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Quantum Leap's Scott Bakula at Comic-Con 2010

Jul 23, 2010 By Mark Redfern Photography by Wendy Lynch Redfern

And so Comic-Con 2010 began. It was this writer’s third such consecutive adventure at the world’s most notable geek convention. As with previous years, we avoided Hall H, where most of the big motion picture panels (Tron: Legacy, etc.) flaunting Hollywood heavyweights (Bruce Willis etc.) take place. There was at least a two-and-a-half hour wait to get into the hall, with a long snaking line already in place by the time we made it down to San Diego at around 11 a.m. But there was no shortage of other compelling panels to check out, and here’s a brief rundown of what we saw day one of Comic-Con 2010, panel by panel.

DC Nation Convention Kickoff: Each day at Comic-Con, DC Comics have a DC Nation panel in which they reveal various upcoming comics and story arcs, and which usually features some of their top writers and artists. We showed up half way through 2010’s first DC Nation, just in time for audience questions. It was revealed that writer/artist Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth, Essex County) would be writing Superboy. Artist/DC co-publisher Jim Lee said that All-Star Batman & Robin, a notorious book he was drawing that Frank Millar was writing, will finally return in February under the new name Dark Knight, Robin, as it’s more connected to Milar’s Dark Knight Returns universe than the All-Star one. Writer James Robinson assured the audience that after the last couple of years of rotating lineups, the current Justice League roster wouldn’t be changing anytime soon. One audience member complained that Wonder Woman’s new costume made her look like a soccer mom. And panel moderator and DC co-publisher Dan DiDio joked, “It would really help if I read these books.”

Burn Notice: For the second year running, the panel for USA Television’s Miami-set spy show Burn Notice was missing its star Jeffrey Donovan and co-star Bruce Campbell stole the show. As with last year, Campbell offered up money to audience members who paid him compliments, but the actor was even funnier last year. Campbell joked that Donovan doesn’t sweat, while he “projectile sweats,” and that AC was only installed in the black Charger car used in the show after Donovan sweated in the car one day. Series creator Matt Nix said that he originally wanted to set the show in somewhere like Newark, but that the executives at USA suggested Miami, a concept he had to warm to. “I actually knew Miami pretty well, because I’d been there for 12 hours before a cruise,” Nix joked. The big news announced at the panel was that there was a Burn Notice prequel movie (either TV or direct to DVD, they didn’t say) that centers on Bruce Campbell’s Sam Axe character and his last military mission. “This is actually breaking news, we weren’t sure we were going to announce this an hour ago,” revealed Nix. “USA finally got their shit together,” joked Campbell. “I hope you’re okay with this, I was thinking of putting a chainsaw in your hand [in the movie],” Nix said to Campbell, referencing Campbell’s Evil Dead character, Ash. This got thunderous audience applause.

White Collar: After failing to get into a to-capacity panel on amazing DC Comics writer Geoff Johns, I settled on a fairly boring panel on USA TV’s White Collar, which featured the whole main cast of the show. The main revelations were that the cast really like each other in real life, that star Matt Bomer likes the new LCD Soundsystem album, that actress Tiffani Thiessen just had a baby and so had to shoot her scenes for the first six episodes of the new season in LA while the rest of the show is shot in NYC, and that when shooting on the streets of New York passer-bys like to mess with the crew by yelling “cut.”

TV Guide: Quantum Leap Retrospective: The highlight of day one was a panel on the beloved ‘90s time travel show Quantum Leap, that was moderated by TV Guide‘s executive editor Craig Tomashoff and featured series star Scott Bakula. Bakula got a standing ovation when he entered the room and seemed genuine and down to earth. He said he was happy that anyone showed up at all, let alone that they had a full room. Right away, Bakula revealed that Quantum Leap creator Donald P. Bellisario had just been commissioned by a big time Hollywood producer to write a movie based on the show. Alas, Bakula said that he would probably not be reprising his role of lost-in-time-traveler Dr. Sam Beckett, that his part would be played by a younger actor and he and costar Dean Stockwell would only have cameos in the movie. This is a shame, as Bakula still looks great for his age and could command a movie. Bakula said that he met George Clooney last year, who said that he auditioned for Quantum Leap three times, but never got a part. Bakula also said that he had to come up with different ways to say his signature “oh boy” line each time he leaped into a different body and time period, depending on the tone of the episode, and that they even worked it out for him to say “oh boy” in an episode of Chuck, which he was been a regular guest star on. His favorite episode was The Leap Home, as Sam got to leap into his own life and Bakula also got to play his character’s father.

