The Comic-Con TV Shows We’re Most Excited About

HBO just announced you’re going to have to wait a little longer for the next season of Game of Thrones. To whet your appetite, Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (who skipped the convention last year) will chat with several of the actors, including Liam Cunningham (Ser Davos), Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton) and Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark) on stage. They’ll even field questions from fans—with Ramsay’s bloody death and Sansa’s dark turn likely to be major topics of conversation. Intriguingly, the panel will be moderated by It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia creator-star and Game of Thrones superfan Rob McElhenney.

Netflix proved that superhero TV shows can be both critical and commercial successes last year with Marvel’s Jessica Jones, which deftly explored dark themes. That’s why followup Luke Cage is one of the most anticipated TV shows of the fall. Mike Colter will reprise his role as the indestructible hero, and the showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker has promised the show will be a true drama. (He called it “The Wire of Marvel television.”)

Last season ended on quite the cliffhanger: Who did Negan kill? It’s doubtful the cast will answer this question. But it will be someone on that stage since AMC is bringing all of the potential victims to the convention: Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Steven Yeun, Lauren Cohan, Danai Gurira, Chandler Riggs, Michael Cudlitz, Sonequa Martin-Green, Christian Serratos, Ross Marquand and Josh McDermitt. Talking Dead host Chris Hardwick will moderate, obviously.

It will have been three long years since the last full season of Sherlock aired by the time the fourth installment premieres sometime this winter. Co-creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss tided us over with a Victorian-set Sherlock Christmas special last winter, but we’re ready to see the modern Sherlock take on the mysteriously resurrected Moriarty. The creators and Amanda Abbington (Mary Watson) are scheduled to appear on the panel, and fans are hoping that Benedict Cumberbatch will stay an extra day after promoting Doctor Strange to chat about the TV show that made him a star.

The Good Place has the DNA of a critically acclaimed comedy. Park and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine creator Michael Schur is teaming up with Kristen Bell and Ted Danson, two of the most dynamic actors in the biz. Bell plays a wicked woman who upon dying is accidentally placed in paradise instead of damnation, Danson the architect of her living place.

Most Comic-Con panels consist of cast members and creators fielding questions from a moderator or the audience. Preacher will go above and beyond, not only discussing the show but also performing a live-read of the script from the penultimate episode of season one before it airs on AMC. Kevin Smith will moderate the panel that includes creators Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg as well as cast members like star Dominic Cooper.

Who wouldn’t want to take time out at a convention to spend time with Cartman? South Park is returning for its 20th (yes, 20th!) season this fall. Nerdist podcast host Chris Hardwick is hosting the panel that will highlight the hilarious and often surprisingly prescient episodes of the show.

Michael Scofield lives! And not only is he breathing, he’s back to breaking people out of prison. Fox is resurrecting the believed-to-be-dead character seven years after the hit show Prison Break went off the air. Original cast members Wentworth Miller, Dominic Purcell, Sarah Wayne Callies and Robert Knepper will share a sneak preview of the limited-run show (and maybe offer some theories as to how Scolfield made his comeback).

If you’re sick of guilt-ridden heroes and monstrous zombies, then the Silicon Valley panel is your best bet for some fun. These guys study and mimic geeks for a living—some would even admit they are geeks themselves—and thus are sure to have opinions on superheroes and whether a show has ever actually mastered the mechanics of time travel. Plus they’re likely to tease what will happen to ever-pivoting fictional startup Pied Piper now that it’s a video chat company.

Corey Hawkins is about to have the worst day of his life. The young actor will play Eric Carter, the agent at the center of the rebooted 24. The series comes 15 years after Carter’s predecessor Jack Bauer first graced the small screen. It’ll be a challenge to fill Keifer Sutherland’s shoes and to capture the same fire that fueled 24 in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. But Hawkins demonstrated his acting chops playing a young Dr. Dre in Straight Outta Compton, and the show has plenty of political conflicts to choose from today.

The TV show based on Phillip K. Dick’s novel about an alternate history in which the Axis powers win World War II and split America down the middle will return to Amazon this fall. In the second season of the streaming services’ most-watched original series, Joe (Luke Kleintank) will be tempted by the power that comes with the Nazi World. The cast and creators are scheduled to tease season two and talk about how surprisingly similar it is to our current world.

Let’s do the time warp…again! The new Rocky Horror Picture Show, which will air on Fox this fall, is being billed as a “reimagining” of the cult classic (now celebrating its 40th birthday). The late-night panel will offer fans their first look at Laverne Cox in the coveted role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter.

Neil Gaiman’s trippy fantasy novel from 2001 comes to life in this new Starz series. In it, the “old gods” of ancient mythology and the “new gods”—manifestations of modern life, like technology, media and money—fight for the soul of Shadow, a man released from prison to attend his wife’s funeral. The show’s producers and cast will discuss how they brought the award-winning book to life.