Dragon*Con Report: Saturday
Here we go with day two, which is going to be even longer. To make scanning easier, I'll make event titles bold - so no, it doesn't mean Claudia Black has been deleted by LJ.
(Groaner foul.)
Tired as I was, I couldn't sleep in on Saturday morning, not with the big event at ten: the Dragon*Con Parade. I'm no cosplayer, myself, but I'm always impressed by other people's skill and dedication, and there were more amazing costumes than I could count at the con. The Lego and the Tetris blocks might have made me laugh the most, but people dressed up as everything you could imagine, and many more things than I ever thought someone would. Of course, by the time I got my Starbucks tea and muffin, the line-up along the street was deep, and I wanted to get pictures. Fortunately, there was a platform on the corner of the Hyatt that wasn't too populated, so I was able to park myself above everyone's heads, if occasionally blocked by trees and polls.
Holy crap, the parade was awesome! It was this...massive celebration of Geek. Really incredible, and I really had to pace myself on the picture-taking. There were many more than I actually got, some of which I didn't recognize and thus ignored. It was so cool, and you should definitely check out the pictures if you missed it.
Stationing myself at the Hyatt was a Good Plan, too, because I was able to dash inside ahead of most of the crowd at the end. First up on my schedule was the 11:30 BSG panel, so I parked myself in the room where it was scheduled to be held - the big one from the previous day. The programming running was actually the Andromeda panel, which featured that one spastic, geeky dude, Kevin Sorbo, and Kevin Sorbo's ego. I was somewhat distressed because Lexa Doig had been on the schedule, and when she wasn't at the table, I started to worry that she and Michael had had to back out at the last minute. The last bit of the panel was amusing enough, and featured the best answer I've heard to the "What would you be if you weren't an actor?" question that always comes up and goes nowhere (nothing exciting, they just had real answers).
Anyhoo, when it ended, I and about half the crowd got up to move to closer seats, only to ear the words that would become the weekend's refrain: "Please clear the room for the next panel." Woe! But then, more distressing: "The next panel is Mythbusters."
Uh. No.
"The Battlestar Galactica panel has been moved to the Regency Ballroom across the hall."
Well, frak, but okay, I thought. HAH. I moved out the door and into a teeming mass of sardine-packed humanity. OMFG. I couldn't actually control where I was going. Fortunately - sort of - the swarm moved me in the direction of someone who seemed to know what he was talking about with an orange staff lanyard. Big guy that he was, he didn't have a particularly loud voice, but what I gathered was that he was telling what had been the BSG line about the change, but also that they shouldn't move - the lines would be maintained as they were.
Yes, you should be laughing.
With some more freedom, I tried to play along and find the end of the BSG line, but there was so little distinction between "crowd" and "line" at this stage that I ended up vaguely wandering in the middle. Also, it soon became clear that the end of the BSG line was now full of people who thought they were in the Mythbusters line. Vice versa on the original Mythbusters side of things. It was chaos, and as would transpire, the last day they started these lines indoors. Eventually, someone gave up on order and opened the Regency doors for us, and I just joined the surge.
Being a lone person has its advantages in taking up the gap seats, and I was able to snag one in the third row, center, right behind wisteria_, elly427, indigo419, greycoupon, and eventually ebneter. This provided optimal viewing of the Bamber and his ridiculously blue eyes. (I'd be more ashamed of myself, but I was hardly the only one having issues.) We were treated to Aaron Douglas, Richard Hatch, and the Bamber that day, and it was a brilliant session. Over the weekend, I found that the groups of panelists each fell somewhere on the scale of goofiness, with one end being flip and silly, and the other being genuinely interactive and interested. The BSG group was completely on the latter end; by the end of the weekend, I wanted to come up with a question just so I could preface it by thanking them for their honesty and generosity in answering our questions, even the horrible and repetitive ones. Every time the Trek vs. BSG question came up, Richard Hatch was there to give the fan the complete answer they deserved. I was quite impressed.
