Comic-Con ‘08: Lost teases, Heroes delivers the goods!
Posted on July 27, 2008 1:00 am by robin
Filed Under conventions, television
Tags: comic-con heroes lost
Going in to Comic-Con, everyone knew that both Lost and Heroes would be a big deal this year; this was the first year that both shows would be showcased back-to-back, and the first year that either show had appeared in the cavernous Hall H. I don’t think anyone knew just how big a deal they would both be.
Let me back up a second. Lost, of course, is coming off of its highly acclaimed fourth season, which most critics and fans agree was its strongest and most satisfying to date. The show’s producers, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse traditionally enter a media blackout after their season finale, which is only lifted when they appear at Comic-Con.
Heroes, on the other hand, has been off the air for more than seven months now, from a shortened second season (due to the writer’s strike) that failed to satisfy most fans’ expectations. The show seemed to be treading water, refusing to pull any big triggers with their ongoing storylines. But word has been spreading since the end of Season Two that the writers and producers of Heroes got the message, that they’ve made significant changes to their plans, and that Season Three would launch the show in some radical, exciting new directions.
Fast forward back to today. We arrived at the convention center at 8:30 in the morning, planning to bypass the exhibit hall altogether, and go straight to the line for Hall H. Feeling quite confident in our plan, we got off the trolley to find that the line for Hall H was already quite long. It zig-zagged back and forth across the south lawn of the convention center, as the Hall H line often does. No problem, we thought, we’ll just find the end of the line.
This where our story takes on an startling twist straight out of left field. The line didn’t end where we thought it did. It stretched on to the back of the building. We followed the line, and kept walking. We turned the corner to the back of the building, and the line stretched into infinity. Literally as far as we could see, the line kept going. We followed it further, followed the directions of staff and security, and walked for what felt like hours. We didn’t reach the end of the line until we’d crossed the entire back of the building (which itself is so massive, it stretches about 8 city blocks in length) and continued on to the Marriott Marina, adjacent to the convention center. It was somewhere behind that, right next to the bay, that the line ended. It soon stretched much further beyond the Marriott, as the line continued to build until long after the doors were opened.
To say that this was the longest line either of us had ever waited in before, is an understatement. This was undoubtedly the longest line in Comic-Con history. Doug — just because he’s Doug, and he thinks of such things — brought along one of those clicker things that measure how many steps you take when you exercise or whatever. And according to his device, once the line finally began to move, was 1,846 steps. That’s about nine-tenths of a mile. Doug even took video of the entire walk, which I’m going to edit when I return home and post for you in a fast-forward video to show the incredible length of this history-making line.
Oh, and right as we rounded the corner to the south end of the building, Greg Grunberg appeared at the back stage doors where all the Hollywood folks enter, and got the crowd excited. He took his ever-present video camera out and took pictures of us in line.
And one more thing I should say about this line: For all my griping about security’s incompetence Thursday and Friday morning with regards to the line for entering the exhibit hall first thing in the morning… They really got things right this time. Every break in the line had a security member present to direct traffic, and there were other security personnel stationed at periodic intervals to help us find our way, and keep us out of places we didn’t belong. They were both courteous and knowledgeable, much to our surprise. A big improvement over what we’ve witnessed the rest of the week.
HEROES
Heroes was up first, and shortly after moderator Jeph Loeb appeared (and stalled a few minutes for a cast that was stuck on a malfunctioning elevator) and introduced the cast, show creator Tim Kring took the stage with a metal briefcase in hand, which was handcuffed to his wrist. He opened the case, and took out a DVD disc containing the premier episode for Season 3, which he surprised everyone with by announcing that they were going to show the entire episode in its entirety, right here, right now.
The episode, titled “The Second Coming,” was an absolute knockout. Even disenchanted fans were whooping and hollering by the time it was over. It was filled with one gut-punching jaw dropper after another, and just when you thought it couldn’t get any more intense, it upped the ante even further. At least two major longstanding mysteries on the show were resolved, all of the cliffhanger stuff was explained in shocking fashion, and it was filled with things you never thought you’d see. Every major character was given ultra-juicy stuff to do, the visual effects took a noticeable leap in quality, and I was left with the overall feeling that Kring and company have finally figured out the magic, pitch-perfect formula for getting this show right. It was fast-paced, action packed, and filled with wry humor and powerful emotion. Best of all, there wasn’t an origin story anywhere in sight. Don’t worry, I won’t go into details. The episode was way too good to spoil, but please take my advice and come back to the fold, if only to try it out for this one episode, when the show returns in September. Heroes is about to become the show we’ve been wanting it to be from the beginning, and I promise you won’t be disappointed!
A brief Q&A with the entire cast of the show followed the screening, but very little new information was revealed. The episode screening had everyone so pumped and excited, it really didn’t matter anyway.
A couple of tidbits:
- The fantastic Cristine Rose, aka Angela Petrelli, has finally been upgraded to join the cast as a regular.
- The Season 2 DVD set, arriving in August, contains a ton of extra features, including “the lost episodes” that were filmed (or had begun filming) just before the writer’s strike caused the season to be cut short.
I’m thrilled to report that I got this entire panel on film (sans the screening, of course) and will present it in its entirety early next week when I get back to an Internet connection that works properly.
LOST
I have to admit, before arriving at Comic-Con, I was way more pumped for the Lost panel than the Heroes panel. But Heroes proved an amazingly tough act to follow. They had an entire episode to show off, where Lost had almost nothing (Season 5 filming begins in three weeks). Heroes had its entire cast present; Lost had show runners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. Normally the two of them might be enough, but Heroes took things to a new level, and it was hard for Lost to overcome the buzz that Heroes created just fifteen minutes earlier.
