a special "code" to apply on their website. Apparently we'll learn more during the Lost panel on Saturday.

Meanwhile, I was able to snap a video of what was running on the monitor above in that picture. The sound isn't so important, so enjoy.

I haven't even gone to get my badge yet, where I hear from Cinematical that there's lots of goodies to have, and lookee here -- Sci Fi stuff! The fine folks over at Sci Fi Channel were nice enough to drop off a ginormous purple bag full of loot, like the Raider model above; t-shirts, breath mints, temporary tattoos ...

Check the gallery for more, and check out what they're giving to registrants over at Cinematical.

Here's who's on the late night shows tonight.

• Charlie Rose: Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg; a discussion of the iPhone (must have been postponed the other night); and author Ken Pollack
• The Daily Show: T.J. English
• The Colbert Report: Nas
• The Late Show with David Letterman: John C. Reilly, Jane Mayer, and Grizzly Bear
• Jay Leno: Kevin Costner, D.L. Hughley, and The Time
• Jimmy Kimmel Live: Paul Giamatti, Mitch Rouse, and Los Lonely Boys
• Tavis Smiley: Henry Winkler and Henry Zoglin (repeat)
• Late Night with Conan O'Brien: Liam Neeson, BJ Novak, and The Duke Spirit (repeat)
• The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson: Val Kilmer
• Last Call with Carson Daly: Eddie Izzard and Rick Ross (repeat)

How awesome is this? Barney's official list of how men should interact with each other in pursuit of conquest of the opposite sex,The Bro Code, is going to be published for real. Barney Stinson, the most awesome womanizer on How I Met Your Mother, has referred to this compendium on the show and now The Bro Code will be for sale in bookstores in late November, just in time for Christmas sales.

Neil Patrick Harris, the embodiment of Barney, is not writing the book. That'll be done by co-creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas with Matthew Kuhn, the staff writer who is responsible for Barney's blog. Barney, as fans of the show know, is nothing if not prolific and legen -- wait for it -- dary when it comes to knowing the rules, the rights and wrongs, in bagging the babes.

• At 8, CBS has a new Big Brother.
• FOX has a new, two hour So You Think You Can Dance at 8.
• PBS has a new Click & Clack's As The Wrench Turns at 8, then a new Nova scienceNOW.
• Versus has more coverage of the Tour de France at 8.
• At 9, NBC has a new Baby Borrowers.
• Sci-Fi has a new Ghost Hunters International at 9, followed by two new episodes of Scare Tactics.
• A&E has a new Dog The Bounty Hunter at 9, then a new Criss Angel Mindfreak.
• History Channel has a new MonsterQuest at 9.
• Also at 9: Bravo has a new Project Runway, followed by a new Shear Genius.
• At 9:30, HGTV has a new Design on a Dime.
• At 10, ABC has a new Primetime: Crime.
• TruTV has a new Black Gold at 10.
• TBS has two new episodes of Tyler Perry's House of Payne at 10.
• At 10:30, Comedy Central has a new Mind of Mencia.

Check your local TV listings for more.

This originally was going to be yet another post on how George Clooney might come back to ER one last time in the final season of the show (executive producer John Wells says he hasn't asked him yet). But we've been back and forth on that so many times that we really don't know what's going to happen. However, TV critic Terry Morrow did ask Wells if any characters on the show would be killed off in the show's last season, and Wells says that yes, at least one person on ER will die before the show ends. He didn't, however, say whether it's a current cast member or if it's someone new that will be introduced this season.

So assuming that it's a character we already know, who do you think it should be? After the jump, a poll. Should a helicopter fall on Morris? How about Neela getting shot by a patient? Maybe an explosion in the emergency room can kill everyone except Frank? Are they bringing Noah Wyle back just to kill him with a Sno-Cone machine?

Now that we've all had a chance to take in and digest the saga of Dr. Horrible, one of the big questions is "Did it work?" It certainly seemed to work for the viewers. In our poll, an astounding 74.2% of you gave it 5 out of 5. Another 22.5% went with 4 out of 5. The bigger question though, is did it work out for everybody on the money end? And I ask that rather selfishly. Sure, I'd like to see Whedon, Fillion, Harris, Day, and the whole crew make a few bucks. But really, I'm more concerned with getting to see more of the story. If the numbers worked out for all involved, the chances of that happening increase greatly.

Jeffrey McManus has made some educated guesses at just how the numbers shake out for those involved. The short version of McManus' analysis: At a million iTunes downloads he has the principle actors bringing in something in the neighborhood of $100,000 with Whedon coming in at around $4 million $2.6 million. I'm not sure how feasible one million iTunes downloads on iTunes is, but I do know that at the moment Dr. Horrible counts for 3 of the top 4 episodes and the top season on the U.S. lists. Add in the international markets and it's certainly not an outlandish goal.

Of course, every week is a great week to watch Turner Classic Movies. If you're not a regular viewer of TCM, you're really missing out.

But looking over their schedule for tomorrow, I noticed several movies are playing that you really must see, especially if you haven't seen them before. In fact, two of the movies are ones I haven't seen before myself, though I've always wanted to. Many of these movies aren't shown on TV that often, and when they are it's only on TCM, another reason to watch the channel regularly.