This is not to say it was all serious, all the time! No, the panel was fun, entertaining, and informative. I especially loved when they'd make each other laugh, for real, and seeing those moments. If you've followed the reports at all, this is the one where we learned two very interesting things (non-spoilery):
1) In the original deal for the fourth and last season, Sci-Fi's offer was to run the first half in 2008, and hold the second half until 2009, thus giving themselves two "seasons" for the price of one. I swear the room almost mutinied, and the actors were as unimpressed as we were. They confirmed the next day that it really was what they'd heard, but they didn't know the final deal. This discussion led to the second point.
2) They are just as bitter about Sci-Fi and its suckitude as we are. Jamie freaking went off on the network, to much applause, and the others echoed him. Afterward, they sat back and went, "Huh. Um, I guess we're never getting jobs there again. Oh, and it's owned by NBC/Universal. And General Electric. Awesome."
There was lots of goofing around with each other, too, but it's all a blur. There were a few semi-spoilers of the kind even I'm okay with, and if you want to know, I can provide answers in screened comments, but they were really minor. But stay tuned for Monday.
After our hour was up, my next point of interest was An Hour with Claudia Black, scheduled to be held in a room one floor below the Regency. I made my way out through the crowd, ducking between people as many years of amusement parks have trained me to do, got downstairs...
...and was told that the room had changed, to the ballroom back upstairs, next to the large one. Well, crap. I ran back out to the stairs only to find that they weren't letting anyone go up! To help the traffic flow issues, we were all being channeled in one direction, with one area being "down" and another "up." Problem was, the "up" area was in the other tower of the Hyatt, and to get there, I had to go down another flight of stairs to the connecting hallway. Once across, I had to go up three levels, cross back over to the main tower, and go down one more level again to get back to where I'd started.
ARGH.
I called Courser during my trek, initially to see if she and the rest of the Stargate crew were coming and to warn them, but as it turned out, they were already in place and I got a place saved with them. Hooray!
Claudia's 1:00 session ended up being more like 1:20; the room was full before the start time, but the staff came out to tell us that she was running late because she was trying to find parking and was also very pregnant. I hadn't known she was pregnant again, but the bigger question was why D*C hadn't either a) taken care of all her transportation, or b) performed an emergency valet service for her!
Once she arrived, things turned right back around for a fantastic forty minutes. I'd been impressed by her before at Comic-Con and knew what a treat we were in for, but I think most of the audience was surprised - not because they thought she wouldn't be good, but by just how made of awesome she is. She sat down and started telling us all about her house renovations, and about the lightning storm she was in right before giving birth to her first child, and about how the storm she went through en route to Atlanta therefore had her a bit nervous. She was an absolute joy, and when questions started, she was engaging and talkative; every answer had about three stories wrapped into it but always addressed the original question. I think we got an equal balance of SG-1 and Farscape, as well as a bit about her more current projects, though most things are rather on hold right now.
Just. Made. Of. Awesome. We didn't want it to end, but her slave driver con manager, she who controls the convention fates of all the Stargate people and apparently also Katee Sackhoff (hence CB's appearance to make up for Katee's work interference), insisted that she go to the Walk of Fame at two. Woe!
The group split up at this point, with abyssinia4077 and me staying (well, leaving and then getting back in line) for Nichelle Nichols, along with likethesun2. This time, we didn't have to wait for the treat we got in another amazing session. I keep using that word, I know, but it's tough to encapsulate how amazing wonderful these women were. Nichelle Nichols has mind-blowing stage presence. She, too, talked to us for a while, about the projects she's worked on lately, and the characters she's explored, and it all led up to what I guess was a known thing to most people, but not to me, that she's going to be on Heroes! She spoke for twenty minutes just to get that reaction out of us. It was fantastic. She's truly inspirational and deserves more than this paragraph, but I honestly can't remember the details.
