Today is the second full day of panels for Comic Con @Home, which will feature panels for TV shows such as Vikings, Fear the Walking Dead, The Walking Dead, the new spin-off series The Walking Dead: World Beyond, the new drama The Capture from Peacock, The CW’s Pandora and the upcoming Quibi thriller Don’t Look Deeper as well as the annual Brave Warriors panel sponsored by Entertainment Weekly, the annual Fan Favorites panel hosted by TV Guide Magazine, a salute to the work of actress Charlize Theron and A Zoom with Joss Whedon [among lots of other panels].
The first panels start at 10 AM and the final panels start at 6 PM with the 32nd Annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards getting underway at 7 PM, which rounds out the night.
Since there are three panels dedicated to the world of The Walking Dead included among the panels for this events at-home event, let’s take a visit back to last year’s Comic Con – courtesy of photos taken by our very own Dominick Dusseault – when actors from Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead appeared at the 2019 event:
Fear the Walking Dead:
Alycia Debnam-Carey
Lennie James
Danay Garcia and Maggie Grace
Jenna Elfman
Karen David
Austin Amelio, Alexa Nisenson and Rubén Blades
The Walking Dead:
Danai Gurira
Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Cailey Fleming
Norman Reedus
Melissa McBride
Avi Nash and Ryan Hurst
Nadia Hilker
Eleanor Matsuura and Cooper Andrews
Last year also found some of the cast of The CW sci-fi series Pandora taking to the stage, and this year’s event will find some of the panel participating in a video panel. Let’s take a look at some of the pictures that Dominick Dusseault took from last year’s Pandora in-person panel:
Priscilla Quintana
Oliver Dench
Tehmina Sunny
John Harlan Kim
Johann Urb
And, as a way to honor both of this year’s TV Guide Magazine and Entertainment Weekly annual events, let’s look back at the ladies who participated in the Women Who Kick Ass panel as well as the cast of Westworld; all taken by Dominick Dusseault:
Women Who Kick Ass:
Shohreh Aghdashloo from The Expanse
Colbie Smulders from Stumptown and The Avengers franchise
Freema Agyeman from Doctor Who and New Amsterdam
Betty Gilpin from GLOW
Jeri Ryan from Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Voyager
The Amazon film Radioactive will debut online on July 24.
Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl and Pride and Prejudice) stars as Polish-born physicist Marie (Skłodowska) Curie, who despite not being taken seriously as a woman in a male-dominated field, forged ahead with her studies, along with her husband Pierre, discovering the elements radium and polonium, changing the world.
The TV One film Coins For Love, a sequel to Coins for Christmas will debut on July 19 at 9 PM.
Single mother Madison Morris (Essence Atkins from Ambitions), who finds herself starting over. Madison lands her dream job at a publishing company. To her dismay, however, she must complete a probationary period and will not receive her full salary until the process is over, leaving her in a financial struggle. With a new career and struggling to make ends meet, she works under the demands of her new job while raising two teens on her own.
Making matters even more complicated, she finds herself torn between an old flame and a new love interest. Alec Darby (Stephen Bishop from Imposters and Being Mary Jane) has also started the job of his dreams on a national sports network but soon clashes with his co-host Demarco (Kendrick Cross from Ambitions). Madison and Alec have a chance encounter and connect to discuss their career challenges, prompting Alec to offer Madison a side gig as his personal assistant to help supplement her income.
The two embark on a great working relationship, and sparks eventually start to fly but not before Alec’s ex-fiancée reemerges in the picture. Madison’s ex-husband also comes crawling back with promises of a fresh start adding to the drama. Tune in to see if the couple’s budding relationship will be able to withstand the ultimate test – their Exes – in this romantic drama.
On July 19, UPtv will debut the box office film Forever My Girl on the small screen at 7 PM.
Liam Page (Alex Roe from Siren) is a country music superstar who left his bride Josie (Jessica Rothe from Happy Death Day) at the altar to pursue fame and fortune. Page never got over Josie, his one true love, or forgot his Southern roots in the small community where he was born and raised. Now, he must unexpectedly face the consequences of his actions when he returns to his hometown for the funeral of his best friend from high school.
The cast includes Abby Ryder Forston, Travis Tritt, Peter Cambor and Judith Hoag.
On July 15, the new movie Psych 2: Lassie Come Home will debut online on Peacock.
Santa Barbara Police Chief Carlton Lassiter (Timothy Omundson) is ambushed on the job and left for dead. In a vintage Psych-style Hitchcockian nod, he begins to see impossible happenings around his recovery clinic. Shawn (James Roday) and Gus (Dulé Hill) return to Lassie’s side in Santa Barbara and are forced to navigate the personal, the professional, and possibly the supernatural.
Separated from their new lives in San Francisco, our heroes find themselves unwelcome in their old stomping grounds as they secretly untangle a twisted case without the benefit of the police, their loved ones, or the quality sourdough bakeries of the Bay Area. What they uncover will change the course of their relationships forever.
The cast returning include Corbin Bernsen, Kirsten Nelson and Maggie Lawson.
On July 12, the UPtv movie Love in Harmony Valley will debut at 7 PM
Emma (Amber Marshall from the long-running Canadian drama Heartland) has waited to reunite with her best friend Tracey (Nina Kiri from The Handmaid’s Tale) since she was in a serious accident. But Will (Eric Hicks from the Canadian drama Cardinal), Tracey’s brother, won’t allow it, blaming her for the accident.
When forced to work together, can Will and Emma learn to respect each other?
