[Televisionary]

San Diego Comic-Con International 2010 kicked off last night with the annual Preview Night, an opportunity to walk the convention floor before the true madness begins. Which is funny in a way because the floor was already teeming with people who were either after the latest freebies or checking out the behemoth booths and merchandise offered by a slew of studios, television networks, comic sellers, and, well, anything and everything under the sun. Missed Preview Night? Here's a selection below of photography capturing some of the highlights of the convention floor--from Green Lantern and Tron: Legacy to The Walking Dead --courtesy of Mark DiFruscio. WBTV Booth Tron: Legacy The Walking Dead FOX Booth Green Lantern Salt/Priest

San Diego Comic-Con is upon us. Over at The Daily Beast, you can check out my latest feature, entitled "Angelina Jolie & Other Nerd Bait at Comic-Con," which rounds-up the 14 most anticipated--and thus buzzy--panels from both film and television. Among the standouts that are sure to be action-packed this year: Salt, True Blood, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, Green Lantern, The Expendables, Being Human, Red, The Walking Dead, Tron: Legacy, Thor, Let Me In, Paul , all of WBTV's many shows, and the J.J. Abrams/Joss Whedon Visionaries panel, presented by Entertainment Weekly , among others. What are you most looking forward to and what panels do you think will live up to the hype? Head to the comments section to discuss.

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. A few things to get through before I hit the road for San Diego and Comic-Con. Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Olivia Munn (the newly minted Daily Show correspondent) will guest star on NBC's Chuck this fall when the series returns for its fourth season on September 20th. Munn, who is a series regular on NBC's midseason comedy Perfect Couples , will play "an impossibly cool, smart, and pretty CIA agent who intimidates and schools Chuck and Morgan" in the same installment that features Dolph Lundgren. ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) In other scoop, Ausiello writes that former Friday Night Lights star Scott Porter will be joining the cast of CBS' The Good Wife this fall. Porter, whose CW pilot Nomads was not ordered to series, will play Blake, described as "Kalinda’s private-eye counterpart at the D.C. firm that’s merging with Lockhart & Gardner" w

A very late night on Sunday meant that I didn't have a chance to watch this week's installment of True Blood until yesterday, but it was well worth the wait. (And at least I had a much better evening than poor Tara did.) This week's sensational episode of True Blood ("Trouble"), written by Nancy Oliver and directed by Scott Winant, ramped up the tension of the previous episodes to deliver an installment that was drenched in blood, vengeance, and a wee bit of madness to boot. In the more than capable hands of Oliver, the fifth episode of True Blood 's third season becomes a pivotal chapter in a number of plots, including the psychotic romance between Franklin Mott and the imprisoned Tara Thornton, the reveal of Bill's true feelings, and an uneasy alliance between Eric Northman and Russell Edgington, whose, uh, relationship goes back a few centuries. But the episode isn't just about the crimson splatter of blood (though there was a fair amount of viole

"My name is Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221b Baker Street..." The details might be the same but this is most definitely not your great-grandfather's Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective is given a modern-day makeover courtesy of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss with the new Sherlock , which launches on Sunday in the UK on BBC One and Stateside at the end of October on PBS as part of Masterpiece Mystery . Starring Benedict Cumberbatch ( The Last Enemy ), Martin Freeman ( The Office ), and Rupert Graves ( Death at a Funeral ), Sherlock deposits the titular master sleuth and his trusted companion Dr. John Watson to contemporary London, where they will use their deductive skills to solve all manner of bizarre, surprising, and just plain weird cases. "Conan Doyle's stories were never about frock coats and gas light," said Moffat. "They're about brilliant detection, dreadful villains and blood-curdling crimes... and, frankly, to he

"The Newmans will succeed where the Botwins failed. They will find jobs, have hobbies. They will have a normal life." Showtime has released a new trailer for Season Six of Weeds , which returns to the lineup on August 16th. On the run after Shane took a croquet mallet to Pilar's head at the end of last season, the Botwins hit the road in an effort to evade both the long arm of the law and the less than merciful killing hand of the Mexican drug cartel run by Nancy's husband. It's a trip that takes them through the heartland of America as they blow through a number of cities, trailing identities in their wake. But as much as it represents an effort to escape death, it's also a new chance at life for Nancy and the gang. Hence the above quote from Mary-Louise Parker's Nancy, looking at this messed-up road trip as a chance at a clean slate. Sort of, anyway. You can watch the entire three-minute trailer for Season Six below. "You can take the girl out of th

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Many had given up hope that FX's brilliant and labyrinthine legal drama Damages would survive another season, given the low ratings for the series' fantastically taut third season, which wrapped its run earlier this year. Not so: DirecTV has come to the aid of the Sony Picture Television- and FX Productions-produced series and has renewed the Glenn Close-led series for two seasons of ten episodes apiece. The only problem: it won't be airing on FX anymore as DirecTV has the exclusive rights to the series on The 101 Network. "We're excited to partner with Sony Pictures Television as we breathe new life into this outstanding drama," said Patty Ishimoto, general manager of The 101 Network and vice president of entertainment for DIRECTV, in a statement. "It's a win for our customers because only they will be able to see these new episodes and another great step forward for DIRECTV as we continue to buil