First things first: when we arrived at the “Jericho” panel, we were greeted with a bag on our chair from NutsOnline, including a bag of nuts and a t-shirt which proudly trumpeted the company’s role in saving “Jericho.” How cool is that? God bless those guys for their dedication…

* No-one on the panel - producer Carol Barbee and cast members Skeet Ulrich, Lennie James, and Ashley Scott - had any reason to believe the show would return. Even when the “nuts” campaign began, they really only had the slightest inkling of hope that it might work.

* The producers pitched the plot of the second season to the network, and CBS was quite happy with it. It originally was going to take place in Jericho, Cheyenne, and New York, which would have been revealed to have been survived, but things are being switched up a little bit now. They’re burning through ideas more quickly and having to compress the action more than they otherwise might have, since they’ve only got a 7-episode commitment at the moment, but they’re happy with how things are progressing.

* Skeet was beside himself with the news of the reprieve, calling as many of the cast members personally as possible to let them know about the show’s having been saved. “I love giving people shocking news,” he said, with a grin.

* The season opener will be a “big tent,” to help people understand the world of the series if they’ve never seen it before, but time will have passed since the season finale, so it’ll be new information for everyone, old and new viewers alike. But don’t worry: the big cliffhanger will be paid off. You’ll get the scoop on what happened with the battle, and then it’ll time-jump ahead.

* It was always the plan that Johnston Green would die, because his arc was tied directly to Jake’s arc, for the son to replace the father. It maybe happened sooner than had originally been planned, but when the season end came around, the opportunity arose, and the producers took it.

* Production schedule: they will start shooting this Monday, and, all things being equal, they’ll be finished shooting all 7 episodes by end of September.

* Random observation from me: fucking hell, I had no idea that the dude who plays Robert Hawkins was British!

* At the end of Season 1, right before the battle, Stanley said he was going to ask Mimi to marry him; it doesn’t exactly go down quite as easily as all that, but they do end up engaged, which is the big personal story of the new season. The bigger story, however, is that Hawkins and Jake will go on a mission to save the world. (Oh, no, not again!)

* The new government from Cheyenne has come in to stop the battle between Jericho and New Bern and are helping Jericho to rebuild, getting them their water and electricity back. There are revenge killings going on between the two cities, however, as lingering vestiges from the battle.

* It’s Barbee’s sincerest hope that everyone in the cast will be back. Titus Welliver, however, they wanted back, but scheduling prevented that; as a result, there’ll be another character coming in to fill the void left by Col. Robert Hoffman. Sprague Grayden will definitely be back as Heather. The budget was cut, says Barbee, but they’re trying to do their best to be creative in order to still deliver a quality product. Will Gerald McRaney be back in a flashback? “We’ll see,” says Barbee. “We loved him. But, right now, it’s not planned for these 7 episodes. We’ve pretty well got those laid out already.”