The box office movie Greyhound will debut on the small screen courtesy of Apple TV+ on July 10.
U.S. Navy Commander Ernest Krause (Tom Hanks) is assigned to lead an Allied convoy across the Atlantic during World War II. His convoy, however, is pursued by German U-boats. Although this is Krause’s first wartime mission, he finds himself embroiled in what would come to be known as the longest, largest and most complex naval battle in history: The Battle of the Atlantic.
The cast includes Elizabeth Shue,Stephen Graham, Rob Morgan and Tom Brittney [among others].
On July 10, the movie The Old Guard will debut online on Netflix.
A group of mercenaries, all centuries-old immortals with the ablity to heal themselves, discover someone is onto their secret, and they must fight to protect their freedom.
Among the cast is Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne, Matthias Schoenaerts, Chiewetel Ejiofor and Harry Melling (Dudley from Harry Potter fame).
Rueben’s Ramblings is celebrating its 10th Anniversary!!
In honor of that I decided to highlight some of the big events that took place during each year of the past 10 years.
Today’s salute is focused on 2019:
A couple of the more memorable shows that debuted during that year included:
* A Discovery of Witches – Based on the book by Deborah Harkness, this series starred Matthew Goode as a centuries-old vampire and Theresa Palmer as a historian (and reluctant witch) who fall in love despite the long-held distrust between witches and vampires.
* Whiskey Cavalier – This action series was a breath of fresh air and just so damn fun to watch during the spring of 2019. The chemistry between leads Scott Foley and Lauren Cohen was pretty terrific too. The most upsetting thing was the network cancelled the show after only 13 episodes, disappointing all of its fans and especially the cast.
* His Dark Materials – This HBO drama may not have pulled in the ratings as expected or even hoped – given that it took over the Game of Thrones time slot – but it certainly was grand in scope, had Lin-Manuel Miranda recurring – and a giant talking polar bear. There was much more to the show than that, but those were the stand-outs for me.
* The Witcher – The draw for this Netflix fantasy series was, of course, Henry Cavill (Superman himself), but I found myself captivated by the action, the magic and even the grunts and growls from Geralt. Despite less than positive critic response, this series became one of the most in demand original series on streaming platforms.
* Pennyworth – This EPIX series gave viewers a much different look at Alfred Pennyworth, the long-time butler to the Wayne family from Batman legend. Viewers got to see a young man looking to find his own place in the world while becoming a target for a conspiratorial group wanting to take over the British government.
* Batwoman – The most recent installment of the DC Universe was introduced in the fall of 2019, bringing Kate Kane, cousin to Bruce Wayne (aka Batman) to live in a Gotham City where the Caped Crusader has been MIA for the past three years. Sure, at the end of the debut season viewers were very surprised that Ruby Rose (series lead) left the show, making it necessary for the series to be revamped for its sophomore season.
Some of the big events that took place throughout the year included:
Jane the Virgin came to an end in 2019 and Gina Rodriguez had an impressive 7-minute monologue where she talked about her situation between the unexpected return of her late husband Michael (who had been believed to be dead for YEARS) and her relationship with Rafael. And, during the series finale of the show it was FINALLY revealed that the narrator of the series was actually a grown-up Mateo, Jane and Rafael’s son.
NOTE: Sadly the video of Jane’s monologue is not available online, but the video of the Mateo reveal is available, and you can see that below:
The final season of Game of Thrones was raked over the coals by fans for being hot-and-cold, disappointing a lot of fans; but one of the best events to take place in the final season was watching 5′ 1″ tall Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) kill the Night King, ending all of the White Walkers.
You can see that scene below (go to 4:48 in the video to see the BIG moment):
A big milestone that took place in 2019 was the 20th Anniversary of the TV series Angel with a reunion of the cast members on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.
Check out the cover photo for that issue:
[Photo Credit: Entertainment Weekly]
One of the final episodes of Supernatural (sure, the very last 7 episodes will air in 2021 because of the pandemic, but…) featured the return of John Winchester (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). It was an emotional episode for the cast and the fans.
You can see the family picture below:
Five years after the box office movie was released, Veronica Mars FINALLY returned for a much anticipated fourth season, and the episodes were even released early as a way to not only appease the fans but also in celebration of lead star Kristin Bell’s birthday.
That being said, though, the fourth season brought about a major controversy [Spoiler Alert if you haven’t watched] that rocked the fandom to its core. Veronica and Logan got married BUT then Logan was killed – yes, killed – in the final episode shortly after they exchanged their vows.
Needless to say, fans were in an uproar over that unnecessary and unwelcome twist and what made it even worse was the fervor over how Kristin Bell and series creator Rob Thomas handled the fans ire over Logan’s death, and the resulting efforts to stop a season 5 from ever being made without Logan.
The top movie at the box office in 2019 was Avengers: Endgame. Meanwhile some of the worst movies for the year were Stuber, Cats and the Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway film Serenity. Two movies that SHOULD have done well but turned out to be flops were Dark Phoenix and Terminator: Dark Fate.
NOTE: Regardless of how poorly those two movies performed at the box office, our photographer Dom got some great shots of cast members at Wonder Con and San Diego Comic Con.
Following in the tradition, I had started a number of years earlier, I selected a group of interesting people as part of my faces of the year and new faces to be on the look out for in the new year.
Some of the people I picked for 2019 included: Cynthia Erivo, Marsai Martin, Kaitlyn Dever, Simone Missick, Andrew Scott, Samara Weaving and Beanie Feldstein.
Rueben's Ramblings 