Top Cow's Marc Silvestri, executive producer of TNT's Witchblade television series, said that star Yancy Butler has been working at her normal heavy pace since returning to the show.

Production of the second season of the show was shut down briefly while Butler voluntarily entered alcohol rehab.

"We're shooting our ninth episode right now," Silvestri said during a panel at Wizard World on Friday. "For anybody that had heard the news about Yancy and her issues, she's fine and she's back to work. She's working really hard and we all admire her courage and her professionalism.

"So anybody who's been worried about the series, don't worry about it. It's up and running, we're all good."

Silvestri said he had talked to the Witchblade set last week.

"She's doing great, her spirits are great and she's working hard," Silvestri said. "She's putting in 14-16 hours a day, sometimes six or seven days a week. She's happy to be back, and we're happy to have her back."

In other Witchblade news:

* Silvestri said it's too early to give any news about a possible third season. "They usually wait until the last minute before they make that decision, but the network and the studio are really happy with the show," he said. "The audience is very happy with the show."

* Top Cow's Matt Hawkins said that a Witchblade DVD with the two-hour movie is being targeted for a holiday season. Another DVD/VHS of the first season should be released next spring, "theoretically in preparation for a third-season launch," Hawkins said.

* Silvestri said that Top Cow received a lot of reaction to the death of Kenneth Irons in the second episode.

"But, like in comics, in our television show, people never really die, do they?" Silvestri said. "At one point, Anthony Cistaro, the actor, was unhappy, too, but now he's not so unhappy, I'll say that much.

* Silvestri said the second season will frequently deal with the consequences of Butler's character, Sara Pezzini, turning back time at the end of the first season.

"Yancy's going to continually face up to what she did last season," Silvestri said. "It seemed like a good idea at the time in her mind to make things better by making things go backwards, but she finds out this year that it wasn't such a great idea. We're going to have a lot of fun with those themes."

* Silvestri said that there is significance to the ring that Nottingham wears. "He's definitely popular and we're going to see a lot more of him," Silvestri said of Nottingham.

Roger Daltrey of The Who is returning for his second guest appearance on TNT's Witchblade. 

In the episode, "Hierophant," which airs on Monday, July 22, Daltrey plays a cross-dressing fortune teller with a unique connection to the Witchblade.

Here's how the network describes the episode:

"A powerful mystery figure named V (James Acheson) is forcing the top crime bosses of the city to unite into a single criminal enterprise - but not everyone wants to join. Sara (Yancy Butler), Danny (Will Yun Lee) and Jake (David Chokachi) investigate multiple homicides in the aftermath of a shootout at a meeting of the city's top crime bosses, where crime boss Tommy Gallo (Conrad Dunn) is the only survivor.

"The investigation takes Sara to see a fortune teller named Madame Sesostris (Daltry). Sara's palm reading is cut short when an otherworldly force intervenes. Sara is haunted by the mysterious V until his shocking identity is finally revealed."

In the first season, Daltrey played a priest. Look for photos of his second-season appearance soon.

Daltrey was slated to kick off a nationwide tour with The Who on Friday, but that was cancelled with the death of bassist John Entwistle on Thursday in Las Vegas.

In other Witchblade news:

The July 1 episode is "Static." Here's how TNT describes the episode:

"Pezzini and McCartey investigate the violent murder of a popular musician (Cormac Cleary), which is masked as a self-inflicted death until his lover Lorelei (Gabrielle Ashry) unveils the truth behind the investigation--right before she falls victim to an assisted suicide at the hand of her disturbed psychiatrist, Dr. Anna Granger. McCartey discovers the missing link in the case when he discovers that three other people who had committed suicide in the city were also patients of Granger. Nottingham (Eric Etebari) reveals who the next threat to the Witchblade might be."

The July 8 episode is "Nailed." Here's how TNT describes the episode:

"Danny Woo is haunted by the consequences of an old homicide case when a convicted sex offender (Currie Graham) he put away for molesting and mutilating teenage girls is released from prison on a reduced sentence. Woo's moral code as a cop is tested when the offender seeks revenge and strikes again - only this time, it's personal."

The second-season premiere of Witchblade on Sunday night drew the strongest ratings yet for the TNT series. 

According to the network, Witchblade premiered to double-digit increases in all key adult demos vs. the 2001 first-season season premiere as well as the 2001 first-season premiere average, while posting a strong 2.6 household rating/2,203,000 households.

Following its Sunday premiere, Witchblade settled into its regularly scheduled slot on Monday at 9 p.m. with a new episode which garnered a solid 3.0 rating in the metered market overnights.

Sunday's premiere drew 730,000 adults 18-34, 1.785 million adults 18-49 and 2.009 million adults 25-54. Those compare to the first-season premiere's 579,00 in 18-34, 1.613 million in 18-49 and 1.81 million in 25-54 and the first-season averages of 511,000 in 18-34, 1.344 million in 18-49 and 1.505 million in 25-54.