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Comic-Con 2011: 'Supernatural' panel - Live Blog

Supernatural: S06E03 - Sam, Dean and Castiel

© The CW

11.10am: Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the Supernatural panel here at Comic-Con. As usual, times here are PT, which is eight hours behind the UK and three behind the East Coast.

11.12am: Today's panel will include Jensen Ackles (Dean), Jared Padalecki (Sam), Misha Collins (Castiel), Jim Beaver (Bobby) and Mark Sheppard (Crowley), as well as exec producer Sera Gamble and consulting producer Ben Edlund.

11.17am: Panel should be starting any minute now.

11.18am: MOOD UPDATE: Padalecki tingles.

11.21am: One of the most frustrating things to contend with at Comic-Con, aside from the queueing, is the ongoing fight for battery life on laptops and mobiles. My Macbook is currently at 62% life and we're a third though today's panels... might it die towards the end of the Doctor Who panel? Just putting that out there.

11.22am: MOOD UPDATE: Scared.

11.23am: The moderator for this panel is IGN's Eric Goldman.

11.25am: Ackles comes out to introduce a clip from the episode he's directed. "You guys never cease to amaze. Alright, shut up. Each year we come here we're astonished at the support we get. I really don't know… there's' nothing special about this scene. There's a character Sam, and there's no Dean in it, which is kind of pointless. This is a little bit of the first episode we filmed. This is a little slice of life back into Sam's past."

11.32am: The dialog in said clip includes "Amy Pond" and features a flashback to a young Sam having a kiss.

11.33am: The cast and execs come out. Ackles on directing again: "It was more difficult the second time. I had more knowledge, but it was good. I had to be in more scenes than last time, so that proved to be a bit of a challenge."

11.34am: Did Padalecki behave? "I think so. I tried not to." Ackles: "He trusted me to tell him where to go and what to say. Other than that I don't have to tell this guy how to be Sam."

11.35am: Collins on Castiel's development: "To be perfectly honest with you, I have been - as an actor - surprised that no-one's written a God role for me yet in my career. It just seemed a natural fit. Getting to know me, Sera obviously saw that and put it into the story. Honestly, it's incredibly daunting. How do you play God?"

11.37am: How much will we see Castiel this season? Gamble: "I'm glad you asked. The reality of this is that we want to tell you everything we can tell you about Misha, and about Castiel. But you saw the cliffhanger - we want you to tune in and be anticipatory. We can't say past what we know, which is that he's going to be in the first couple of episodes."

11.38am: Beaver: "Everything's cool between Bobby and Sam and Dean. Between Jim and Jared and Jensen, that's a very difficult question and one I don't want to get into right now. I think that the difficulties that Bobby had, like when Sam tried to kill him… Bobby realizes that in the world we inhabit, really bad things happen to people that are sometimes out of their control. Sam didn't mean it. We're good."

11.40am: Sheppard: "I'm in season seven? YES! I think we need a new spinoff half hour system called Oh, Crowley." Gamble: "You see Crowley very early on. Cass said he has big plans for him, so we're going to tell you what they are pretty much from the jump."

11.41am: Can they go anywhere else with meta? Edlund: "I don't really know how much more we can do. The breaking of the fourth wall last season was a profound one. The French Mistake is directly meta, and then we've done other things with meta like Ghostfacers, so we'll try to do more with that. I've been talking a lot about spaceships. I think we should go on a spaceship one episode."

11.43am: Will we get to see more of Sam's missing year? Padalecki: "Without saying too much, yes. There's a lot that Sam has seen but now he can see again, now that the wall has fallen. I'm excited about playing Sam who doesn't know which reality he's in. Now we get to play with Sam's healing. The Winchester brothers always react to things we've courage, and what's excited me so far about season seven is that Sam feels way out of his league. What can scare the Winchester boys?

11.44am: How much is weighing on Dean? Ackles: "The goodbye to Ben and Lisa, tough as it was, was a necessity. He comes to the realisation that that's never going to be his life. He's a hunter and will always be a hunter. That was a must. It happened and it was a tough scene to shoot. It was a sad goodbye but now we've got a bigger problem on our hands."

11.46am: Might Chuck appear again? Gamble: "Chuck does not in the early part of the season, we have no plans for him to. Also a big part of Cas stepping up is that he's always felt strongly that his Father abandoned them when they needed Him. One of the questions we asked ourselves was, 'you're God, what are you going to do differently?' Before everything goes completely to Hell for him, he gets to do what God would."

11.47am: Collins: "I'm very method, so I've been smiting people more often than usual. It's definitely a daunting challenge. It's one of those things I actually got kind of nervous about."

11.50am: Ackles: "I think the brother nickering has always been a art of the show that he and I have just done pretty easily. We have no problem fighting with each other." Padalecki: "I enjoy those scenes. When you've worked with someone so long, you're able to get something out of each other that others can't. The better you know somebody, the more you can push their buttons and the more they can push yours."

11.53am: Will Bobby ever find love? Beaver: "He could kiss Crowley. You know, it comes up in discussion every once in a while, and thusfar hasn't ended well. I have this sneaking suspicion that we haven't seen the last of Sheriff Mills, in one way or another. It's one I would fully support if they came around to that."

11.54am: Gamble confirms Jo is coming back. "We've just been waiting for the right story for her and now we have one. Sheriff Mills is returning for an episode or two at least. Who else? Death. You will see Death again. We have a few more in the works. You'll meet new guys too."

11.56am: Audience questions. Sam and Dean have great physical expressions - will they do sign language in episodes? Edlund: "What?! That's pretty interesting." Ackles: "I think you can say a lot without saying words, so thank you for picking up on that."

11.58am: Similarities with characters? Ackles: "Looks. I would say that you look back to season one and there were more. Over the years, Dean has evolved into a much more specific character that I'm not. We like the same kind of music. We like vintage cars. And that's about it."

12.00pm: Collins has been accused of being the Antichrist by a church group on Twitter. Collins: "I don't know how they figured that out. Cat's out of the bag. That's kind of ironic, and you'll see why when you see the first episode of the season."

12.02pm: What were their reactions to the sixth season pickup? Ackles: "I was surprised and also proud at the fact that Mr Kripke kept to his word and wrote those five years he had planned. He didn't stretch them. I thought that was really cool. Because the story of these two brothers continues to evolve, the stories are endless. As long as they keep kicking out stories, we'll keep telling them."

12.03pm: When will it end? Gamble: "We hope it goes on for a long time. Eric did create a kind of perfect franchise to keep going. We have fresh blood in the room this year. We have a plan in place if this is the last year and we have a firm plan in place if it isn't."

12.04pm: Last question. Why are they not using the ninja stars in their trunk? Edlund: "I think if we use things like grenade launches, the story tends to end two acts early. We should just do a scene with you guys practising with the ninja stars."

12.14pm: The panel ends after clips from Supernatural: The Anime Series and a sneak peek at the season six gag reel. Join me again in 15 minutes for live coverage from the Doctor Who session!

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