Lindelof and Cuse did their usual song-and-dance, with plenty of planned bits and some wildly funny moments — including a hysterical piece they recorded for the Season 4 DVD. They even gave away gifts and memorabilia to everyone who came to the microphone to ask a question, including some amazingly appropriate items that seemed tailor-made for the questions that were asked. After initially disappointing fans with the news that none of the cast was able to make it to Comic-Con this year, Matthew Fox suddenly appeared on the stage behind them, halfway through the panel, to the delight of everyone in the audience.
Perhaps of greatest interest was the “corporate sponsorship” of the panel by “the latest iteration” of the Dharma Initiative. New CEO Hans von Egan (an actor with a very dry wit) took the stage for a five-minute presentation where he discussed the booth on the show floor, where folks like yours truly had been “tested” for entrance into the Initiative. Despite the fact that everyone who took the test had been told they’d passed and would receive membership, von Egan declared that the results were “abysmal” and that only five individuals had been qualified to proceed to the next stage of recruitment. Those five people were called to the stage and then taken back to the booth where they would see something no one else got to see.
Let’s do our own flash-forward here. (I’ll get to the Q&A stuff in a sec.) The end of the panel was interrupted as one of those five new Dharma recruits rushed the stage with a video camera in hand, declaring that he’d shot the entire “exclusive thing” he and his fellows were shown, and he was going to pirate the video onto the monitors so we all could “finally get some freaking answers.”
The video played as expected, and our old friend Dr. Marvin Candle appeared, only not like we’ve ever seen him before. He seemed as though he was home, not dressed in his usual frock, and even spoke off camera with a wife and child at one point. He leveled with the viewers and revealed that his name was not really Marvin Candle. It was implied that he was recording the video twenty to thirty years in the past, but that his work on the island with Dharma had somehow granted him knowledge of things that would come in the future. He knew that his words would be passed along on something called “the Internet,” for example. He spoke of the Purge, and the destruction of the Dharma Initiative, and implored the viewer not to let it happen.
The real twist came at the end, when we heard the voice of the camera operator. It belonged to none other than squirrelly scientist Daniel Farraday, one of the four “Freighter Folk” who debuted on the show in Season 4. Chew on that for a while.
I snagged this entire panel on film, and intend to present the complete video to you early next week. In the meantime, here’s a quick rundown of what we learned:
- A fan asked if the island also moved at the end of Season 2, when the sky turned purple for the first time. Lindelof replied that that was a great question, but no, the island has only moved once on the show thus far.
- Q: Are Jin and Locke really dead? A: Both Jin and Locke are still on the show, “in some capacity.” We have not seen the last of these characters, as “dead is a relative term.”
- Q: With Rousseau now dead, will we ever get her long-promised flashback episode? A: Season 5 will contain Rousseau’s definitive story.
- This led to discussion of how Season 5 will work; just like past seasons with flashbacks and flash-forwards, Season 5 is allowing them to introduce a new plot device that allows them to tell stories in a whole new way, both on and off the island. Lindelof revealed that just as has always happened with past season premiers, Season 5 would begin in such a way that viewers won’t know when and where the action is taking place, at first.
- Q: What ever happened to Vincent? A: Vincent is fine. He survived the island’s move, and will appear in Season 5. They even said that they felt secure in revealing that Vincent would make it to the very end of the show.
- Q: The love Jack/Kate/Sawyer love triangle is still in effect, despite Jack and Kate leaving the island. There is still more of the triangle to come, and it likely won’t be resolved completely until the show ends. A little girl asked if Kate would ever see Sawyer again, to which Carlton replied, “Yes.”
- A fan asked what happened to the Zodiac raft that Farraday was piloting. Did it travel with the island, or is it stranded out in the ocean somewhere. Carlton was tight lipped on this, but did say that Farraday has a major role in the new season (a fact later reinforced by his vocal appearance on the viral Marvin Candle video), and that this question would be resolved.
- Farraday’s notebook contains notes about things that have already happened, and things that are going to happen. “That notebook will feature prominently in Season 5.”
- A very clever fan asked how old Richard Alpert is, and most interestingly, how many toes he has. Carlton replied that Alpert is quite old, and that we will learn a lot more about his history in Season 5. Lindelof commented that fans hoping to see for themselves how many toes Alpert has will get to see him barefoot in the very near future.”
Overall, I have to say the Heroes panel really schooled the Lost panel this year. Heroes scored major points and enthusiasm for showing off an entire episode — an amazingly good episode, easily the best in the series thus far — and Lindelof and Cuse’s usual tactic of relying on the fans to ask intelligent questions, instead of merely volunteering info about what’s to come, seemed to backfire. The Lost fans, as entertaining as they were, asked only a few truly smart questions, providing fewer opportunities than ever for Carlton to offer teasers and revelations about what’s to come.
Incidentally, one final note: I had hoped to attend TV-related panels all day long today, including panels for the likes of Dollhouse, Battlestar Galactica, Pushing Daisies, and Fringe, but this task proved impossible. The lines to get into the panels are considerably longer this year than ever before, severely limiting access to major events. If you didn’t get there hours in advance, you weren’t getting in. We only barely made it into Hall H for Lost and Heroes, and the events in the smaller rooms on the other end of the building seemed to suffer from nearly the same “line fatigue.”
It was really quite remarkable (and disappointing).
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