Comic Con 2011: Steven Spielberg, ‘Once Upon A Time’, Sarah Michelle Gellar

SAN DIEGO—Founded in 1970 as a relatively humble gathering for the wonderful world of comic books and their creators, the Comic-Con international extravaganza is held every year in July for four days at the San Diego Convention Center.

After over 40 years, it has grown into a blowout media event of star-studded panels, mobbed autograph signings, and cutting-edge display booths all organized to generate buzz not only for comics and anime, but also for eagerly anticipated television series and films. This year especially, the star attractions were the hot new shows scheduled for the television season beginning in September.

A single word to describe the upcoming season? Complicated. Television producers have taken the hit movie “Inception” to heart and come up with shows having storylines that invert, revert, and divert reality into as many layers as Hamlet. If you liked Lost, you’re going to love this fall’s upcoming television season.

And speaking of Lost, show producers Damon Lindelof, Adam Horowitz, and Edward Kitsis have come up with a new mind-scrambling series called Once Upon A Time.

Starring Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Morrison, and Robert Carlyle, the show mixes the real world with a fairy-tale alternate universe. “We’re not interested in retelling fairy tales,” explained Edward Kitsis during one of the press conferences, “but in telling the parts you don’t know.”

In a town where time stands still, familiar characters from fairy tales—Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, and Little Red Riding Hood among others—live like ordinary folk and have no memory of their fantastical origins. The Wicked Queen is town mayor and Snow White teaches school. Drawn from the outside world into this alternate dimension by a small boy seeking help, comes the confused, unhappy Emma Swann (Jennifer Morrison) on a mission that she doesn’t understand, with a destiny she can’t remember.

“We’ll go back and forth between the worlds,” said Kitsis, “and we hope you love it.”

Even more complicated is the hotly anticipated turn by Jason Isaacs (the memorable Lucius Malfoy in Harry Potter) in NBC’s new thriller Awake. During a panel discussion, Isaacs, together with executive producers Howard Gordon and Kyle Killen, answered questions about the show’s complex premise.

Isaacs plays police detective Michael Britten, recovering from a catastrophic car crash in which his wife and teen-aged son were both killed. Or were they? Every time Britten goes to sleep, he wakes up in one of two alternate realities. In one, his wife is still alive, and in the other, his son has survived. Which one is real? Or are both delusions of a man who has lost his entire family?

This taut, claustrophobic drama asks viewers to pay close attention to the clues embedded in the episodes. Con-goers seemed more than willing to go along for the ride.

Returning to the small screen after nearly a decade is the iconic Buffy the Vampire Slayer herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar. Her new show for the CW network, “Ringer,” is a spin on “The Prince and the Pauper” theme.

Geller plays two parts, identical twins Bridget and Siobhan. Estranged for years, both lead secret and dangerous lives. When down-and-out Bridget sees a chance to escape from the thugs pursuing her by assuming Siobhan’s wealthy, upscale life, she grabs it. Believing her sister to be dead, Bridget must now impersonate Siobhan and juggle her twin’s estranged husband (Ioan Gruffudd), her sometime lover (Kristoffer Polaha), and a curious FBI agent (Nestor Carbonell). But Siobhan, who has disappeared for reasons of her own, has a hidden agenda for the unsuspecting Bridget.

Given the deafening cheers that greeted Gellar’s appearance at the “Ringer” panel, former “Buffyites” will be checking this out in the fall.

When the name Steven Spielberg is mentioned at Comic-Con, thousands of fans line up all night to get in to see him. His often-postponed and much talked-about new series Terra Nova launches on Fox in September.

Another reality bender, it charts the course of a group of humans in the distant future living on a dying planet. A portal in time is created to send them back to a prehistoric past in hopes that they can change the destiny of earth’s future.

It’s Spielberg, right—so dinosaurs, check; cute kids, check; family secrets, check. With a $4 million price tag per episode, it’s one of the most expensive shows ever produced. Is it riveting drama? Tune in come September.

Susan James is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles. She has lived in India, the U.K., and Hawaii and writes about art and culture.