“Nobody understood the last episode, including me,” said Bakula about Quantum Leap‘s series finale. He said that they didn’t know for sure that they were shooting the last episode when they were filming it, so it had to serve as both a season finale and a series finale. His son, who was 10 years old at the time, was unhappy with the finale, telling his father, “That’s so unfair, you never get to go home.”

“We were trying to figure out a way to do it for years, to leap me into a baby,” Bakula revealed about an unused idea. He also said that they had wanted to do an animated episode. Bakula said that it was very complicated to shoot the mirror scenes, in which Sam looked in the mirror and saw the face of the person he’d leapt into. In the beginning they had to build an entire reversed mirror image set, which was very expensive, until they later figured out a cheaper and simpler way to do it. All-in-all Bakula seemed warm and gracious, and was clearly very proud of his work on Quantum Leap, a show he says he’s still most known for and recognized on the street for, all these years later.

Look Around You: Another highlight of day one was a panel for BBC’s comedy show Look Around You, which spoofs British educational shows from the 1970s. “This feels like the scene in Godfather 2, when Michael Corleone is being indicted by the high court,” joked co-creator Peter Serafinowicz as he sat down behind the table and in front of the microphone and proceeded to impersonate Al Pacino. The episode Iron was screened in its entirety (since Look Around You‘s first season episodes were only 10 minutes long) and afterwards Serafinowicz remarked, “It’s so weird that show was on television.” Serafinowicz and other panelist, co-creator Robert Popper, said that there would be no season 3 of Look Around You, but joked that they were going to skip directly to season 4. They did, however, tease that they’d like to make a Look Around You movie, one that might start out in the strange lab seen in season one and would expand from there. They’d also like to publish a Look Around You copy-book and have been approached to put out the show’s music, which Serafinowicz and Popper composed, on cassette (to fit the show’s time period).

At one point the two creators read hilarious unused Look Around You concepts from their old ideas notebook. They also explained that they changed the format of the show in season two, from 10 to 30 minutes and to a spoof on such early ‘80s science shows as Tomorrow’s World, at the instance of the BBC. They screened the “Little Mouse” music video (from the episode Music), which featured a performance by Popper and spoofed ‘70s music videos shot at stately homes. “Filming that was the best day of my life,” Popper reflected. Serafinowicz then did a spot-on impersonation of Alan Alda. The panel ended with the screening of Markets of Britain, a new short film made exclusively by Serafinowicz and Popper for Comic-Con. It seemed to consist of found footage of a man walking around a town market in the 1970s, with a witty new voiceover by Serafinowicz and Popper. Although, based on Look Around You‘s accurate recreation of ‘70s educational films, it’s possible that they shot the footage themselves.

Vertigo: The New Classics: Our Comic-Con day one experience ended with a panel on DC Comics’ more adult imprint, Vertigo. The panel centered on four of their new books: American Vampire, iZombie, The Unwritten, and Sweet Tooth, and the writers and/or artists for each were there. American Vampire writer Scott Snyder and artist Rafael Albuquerque were meeting in person for the first time here at Comic-Con. They revealed that a new story arc was starting with issue 6, which will take place in Las Vegas in 1935. The Unwritten‘s artist, Peter Gross, announced that issue 17 of his comic would be a choose-your-own-adventure style special issue. He also said that he’d love to work on a Legion of Superheroes comic at some point, as his daughter loves the characters. The writer of iZombie, Chris Roberson, explained that issue 6 of the comic drawn by Mike Allred would reveal the origin of the were-terrier character and would feature a talking monkey. “Basically, we’re jumping the shark right away. If you don’t like it now, then stop,” joked Roberson, referring mainly to the talking monkey character. He also admitted that he liked the TV show iCarly and finds it easier to write teenage girl characters rather than “macho dudes.” Sweet Tooth‘s writer/artist Jeff Lemire said that the comic was going to get more action packed and hinted that those who were hoping that Gus and Jepperd would reunite anytime soon might be disappointed. Lemire also announced that Albuquerque would be doing the covers for the Superboy comic he’d be writing. And so ended a tiring day one of Comic-Con 2010. One down, three to go!