Next on my magic schedule at this point was the Trek guest stars panel, but after that was the Stargate Mega Panel, and the line was already forming. We passed the rest of our friends on our way down the hall and out the door for a much more organized line situation than I'd had that morning. We got lucky, too - our spot was far enough out the door to not get claustrophobic, but still well in the shade and with plenty of room to spread out. We settled in to kill time, glared at the horrible tease of a person who tried to tell us it had been moved (it would have been funny had that not happened to me already), and eventually filed into the building and the big room. Honestly, for all that we felt so far back in line, we were able to join the rest of the group in very good seats.
I seem to have not written any notes about this panel. Bummer. It was an almost-full line-up, including Corin Nemec, Alexis Cruz, Lexa Doig, Michael Shanks, Jason Momoa, Paul McGillion, Chris Judge, Pierre Bernard (right next to Judge, aw), and Vanessa Angel. *racks brain* Yeah, I think that was it. We had our first hint of what would become something of a moderator debacle when she led off the panel by telling them in detail about the other track sessions, particularly the filking, explained in a way that made the entire audience sound like creeps, rather than what it really was. She then kicked off with a few "personal" questions (we cringed so hard), such as what they had for breakfast (MS: "I like my coffee strong and black, like my men."), and what they would serve guests for dinner (LD: "We have toddlers, so Cheerios."). Then, thankfully, she moved on to audience questions.
Well. When I say "thankfully," I mean after the first one, which if you've been following reports at all, you've already heard was wanky. The woman started with "I know half the audience is going to be angry at me..." (or something to that effect) and continued with, "This question is for Paul and Jason. Could one of you kill Carter in Atlantis for us?"
The. Fuck.
The woman was soundly booed by not just half the audience, but pretty much the whole thing, and thus we all learned that the "Kill Carter!" crowd truly is a fringe element. You're allowed to dislike her, but actively seeking her death is something else, you know? And it's completely inappropriate for a panel like this. Luckily, after our loud dissent covered their initial shock, the actors were able to field the question turning it into giving each other crap. That was pretty much the story with them for the entire weekend, really; on my scale, they fell in the middle and were always entertaining, if not always complete in their answers. I will say that the mod did well in interjecting group questions and questions for the less popular guests, although the audience helped there, too.
Lots of other stuff totally happened, but I forget it all. They were pretty. Jason Momoa, amazingly, is larger than Chris Judge, a feat I did not think was possible. I loved watching Lexa and Michael together, though it made it hard to lust after him properly. If Jamie Bamber was feeling the fangirls (shut up, not literally) more than usual this weekend, it's because we all had to redirect our hormones. I wish I could remember more, but it's all such a blur. I feel like there was something else I wanted to mention...oh well, I'll probably find it in someone else's recap.
It was six-thirty by the time we emerged and time for food. I think this was the moment where, as we were walking out, I found myself briefly surrounded by Klingons.
Living the dream, guys. For real.
We regrouped and walked a few blocks to Mama Ninfa's for a loud conversation with Mexican food. I could only hear halfway down the table, but with shutthef_up, beanpot, stargazercmc, surrealphantast, and abyssinia4077 within range, how could I lack? After dinner, some people split off to go back to the programming, while I followed the rest up to the Marriott lounge for another round of kicking back. I was more interested in some of the programming offerings that night, including the "dark side" Stargate sessions and the BSG Frak Party, but people eventually trickled back to tell us that the earlier track stuff had been weak and the BSG line was ridiculous, so we didn't bother moving for the rest of the evening. It was marvelous, and I was somewhat more awake than I'd been Friday night and able to keep up with conversations about the show, about the fandom, and about writing.
Thus passed a day of hot men and fabulous women. The worst part? The con was officially half over.
(Groaner foul.)
Tired as I was, I couldn't sleep in on Saturday morning, not with the big event at ten: the Dragon*Con Parade. I'm no cosplayer, myself, but I'm always impressed by other people's skill and dedication, and there were more amazing costumes than I could count at the con. The Lego and the Tetris blocks might have made me laugh the most, but people dressed up as everything you could imagine, and many more things than I ever thought someone would. Of course, by the time I got my Starbucks tea and muffin, the line-up along the street was deep, and I wanted to get pictures. Fortunately, there was a platform on the corner of the Hyatt that wasn't too populated, so I was able to park myself above everyone's heads, if occasionally blocked by trees and polls.
