Comic-Con 2011: "Chuck" Bid Farewell, "Doctor Who" Made his Debut and "Terra Nova" Finally Arrived

Ed Martin will be reporting for the next two-weeks from Comic-Con and from the Television Critics Association tour. His reports will be available exclusively to subscribers of Jack Myers MediaBusiness Report.

Year after year the annual San Diego Comic-Con feels more like a colorful convention for the television business rather than a mass gathering of comic-book and fantasy enthusiasts. Anyone who remembers the epic scale of NATPE confabs way back in the Eighties will understand what I mean when I say that the Con experience readily super-charges anyone who works in or around TV. Unlike NATPE, however, the Con builds bigger buzz for new and current television shows than just about anything else, simply by tantalizing an enormous segment of their existing and/or potential audience through star-filled panels and massive marketing initiatives.

It was a big year for AMC, which offered an unforgettable panel for The Walking Dead. A preview trailer that was shown at the start of the session was so powerful that the question and answer period at the end was shortened a bit so that it could be run again. (All I will say about the trailer is that the harrowing sequences it showcased from Season 2 made Season 1 look like a day at Disney World.) Moderator Chris Hardwick skillfully energized the cast and audience alike. (Their banter redefined the word "fresh," which is now the new "frak.")

Not surprisingly the panel for NBC's Chuck was a big draw, in that the upcoming fifth season of this Con favorite is also its last. The cast made clear that throughout their show's bumpy run it was frequently pulled back from the brink of cancellation by the support it received from Con attendees. The session became quite emotional at the end, with series star Zachary Levi near tears. (In a show of respect and ingenuity Levi, who truly seems to appreciate his audience, took over a nearby pub for the weekend and turned it into something called Nerd HQ, a gathering place for fans throughout the Con. There were several small Q&A's staged at Nerd HQ with a number of stars. Tickets to each of them were sold, with the proceeds going to charity.)

The session for BBC America's Doctor Who was another major event. (I was unable to attend but have heard glowing reports from reporters who were there.) It marked the first Con appearance by Matt Smith, the actor who plays the current Doctor and is the new Con God.

Syfy also had a good Con. The annual panels for the network's scripted hitsEureka and Warehouse 13 were moved this year to one of the convention center's largest ballrooms and drew bigger crowds than ever – as big as those that assembled in years past for Battlestar Galactica. The media never makes much of a fuss over Eureka but at each of the last five Cons I have attended I have been impressed by the wild enthusiasm of its audience. A session for Syfy's latest hit, Being Human, also struck me as one of the network's most successful panels since those for BSG.

FXstepped up big time at this year's Con with panels for a number of its series including two that have nothing to do with otherworldliness or fantasy (Sons of Anarchy and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and one that does, in its own strange way (Wilfred). Also, FX co-sponsored the annual party thrown by Maxim magazine, which is always a Con highlight.

The panel forFox's long-delayed series Terra Nova featured a screening of its first episode that filled most of the hour. It seemed to me that the premiere was politely received by the audience but did not make a huge impact. I was seated about midway back from the stage, surrounded by "real people" rather than studio guests in the reserved section up front, and I didn't hear or see anybody getting very excited about what they were watching. (I'll have more to say about Terra Nova, the most ambitious of the 2011-12 broadcast season's new fall series, after its session next week at the Summer Television Critics Association tour.)

On the studio side, Warner Bros. once again stoked fans of its shows with greater impact and insight than any of its competitors. Its panels were easily among the most talked about at the Con – but how could they not have been when they included Chuck, The Vampire Diaries, Fringe and Supernatural, each one a certified Con favorite? As always, the studio deftly enticed fans who attended its panels (and folks who could not get into them) to later visit its massive two-story construct on the convention floor for autograph signings and photos with the talent on hand. Warner Bros. also continued to provide the giant collectible bags that are handed out free to Con attendees to carry their purchases and the promotional merchandise they gather while walking the floor. This year there were ten different bags featuring Warner Bros. properties, the most talked about being the one for Fringe, because while most of the Fringe bags featured the main characters from the show, a very limited amount of them cleverly pictured their doubles from the alternate Earth seen in the series.

As it has for many years, Showtime held onto the prime real estate among all promotional platforms in and around the Con: The ubiquitous red Comic-Con lanyard, once again featuring the title treatment from Dexter.