Comic Con report - Friday - Caprica, BSG, Dollhouse, Bones, etc.
Having come off an utterly fabulous day before, I was pretty content to do what my friends wanted to do on Friday. For most of our little “Comic Con familia” (group consisting of my houseguests, almost-houseguests and dear friends who live nearby) anything related to Joss Whedon was the biggest draw of the con, and Friday had a Dollhouse panel in the late afternoon so they were all very excited. As much as I adore Joss and still keep Angel, Firefly, and Buffy in my top slots for fave TV shows EVER, I didn’t find myself getting into Dollhouse. I haven’t given it a proper chance though and plan to watch it on DVD. However, I’m not really caring about being spoiled and was happy to see the panel anyway.
So, given our priorities, we decided to park ourselves in Ballroom 20 all day. The two things I was anxious to see on Friday were Caprica/Battlestar Galactica - The Plan, and Bones, which were both in that same room prior to Dollhouse. We would have to sit through several panels we didn’t care much about, but that is part and parcel of going to Comic Con. We weren’t planning to leave after getting into Ballroom 20 because the line to return could range from 45 minutes to 3 hours with no guarantees of getting in.
So we all piled into my parent’s family van and headed down to the convention center. We have experience after 5 years of attending CC and have brilliantly figured out how to navigate the workings of this event to make it the best experience possible; this includes parking. We park near Petco Park in a lot that is much closer to the convention center than most, that has no traffic issues going in or out, and that costs $12 for a full day instead of $35 that its neighboring lots charge. We rule. J After we arrived we got into Ballroom 20 and my bro Nick was already there holding seats for us. We were a big group of happy friends, sharing snacks as we sat through Stargate programming (which Luke and I were quite unhappy about since we spent nearly 4 hours sitting through Stargate panels last year and were horribly bored) that actually wasn’t nearly as terrible this year. And it was one panel instead of 2 or 3. Before we knew it, our panel was up, a combined panel featuring Caprica, the new scifi series spinoff of Battlestar which covers the 50 or so years PRIOR to BSG, and BSG - The Plan, a direct-to-DVD feature that highlights moments in BSG from the Cylon’s perspective. Once again, Edward James Olmos entertained my socks off and was one of the highlights of the con for me. He is hysterical, always speaking very calmly and slowly in these massive superlatives with such brazen confidence that the projects he is working on are the best thing we will ever see in our entire lives. I absolutely love him. He directed BSG - The Plan and I am astonished by how good it looks and how difficult it must have been to film since they really had to go back and scour through BSG footage from every season to make the Cylon moments match what was happening in BSG. No easy feat. Jane Espensen was on the panel, and as a beloved writer of Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and other shows I love, I am thrilled that she is working on Caprica and that she did The Plan.
After BSG, we had to sit through the Big Bang Theory which turned out to be a wonderful advantage because that show looks absolutely hilarious! None of us had ever seen it but all of us plan to either rent or buy the DVD’s after seeing the riotous clips that they pieced together (seriously, my stomach was sore from laughing for 15 minutes straight!) and the actors on the panel seemed genuinely fun and charming. This show is clearly for geeks, particularly comic book nerds and even though there is a lot of it I don’t get, the delivery was so funny. I look forward to renting it. That is one of my favorite things about Comic Con, I always seem to accidentally discover new shows or movies that look wonderful and sometimes end up being one of my favorite shows.
After Big Bang and a minor shift in seating (another thing I’ve learned over the years…sitting in the back is fine, good even, but sitting where I have to look up at the giant screens is not so good. Back further with a more comfortable neck position for viewing is better than being closer but having to look up J) we sat through 24. I’ve never watched this show since catching it a few times during its first season and deciding it was much too stressful for me to watch on a weekly basis, but my friend Jessica loves it and I was thrilled to see that Katee Sackhoff is joining the cast next season. She is one of my major girl-crushes and she looked stunning and so lovely at the panel. This looks like a very different role from Starbuck in BSG! Also joining the cast is Freddie Prinze, Jr. *snicker*
After 24 was Bones and with it came the devastating news that David Boreanaz would not be joining us this time since his pregnant wife needed him close to home. He recorded a fairly long and typically quirky message for all of us, but we were a bunch of sad sacks. David is such a wildly eccentric guy and always makes for a delightful interview in this type of off-the-cuff situation. So sad to miss him.
Following Bones was Dollhouse and by this time we were pretty tired of being in the same room, and practically the same seats alllllll dayyyy lonnngggg. We were able to go out for brief trips to the restrooms or to get food, but Ballroom 20 is generally pretty stuffy and on Friday it was stifling (this is another thing you learn after years of CC..Hall H is always freezing so I bring a jacket and a shawl, and Ballroom 20 is always hot so bring a hand fan and wear shorts or a skirt.) It was so hot that I was beginning to feel a bit faint in there. But enough complaining, Dollhouse started by having Joss come out and dive right in, showing us the hour-long “Epitaph 1” which I gather is a sortof sequel to the first season of Dollhouse showing what could happen if things progressed the way they were going. I admit that the first 3 minutes were so dreadful both in acting and in the “WTF is going on” sense, but then it quickly got REALLY GOOD. I still don’t quite understand what this is, if the series will continue from this point, where this little feature falls in the timeline, etc., but it was good and twisted in a very Joss way and had a compelling apocalyptic theme, which I always love. The panel then came out, consisting of some of the writers and actors and it was fine, if not a bit forgettable given the faint/heat and the reeling of my mind after that amazing screening of Epitaph 1. The second the panel was over I bolted out of there and just needed some fresh air. I went to Hall H to see Peter Jackson and James Cameron do a “conversation with the visionaries” but the programming was running really behind in that room and they were at least 30 minutes late, so I had to leave to make it to our dinner. I had made reservations at Buca di Beppo for our familia and a bunch of online friends that we are all connected to. We sat at the Pope’s table and had a delish meal and Justin joined us, which made me happy. Afterward we went home, did lots of talking and sharing until late at night, and then crashed to prepare for Saturday.