Holy crap, the parade was awesome! It was this...massive celebration of Geek. Really incredible, and I really had to pace myself on the picture-taking. There were many more than I actually got, some of which I didn't recognize and thus ignored. It was so cool, and you should definitely check out the pictures if you missed it.
Stationing myself at the Hyatt was a Good Plan, too, because I was able to dash inside ahead of most of the crowd at the end. First up on my schedule was the 11:30 BSG panel, so I parked myself in the room where it was scheduled to be held - the big one from the previous day. The programming running was actually the Andromeda panel, which featured that one spastic, geeky dude, Kevin Sorbo, and Kevin Sorbo's ego. I was somewhat distressed because Lexa Doig had been on the schedule, and when she wasn't at the table, I started to worry that she and Michael had had to back out at the last minute. The last bit of the panel was amusing enough, and featured the best answer I've heard to the "What would you be if you weren't an actor?" question that always comes up and goes nowhere (nothing exciting, they just had real answers).
Anyhoo, when it ended, I and about half the crowd got up to move to closer seats, only to ear the words that would become the weekend's refrain: "Please clear the room for the next panel." Woe! But then, more distressing: "The next panel is Mythbusters."
Uh. No.
"The Battlestar Galactica panel has been moved to the Regency Ballroom across the hall."
Well, frak, but okay, I thought. HAH. I moved out the door and into a teeming mass of sardine-packed humanity. OMFG. I couldn't actually control where I was going. Fortunately - sort of - the swarm moved me in the direction of someone who seemed to know what he was talking about with an orange staff lanyard. Big guy that he was, he didn't have a particularly loud voice, but what I gathered was that he was telling what had been the BSG line about the change, but also that they shouldn't move - the lines would be maintained as they were.
Yes, you should be laughing.
With some more freedom, I tried to play along and find the end of the BSG line, but there was so little distinction between "crowd" and "line" at this stage that I ended up vaguely wandering in the middle. Also, it soon became clear that the end of the BSG line was now full of people who thought they were in the Mythbusters line. Vice versa on the original Mythbusters side of things. It was chaos, and as would transpire, the last day they started these lines indoors. Eventually, someone gave up on order and opened the Regency doors for us, and I just joined the surge.
Being a lone person has its advantages in taking up the gap seats, and I was able to snag one in the third row, center, right behind wisteria_, elly427, indigo419, greycoupon, and eventually ebneter. This provided optimal viewing of the Bamber and his ridiculously blue eyes. (I'd be more ashamed of myself, but I was hardly the only one having issues.) We were treated to Aaron Douglas, Richard Hatch, and the Bamber that day, and it was a brilliant session. Over the weekend, I found that the groups of panelists each fell somewhere on the scale of goofiness, with one end being flip and silly, and the other being genuinely interactive and interested. The BSG group was completely on the latter end; by the end of the weekend, I wanted to come up with a question just so I could preface it by thanking them for their honesty and generosity in answering our questions, even the horrible and repetitive ones. Every time the Trek vs. BSG question came up, Richard Hatch was there to give the fan the complete answer they deserved. I was quite impressed.
This is not to say it was all serious, all the time! No, the panel was fun, entertaining, and informative. I especially loved when they'd make each other laugh, for real, and seeing those moments. If you've followed the reports at all, this is the one where we learned two very interesting things (non-spoilery):
1) In the original deal for the fourth and last season, Sci-Fi's offer was to run the first half in 2008, and hold the second half until 2009, thus giving themselves two "seasons" for the price of one. I swear the room almost mutinied, and the actors were as unimpressed as we were. They confirmed the next day that it really was what they'd heard, but they didn't know the final deal. This discussion led to the second point.
2) They are just as bitter about Sci-Fi and its suckitude as we are. Jamie freaking went off on the network, to much applause, and the others echoed him. Afterward, they sat back and went, "Huh. Um, I guess we're never getting jobs there again. Oh, and it's owned by NBC/Universal. And General Electric. Awesome."
