TVSquad

Well, well, well. Keesha is ruling the roost in the Big Brother 10 house. Will the power go to her head like it did Jessie? Or, more importantly ... will we, the real true fans of the game, approve of her strategy and nominations? After all, we're the experts at the game, not those silly hamsters.

A lot has gone down in the house since my last report. The food competition is done and over with and the nominations for eviction have been made. For extreme show spoilers, read on past the jump for more.

Well, crap. I don't think there is really any way to spin this in a good way. ABC Family has cut the order for Middleman episodes from 13 to 12. That's rarely a good sign. Television history isn't exactly full of stories that go, "Then they cut the episode order, and everything was frickin' awesome." All is not lost though. Please join me in taking solace in the fact that the show hasn't actually been canceled.

A quick trip to Radio Free Javi, where you should go for all of your Grillo-Marxuachian news, tells a little more of the tale. As Javi puts it, the show is getting great reviews and the network loves it, but the ratings have not been stellar. He adds that the decision to drop the 13th episode was a joint one, between himself and the network. A possible silver lining is his mention of pooling their resources to make the finale the biggest and best that it can be. So, tell your friends to watch, and tell them to tell their friend with the Nielsen box to watch. The Middleman really is a good show and deserves to make it to a second season.

I am, by no means, a comic book/science fiction convention novice. I have been to my share of small and medium-sized conventions...mostly all on the East Coast. Those conventions feature smaller crowds, smaller venues, and easier access to various panels and people. So, when I was asked to assist Keith in covering the San Diego Comic-Con I got a bit worried. Not because I couldn't handle the task (I am a TV Squad writer), but because I had heard so much about the convention from previous convention-goers.

So, laptop in hand, I entered the world of SDCC with a bit of trepidation, and excitement. By the end of the day I was just tired, hungry, and wondering where the hell all of these people came from.

Raise your hand if you love Penny from Dr. Horrible? Raise your other hand if you're such a Buffy nut that you follow the news about anyone that ever appeared on the show? I would raise both my hands, but I have to type this entry. If either of those apply to you, you'll want to get a gander at the video after the jump.

Our friends over at Mahalo Daily caught up with Felicia Day at Comic-Con. They talk about her web series, The Guild, which has a new season coming soon, and then get into Dr. Horrible. She explains how she ended up working on the project and gives her thoughts on working with Joss Whedon, and Neil Patrick Harris. If that's not enough, she also reminds us that she will be showing up as a patient on House this fall. No groundbreaking news (like when there might be a Dr. Horrible 2), but a fun video for Felicia fans.

A panel I almost skipped turned out to be better than I think a lot of people thought was the 20th anniversary Battlestar Galactica panel. I think most people are holding out for the official BSG panel later in the 'Con, but I was glad I was able to sit in for at least most of this panel before I had to run to the next one.

In attendance: Richard Hatch, Tom DeSanto, Bear McCreary and Dr. Kevin Grazier.

Unfortunately with this panel, I didn't get any decent pictures worth sharing. The room this panel was held in was small, though crowded, and the lighting was horrible. To make matters worse, only Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Matt Kesslar were in attendance; Natalie Morales appeared in a recorded message that she couldn't attend. So what about the other cast members?

Not a whole lot was revealed about the upcoming episodes, though we were treated to some scenes from them. We were told that the season finale is completely filled with the Middleman screaming profanity, complete with blacked-out mouths and bleeps. Aaand ... that's about it.

To cap off a very long day, for me -- Showtime's Dexter panel. This is one of my favorite shows right now, so it was definitely a nice way to end things. What made things even sweeter was an after-party I got to attend with a few other TV bloggers, but that's something I'll report on later.

For now, read on for the highlights from this panel.

If there is one thing I learned during the Comedy Central TV Funhouse panel on Thursday night, it's this: they are not good with computers. For most of the evening panelist Robert Smigel and moderator Bob Odenkirk spent their time fiddling around with the Mac laptop provided to them so they could show clips from the TV Funhouse DVD that was released on Tuesday. After they got that squared away they spent several more minutes setting up an iChat so Funhouse host Doug Dale could join in the conversation. They even needed to ask a member of the audience for their Mac Powerbook in order to set the session up. Obviously, you don't want these guys on your technical support team.

Despite the technical difficulties, the TV Funhouse panel was the highlight of my Thursday at Comic-Con.

Well, the big news to come out of the Wizard's First Rule panel was that the series is not going to be called Wizard's First Rule. The new title is Legend of the Seeker. Why? Well, according to panelists and author Terry Goodkind the name change was made to focus on the hero of the book itself rather than the main book of the series.

A few other tidbits from the panel and press event can be found after the jump.

Another hangar-like room, room 6CDEF (obviously four rooms put together) was what housed the rest of my evening's panels. First up: HBO's True Blood. What's so odd about this is how, immediately following, Showtime has Dexter. Go figure.

Many people arrived early, enjoying the new characters of Street Fighter IV in the panel before True Blood. The line getting in over an hour before was insane, looping around multiple long corridors and seemingly never stopping to gain length. How they're able to get everyone in without people standing is a mystery.

Here are some key highlights from the panel discussion. More details to come later.

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

• Charlie Rose: Momahed El-Erian
• The Daily Show: Geo Beach
• The Colbert Report: Garrett Reisman
• The Late Show with David Letterman: David Duchovny and Black Kids
• Jay Leno: Kelsey Grammer, Gavin DeGraw, Hugh Rowland, and Drew Sherwood
• Jimmy Kimmel Live: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mel B, and Does It Offend You Yeah?
• Tavis Smiley: Sidney Poitier (repeat)
• Late Night with Conan O'Brien: Emile Hirsch, Terrell Owens, and Craig Baldo (repeat)
• The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson: Amanda Peet and Lance Morrow
• Last Call with Carson Daly: Kaley Cuoco and Gavin DeGraw (repeat)

• G4 has live Comic-Con coverage until 10pm.
• At 8, CBS has a new Greatest American Dog.
• FOX has a new Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? at 8, then a new So You Think You Can Dance.
• NBC has a new, two hour Last Comic Standing at 8, followed by a new Fear Itself.
• Cartoon Network has a new Chowder at 8, then new episodes of The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack and Total Drama Island.
• At 8:30, HGTV has a new Myles of Style, then new episodes of Rate My Space, Extreme Living, and House Hunters.
• At 9, TBS has a new Bill Engvall Show, then a new My Boys.
• TLC has a new American Chopper at 9.
• At 10, ABC has a new Hopkins.
• CBS has a new Flashpoint at 10 (new night).
• There's a new Burn Notice on USA at 10.
• Food Network has a new Ace of Cakes at 10.
• Bravo has a new Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List at 10.
• Showtime has a new Penn & Teller's Bullshit at 10.
• Also at 10: History Channel has a new Modern Marvels, followed by a new episode of The Works.

Check your local TV listings for more.

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.

UPDATE: The real news is that it's been picked up by BBC America. Press release follows. Also, sonds like it's only five episodes.

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.