The 10 Geekiest Moments of the TCAs

Do you geek out when you’re sitting 50 feet away from your favorite TV stars at Comic-Con? Well, I get to geek out for a living, and I get a lot closer than 50 feet. The past two weeks have been the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour, and as a working journalist and TCA member, I’ve been immersed in a world of actors, producers, writers and executives like Marty McFly overloaded with stimuli in the distant future of 2015.

The Television Critics Association press tours are always my favorite events of the year to cover. Twice a year, in the summer and winter, some 160 television reporters from around the country (and Canada) gather in Los Angeles. The networks, including cable and PBS, present panels with the actors and producers for each of their new shows. Unlike Comic-Con, however, these events aren’t open to thousands of fans. It’s an exclusive Q&A with industry professionals. After each panel, the talent stays for about 10 minutes to mingle further in what reporters affectionately call a “scrum” or “gaggle,” which means a bunch of journalists surrounding a star up close and firing questions until a network publicist pulls them away. Most networks throw an evening party where the TCA can get further interviews with the stars – more scrums!

The TCA press tour may be a business event, but when you love television and have found a job doing what you love, it’s like your ultimate holodeck program, only real! Geek bloggers are welcome and indeed carry a lot of the conversation regarding any shows like Fringe, Revolution, Grimm, Once Upon a Time, Arrow or The Walking Dead. This January, the winter press tour included lots of nerdy shows, and some of our favorite geek stars this side of Felicia Day. We had to narrow it down to 10, which shows you how much great geeky stuff is on TV this year!

10. Uncovering Da Vinci’s Demons.

David S. Goyer wrote the Blade trilogy, which we can credit with introducing all the Marvel comics that followed. He also co-wrote the Dark Knight trilogy, and a Magneto script that was never made, but he wasn’t here to talk about comic books, rather, his new Starz show Da Vinci’s Demons, coming in April. Of course thanks to The Da Vinci Code, everyone now knows Leonardo Da Vinci was more than just a painter. Goyer’s show turns him into Sherlock Holmes, but the Robert Downey Jr. action hero Sherlock Holmes, not the literary brainy Sherlock Holmes. While inventing all his ahead of their time devices (if you don’t know about these, go watch Hudson Hawk!), Da Vinci (Tom Riley) will solve a royal conspiracy and fight bad guys with swords and parkour!

“People have said that aside from Christ, he’s the most recognized historical figure in the world, so in that regard, my approach to it was not dissimilar to adapting Batman or Superman,” Goyer said. “Obviously we did a lot more historical research. I would say 80, 85% of what’s in there actually really happened, and then we’ve embellished it with a little bit of what I’m calling historical fantasy, or things like that. But he has a pretty incredible life. We didn’t have to embellish as much as you would think.”

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