In two weeks, nerds will descend en mass to California, and in preparation, the producers of Comic-Con have posted the schedule of events for the kickoff day on July 21. (Technically there is a preview night, but who is counting?)

If you're still feeling overwhelmed, we've prepared a brief guide of the day's must-sees, as well as what programs to avoid.

Definitely catch: "Game of Thrones" panel

Author George R.R. Martin moderates a panel featuring series executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss as well as cast members Emilia Clarke, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Peter Dinklage, Kit Harington and Jason Momoa.

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Fox's "Virtuality" (8 p.m. Friday, June 26) proves that a really good pilot for a TV series can make a truly awful TV movie. But don't be mistaken: This excursion into the far reaches of space, brought to you by "Battlestar Galactica" producers Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor, proves far more compelling than most made-for-TV movies – and most TV pilots, for that matter – up until its abrupt, hair-pullingly inconclusive ending.

 "Virtuality" offers exactly the sort of story that "Galactica" fans will sink their teeth into. As Earth is ravaged by global warming and is rapidly becoming unlivable, a small crew aboard the starship Phaeton begins its 10-year mission to find a habitable planet orbiting a nearby star. Conditions on board the ship are beyond claustrophobic (how Galactican!) after just a few months: Couples bicker, young crew members second-guess themselves, personalities clash, a crew member falls ill, and the commander of the ship begins to lose control. To make matters worse (far worse, in fact), the entire crew is being filmed for a reality show, so they navigate the pressure cooker of ship life knowing that their worst (and most private) moments are being broadcast to viewers back home.

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The truth is, we all loved early U2 and early Genesis and early "SNL" and early "Sopranos" and early reality TV and the first season of "Lost" and early Modest Mouse and some of the first webzines and the first days of Burning Man (before it got so popular) and John McEnroe (before he was everywhere) and the Dead (before the frat boys caught on) and weed (when it was cheap, remember the dime bag?) and early David Foster Wallace and early Dan Clowes and early "This American Life" and early Spy magazine and early, early, early, early to the party, not late! Not like everyone else, the herds, the masses! I knew about it all first, I was there, goddamn it, I was right there, discovering it. Just me, me, me!

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Three and a half seasons later, "Battlestar Galactica" has become one of TV's smartest series. It has won a Peabody Award, made the Sci Fi Channel a reputable cable outlet, and revolutionized science fiction on television. It has proved that the genre, when liberated from the body-hugging Lycra jumpsuits and staid dialogue that have plagued most post-"Trek" science fiction series, can be a vehicle for both scathing political commentary and genuine pathos.

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In this cruel modern world, just as the stress of your work life finally subsides, just as you start to feel happy and numb like an overfed donkey, it's time to get back to work. I need four weeks of vacation time, minimum! I want to wander aimlessly, nibbling on clover, in a daze. Instead, just as I get the laundry done and sit down to read a book, my holiday break is over.

And it takes about two weeks to adjust to being back at work. I tried to explain this to my husband yesterday: The mind doesn't want to do a job. The mind wants to go to the mall and gaze at the intricate, almost balletic movements of the hot-dog-rolling machine at Orange Julius. The mind wants to take a nap. The mind wants a doughnut.

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But that's exactly the combination of high stakes and suspense that loyal viewers have come to expect from "Battlestar Galactica," a show that shines the most brightly during the start and finish of its demi-seasons (with a little bit of finger strumming and pacing in between). When the final episodes of the series begin to air in January 2009 (Oh noooo! Why must we wait so long?), the colonists (and their big Cylon buddies) will be forced to reckon with the fact that their new home, which they've imagined so long is their salvation, isn't the land of sunshine and moonbeams that they'd so dearly hoped it would be. At least it isn't anymore. After the celebrating and embracing and high-fiving over finally locating Earth, that moment where Admiral Adama runs his fingers through a fistful of irradiated soil and then scans the wreckage-strewn, overcast landscape is just devastating. Welcome to the promised land, motherfrackers!

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But you know what makes all the little children feel better about how dark and scary the world is? Fairy tales. So let's start with a fairy tale about a little prince named Tom Cruise.

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Starbuck is back! She's been to Earth and she knows the way and she's ready to show the colonists how to get there, if only someone will listen to her. But President Laura Roslin is suspicious. Chief Galen Tyrol is apprehensive. Even the man who loves her like a daddy, Adm. William Adama, is eyeing her warily, like she's a Cylon who might detonate a hidden nuclear device at any second. Sure, Lee Adama (Jamie Bamber) buys her story, but no one's swayed by that, considering how those two alternately swooned and slugged each other before Starbuck disappeared. This is Starbuck's (Katee Sackhoff) personal version of hell: She has the answer, but no one will believe her.

A fitting dilemma for the fourth and final season of "Battlestar Galactica" (premieres 10 p.m. EDT on Sci Fi; read our "Battlestar Galactica" primer here), a drama whose dark corridors and inky black space are haunted more by lingering doubts than they are by Cylons, the human-made robots who aim to exterminate humans from the universe. This is a story that returns often to the question of belief. In the absence of the structure provided by civilization or even a hunk of rock on which to park your spaceship safely for a few months, how do you nurture a belief system? This small band of colonists, floating through the abyss of space, struggles to bring the reassurance of faith into their lives despite the constant threat of annihilation by the Cylons, but the doubters are everywhere.

