A view of Hall H from the back of the room with Stephen Amell hosting the night’s festivities

Something new to this year’s scheduling took place on Saturday night in Hall H, which competed with Ballroom 20’s annual Masquerade Ball. Since we aren’t fans of the Masquerade Ball (one year was more than enough for us), this was an easy choice for us. With Warner Bros. Television and DC Entertainment putting together a full night of pilots from Gotham and The Flash, I was sold. These two shows are among my list of shows to check out so I couldn’t wait to screen the pilots before they premier in the fall.

The panoramic screens on each side made the experience pretty spectacular

Since Andrew and I have been watching Arrow since the very beginning, we were the most excited to see the pilot for The Flash. The actor who plays Barry Allen AKA the Flash, Grant Gustin, was an amazing guest star on Arrow in season 2 so Andrew and I were happy to hear that we would be seeing more of him.

Grant Gustin (Barry Allen/ the Flash) alongside Stephen Amell (Oliver Queen/the Arrow)

After watching the pilot, I am even more excited to watch when it debuts in the fall. Somehow, I had already seen a lot of what was shown in the pilot either from sneak peeks or from the extended trailer, but I still can’t wait. I’m even more excited for Felicity from Arrow to show up in episode 4 and for the Arrow/Flash 2-hour crossover special in episode 8.

Ben McKenzie plays Detective James Gordon on Gotham

Gotham was the next pilot to be shown. It focuses on Commissioner Gordon’s story of when he first arrives in Gotham before becoming the Commissioner and obviously before Batman arrives. The show will also feature iconic Batman villains before we all know them and we’ll see how they are shaped into the villains we’re familiar with. The whole premise sounds really interesting which is why I really wanted to see the pilot. Andrew wasn’t as excited since he isn’t a big fan of Batman. This pilot was pretty dark which makes sense since it’s Batman and although it was a bit much for me at times, I will definitely try to keep up with this show to see what happens. I’m very impressed with the casting in this show and I can’t wait to see more of the characters develop.

Matt Ryan is John Constantine on the supernatural thriller

Constantine comes from the supernatural realm of DC which sounds interesting except that I hate anything scary and Andrew really doesn’t like supernatural things. Because it was late anyway (Isabelle was able to fall asleep during Gotham while Jadon wasn’t fully asleep), we decided to leave during the Constantine presentation which only ended up being a trailer. I found out later that they showed the full pilot at the end of the night. I’m glad they took into consideration the age of the audience and decided to do that.

A view of the convention center and Petco Park at night before heading back to the hotel

Since this panel was on my very short list of must-sees, I am glad that we were able to attend any part of it. We were able to fit in two pilots this year, which is one of our favorite things to do at Comic-Con. If it wasn’t so late and if we didn’t have the kids with us, we probably would have stayed to see the huge Q&A at the end which comprised of almost everyone from all the shows. It wasn’t a huge loss though because I was able to watch it online afterward.