Mike at Comic-Con: Moderating 'Community,' 'Breaking Bad,' More

(Flickr photo by titi-.)

Perks of the job: For the second year in a row, I got to experience San Diego Comic-Con as the moderator of multiple TV-themed panels. And they were good ones -- including "Community," "Breaking Bad" and one devoted to writer/director Bryan Fuller, who's currently adapting both "Hannibal" and "The Munsters" (reimagined as "Mockingbird Lane") for NBC. My fourth panel was a quick one for NBC's new post-apocalyptic drama "Revolution."



My panels kicked off on Friday morning with "Community," which I had the honor of moderating last year as well. But there was a big difference this year: Not only could Chevy Chase, Ken Jeong, Jim Rash and Donald Glover not make it to the panel, but this was the first panel for the show since creator Dan Harmon was shown the door. That meant it also was the "coming out" party for new showrunners Moses Port and David Guarascio.

Guarascio and Port acquitted themseves quite nicely, and said all the right things -- that they love the show too. After I asked them if "everything was going to be OK. They said yes. And they also started promising several fan favorites -- including more animation, and another one devoted to fake show-within-a-show "Inspector Spacetime."



Next up, on Friday night I got to moderate the first-ever Comic-Con panel for "Breaking Bad." Clearly this was a long time coming, as fans gave the show two standing ovations. I think the entire cast, as well as creator Vince Gilligan, were in awe of sitting in front of a crowd of 5,000 adoring fans.

Vince was pretty tight-lipped, but he did hint that the Germans would be a part of season 5, and that Walt does something this season that strips away any last shred of decency he may still have had.

I shared a few backstage pics on our new Franklin Avenue instagram account. And I'll post some here in the next few days -- including shots of Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul climbing into hazmat suits.


(Photo by: Trae Patton/NBC)

One of the more interesting panels I moderated was a chat with "Pushing Daisies" creator Bryan Fuller, who brought along and screened the first five minutes of his "Mockingbird Lane" pilot and revealed some details about it and his new take on "Hannibal." He also tantalized the crowd by hinting that there might be some sort of "Pushing Daisies" revival on some sort of platform.



My final panel on Saturday was a quick one for NBC's new drama "Revolution." The pilot was screened, which left just about 8 minutes to chat with creator Eric Kripke and the show's stars, including Billy Burke and Giancarlo Esposito. That's right, "Breaking Bad's" Gus Fring was on my "Revolution" panel. It was full-circle, "Breaking Bad" weekend!