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Three and a half seasons later, "Battlestar Galactica" has become one of TV's smartest series. It has won a Peabody Award, made the Sci Fi Channel a reputable cable outlet, and revolutionized science fiction on television. It has proved that the genre, when liberated from the body-hugging Lycra jumpsuits and staid dialogue that have plagued most post-"Trek" science fiction series, can be a vehicle for both scathing political commentary and genuine pathos.

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But let's give thanks anyway. Recessions aren't all bad, remember. At least now your dumb yuppie friends will stop prattling on about installing a Jacuzzi tub in their enormous bathroom. At least now fast food and cheap beer will be back in style. At least now college kids will stop thinking that they should be running their own companies or directing multimillion-dollar movies the second they graduate. Instead, they'll have to go get temp jobs, just like we did, back during the last recession. Because when recent college grads aren't eating Ramen and groveling for unpaid internships, there's really something wrong with the world.

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This year's FCBD coincides with National Cartoonists' Day and the opening of "Spider-Man 3," and lots of stores are also planning signings and other events. The crop of handouts includes 43 different comics, although most stores will only let you pick out a few of them; some of the free comics are particularly kid-friendly, others aren't kid-friendly at all, and some are a lot better than others. (This page is a useful resource to find the nearest store that's participating in the giveaway.) Here's a quick overview of what's available this year, sorted by category.

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Or should the whole gang stand in a semicircle and reflect on the fact that everything turned out just fine, thanks to those meddling kids? Should the denouement include a tag line, where the monkey Gleek upends a trash can, causing everyone to laugh uproariously right before the credits roll?

When you think of some of the better finales in recent history -- the last episode of "Six Feet Under," last year's "Lost" finale, the fourth season finale of "The Sopranos" when Carmela and Tony were about to get divorced, last year's "Battlestar Galactica" finale, when the Cylons invaded New Caprica -- the main requirement for a satisfying finale seems to be that, more than anything else, it feels momentous. Whether questions remain unanswered or not, at the very least, it should feel like the tide is turning.

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I do love that a great, impassioned cry rose up across the land in defense of cocker spaniels but my assertion that Ben Affleck had no soul was all but ignored. Can't poor Affleck get a little love, too?

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And when you use the word "frack" too often in your column, the world shoves your own geeky reference in your face by putting it into Summer's dialogue on "The OC." And when you insult "The OC," the world makes "The OC" more interesting by getting rid of Mischa Barton and giving neurotic overachiever Taylor a leading role. Then, just when you're beginning to like the new "OC," with its fake French lovers and fake French talk shows (Je Pense!) and its careless, pregnant middle-aged moms, the world cancels "The OC" and blames it all on you for not championing it through the hard times (i.e., the last three seasons).

What I'm trying to tell you, honey lambs, is that when you're feeling disappointed in general, the boob tube offers you specific disappointments on which to project your feelings of generic malaise, from the glacial, soapy pace of "Battlestar Galactica" to the harebrained behavior of Orange County's so-called "Real Housewives" to the disgusting digressions of overly self-indulgent comediennes.

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Surely you've heard by now (because we've certainly repeated it often enough) that "Battlestar Galactica," the new remake of the cheesy '70s series, is the most thrilling and trenchant dramatic series on TV at the moment (except, of course, for "The Wire"). Maybe you still haven't given it a shot because you just can't believe a show set on a spaceship could possibly engage you when you can watch the simpering narcissists of "Grey's Anatomy" instead -- in which case, you are an idiot. But if you've simply not yet gotten around to it, hurry: Rent the DVDs of Seasons 1 and 2 (they're short), and then hasten over to iTunes to catch up on the first handful of episodes for Season 3 because this one is not just about other planets; it's about our own.

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Oh, the hopelessness of it all! But intoxicating darkness has always been "Battlestar Galactica's" calling card, from those opening shots of mushroom clouds and lonely ships, wandering off to find Earth, to the show's haunting, melancholy theme music, to the claustrophobic interiors of Galactica and the stifled rage and sadness of its occupants. When Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff) mutters her plan, through gritted teeth, she's not being tough or courageous or poetic like the heroes of most sci-fi shows. Her remark feels more like an existential lament, the fighter pilot's version of "If that's all there is, then let's keep dancing." Starbuck doesn't share the Cylons' undying faith in one supreme and all-powerful God, nor does she buy into the ancient mythologies that President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) does, putting her hopes in prophecies about leading the colonists to the promised land. Starbuck is a pragmatist with no romantic delusions and few ideals beyond blowing away as many "toasters" (Cylons) and "skin jobs" (Cylons who've evolved to look like humans) as possible. But even without any guiding principles in her arsenal, Starbuck's barely contained rage, as irrepressible as it is relentless, may be the colonists' most important resource.

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