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NBC's ‘Timeless' Cast Celebrates Unexpected Second Season, Thanks Fans

Thursday's Comic-Con panel came just two months after NBC axed the show and then, shockingly, brought it back to life a few days later

The cast and writers behind the revived NBC time-traveling drama "Timeless" opened their panel at San Diego Comic-Con International by thanking the fans over and over for helping bring back a show they once thought was gone for good. 

"Here's the truth," said Executive Producer Eric Kripke. "You guys saved the show."

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Samantha Tatro
The cast of NBC's "Timeless" at Comic-Con on Thursday, July 20.

Thursday's Comic-Con panel came just two months after NBC axed the show and then, shockingly, brought it back to life a few days later. "Timeless" will return in 2018 for a 10-episode second season. 

The time-traveling drama follows Lucy (Abigail Spencer), Wyatt (Matt Lanter) and Rufus (Malcolm Barrett) as they try to catch a mysterious criminal who steals a top-secret, state-of-the-art time machine to change history.  

Kripke and co-executive producer Shawn Ryan said they had just begun to make peace with the fact that the show had been canceled when they got a call from NBC executives. 

“I got a call from NBC and they said we made a mistake and we’re picking up the show,” Kripke said.

Spencer said she was asleep the morning the show was renewed when she started getting loads of texts and emails. 

"I was asleep and woke up to hundreds of emails," Spencer recalled at the Comic-Con panel, laughing about how unbelievable it seemed to her at the time. She thought it was a joke at the time, she said. 

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Malcolm Barrett ("Timeless") talks with a fan after the show's Comic-Con panel on Thursday, July 20, 2017.

The cast and executive producers of the show said they owed it all to the fans of the show, those sitting in the audience at the Comic-Con panel and those not in the room. 

"The point of the panel is to celebrate you for saving the show so I think you deserve a round of applause," Kripke said.

Fans will have to wait months to get a glimpse of season two, but Kripke and Ryan teased some of what fans can expect in the second season, including digging deeper into each character.

Lucy's mother, the center of the first season's shocking finale, will likely take center stage in the second season as "one of the major big bads in season two," Kripke said. 

Now that Rittenhouse has the time machine in their possession, fans can expect a unique team to fight a common enemy. 

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Samantha Tatro
A fan takes a photo of the "Timeless" cast and creatives at Comic-Con.

The team hopes to further explore the characters as they battle the common enemy, including the newfound Lucy and Wyatt relationship. 

The show, which shot in Vancouver for the first season, will shoot its second season in Los Angeles. The change will allow the writers to tell stories they would otherwise have not been able to tell, Ryan said. 

"We definitely have some ideas, nothing sort of set in stone," Ryan said. 

The second season may also draw inspiration and ideas from the current political climate, Kripke said. The show's overall message of inclusion and diversity is something Kripke is proud of, he said, and he hopes to continue on that path.

"The thing that we really found this year, that we really love about the show is we really are very proud that we were able to tell these very positive, really inclusive stories about history," Kripke said. "Stories about women and stories about minorities and stories about gay people — that everyone contributes to the history of this country."

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Samantha Tatro
The executive producers and cast of NBC's "Timeless" at their Comic-Con panel on Thursday, July 20, 2017.

Kripke backed away from political statements as the crowd broke out in applause, saying that he wanted the show to have a strong message of inclusion in the current political climate.

"History is for everybody, and America is for everybody," he said.

The executive producers closed out the panel by emphasizing that the work in spreading the word is not done. 

"We're going to be airing in 2018, and that's a lot of time off the air," Kripke said. "Bring new people to the show. The more you can bring people into the time team and we can enlist you all as time team members, the better we'll be."

The cast agreed.

"Clearly," Spencer said. "We can't do it without you. We need you."

"Timeless" will return to NBC in 2018. 

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