A Comic-Con Intervention: 3 Humble TV Requests for Next Year

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Stephen Amell, center, speaks to the crowd at San Diego Comic-Con alongside Katie Cassidy, left, and Emily Bett Rickards.

Image: Denis Poroy/Invision/AP/Associated Press

By Sandra Gonzalez2014-07-29 01:27:16 UTC

Comic-Con 2014 attendees are now soaking their feet and eating vegetables to counter all the pretzels and cookies that subbed for actual food over the last four days — but it's also a time for reflection.

On the TV side, the weekend was a success with a flush of cool trailers and sneak peeks (from shows like Arrow , The Walking Dead and Sons of Anarchy ), a crazy amount of casting news (Game of Thrones ), and some had-to-be-there moments (like when Ron Moore modeled a kilt during the Outlander panel).

See also: Why Was Comic-Con So Stingy With Movie News? Here's the Deal

And while the fun greatly outweighed the normal inconveniences that come with going to Comic-Con ("Why CAN'T I sit against this wall, yellow shirt? I'm exhausted!"), there were three particular things that TV fans seemed to agree stunk worse than your sneakers on Day 4. Consider this a mini intervention, convention organizers:

After the official program schedule was announced, genre fans immediately noticed a big Friday night problem: The Sleepy Hollow, Orphan Black and Arrow panels overlapped.

For its part, Comic-Con defends the move, with David Glanzer, director of marketing and public relations, telling Mashable, "We know that people who attend our show are fans of a great many things. Sometimes we must program popular events at a time when another popular program is also scheduled."

And while the can't please everyone defense is acceptable — we must also consider that studios request certain days as well — placing shows that so clearly share fans on the same day and time was bad form, especially when you consider some of the TV fare that populated other days. On Sundays, for example, most TV action takes place solely in Hall H.

You have to wonder, would a show's panel placement on a less crowded day and/or time allow for better room placement?

Which brings us to ...

Tatiana Maslany and Jordan Gavaris speak to the crowd at the 'Orphan Black' panel during San Diego Comic-Con.

Image: Tonya Wise/Invision/AP/Associated Press

Scheduling Comic-Con is "a bit complicated," admits Glanzer, but, as you might guess, decisions on what rooms panels will take place in ultimately have to "do with the popularity of the property and the expected attendance. We have been programming for nearly 45 years so have a fairly good idea of the appropriateness of room sizes," he says.

However, fans of Orphan Black and American Horror Story, which took place in Room 6A (which holds about 1,040 people) and Room 6DE (884), respectively, seemed to have bones to pick this year.

Small silver lining: the volume of turn-aways could help these shows — and others in high-demand that were stuck in smaller capacity rooms — grab larger rooms next year.

At least, we hope.

A view of the audience at the 'Teen Wolf' panel at Comic-Con.

Image: John Shearer/Invision for MTV/AP Images/Associated Press

This last point is a bit complicated, as studios — not Comic-Con — have largely led the charge to not show clips or footage shown in Hall H and Ballroom 20, the locations of the most popular panels at the Con, in the so-called Playback Room. But for anyone who doesn't make it into the panel and decides to sit in on a playback of the panel, this sort of adds insult to injury. If they come to the 'Con, they should get to see the clips.

Some TV studios are great about releasing footage and trailers as soon as or shortly after it has screened. So there's that. But to the rest: throw the turn-aways a bone.

Topics: Comic-Con, Comic-Con 2014, Entertainment, Television