There was lots of goofing around with each other, too, but it's all a blur. There were a few semi-spoilers of the kind even I'm okay with, and if you want to know, I can provide answers in screened comments, but they were really minor. But stay tuned for Monday.
After our hour was up, my next point of interest was An Hour with Claudia Black, scheduled to be held in a room one floor below the Regency. I made my way out through the crowd, ducking between people as many years of amusement parks have trained me to do, got downstairs...
...and was told that the room had changed, to the ballroom back upstairs, next to the large one. Well, crap. I ran back out to the stairs only to find that they weren't letting anyone go up! To help the traffic flow issues, we were all being channeled in one direction, with one area being "down" and another "up." Problem was, the "up" area was in the other tower of the Hyatt, and to get there, I had to go down another flight of stairs to the connecting hallway. Once across, I had to go up three levels, cross back over to the main tower, and go down one more level again to get back to where I'd started.
ARGH.
I called Courser during my trek, initially to see if she and the rest of the Stargate crew were coming and to warn them, but as it turned out, they were already in place and I got a place saved with them. Hooray!
Claudia's 1:00 session ended up being more like 1:20; the room was full before the start time, but the staff came out to tell us that she was running late because she was trying to find parking and was also very pregnant. I hadn't known she was pregnant again, but the bigger question was why D*C hadn't either a) taken care of all her transportation, or b) performed an emergency valet service for her!
Once she arrived, things turned right back around for a fantastic forty minutes. I'd been impressed by her before at Comic-Con and knew what a treat we were in for, but I think most of the audience was surprised - not because they thought she wouldn't be good, but by just how made of awesome she is. She sat down and started telling us all about her house renovations, and about the lightning storm she was in right before giving birth to her first child, and about how the storm she went through en route to Atlanta therefore had her a bit nervous. She was an absolute joy, and when questions started, she was engaging and talkative; every answer had about three stories wrapped into it but always addressed the original question. I think we got an equal balance of SG-1 and Farscape, as well as a bit about her more current projects, though most things are rather on hold right now.
Just. Made. Of. Awesome. We didn't want it to end, but her slave driver con manager, she who controls the convention fates of all the Stargate people and apparently also Katee Sackhoff (hence CB's appearance to make up for Katee's work interference), insisted that she go to the Walk of Fame at two. Woe!
The group split up at this point, with abyssinia4077 and me staying (well, leaving and then getting back in line) for Nichelle Nichols, along with likethesun2. This time, we didn't have to wait for the treat we got in another amazing session. I keep using that word, I know, but it's tough to encapsulate how amazing wonderful these women were. Nichelle Nichols has mind-blowing stage presence. She, too, talked to us for a while, about the projects she's worked on lately, and the characters she's explored, and it all led up to what I guess was a known thing to most people, but not to me, that she's going to be on Heroes! She spoke for twenty minutes just to get that reaction out of us. It was fantastic. She's truly inspirational and deserves more than this paragraph, but I honestly can't remember the details.
Next on my magic schedule at this point was the Trek guest stars panel, but after that was the Stargate Mega Panel, and the line was already forming. We passed the rest of our friends on our way down the hall and out the door for a much more organized line situation than I'd had that morning. We got lucky, too - our spot was far enough out the door to not get claustrophobic, but still well in the shade and with plenty of room to spread out. We settled in to kill time, glared at the horrible tease of a person who tried to tell us it had been moved (it would have been funny had that not happened to me already), and eventually filed into the building and the big room. Honestly, for all that we felt so far back in line, we were able to join the rest of the group in very good seats.
I seem to have not written any notes about this panel. Bummer. It was an almost-full line-up, including Corin Nemec, Alexis Cruz, Lexa Doig, Michael Shanks, Jason Momoa, Paul McGillion, Chris Judge, Pierre Bernard (right next to Judge, aw), and Vanessa Angel. *racks brain* Yeah, I think that was it. We had our first hint of what would become something of a moderator debacle when she led off the panel by telling them in detail about the other track sessions, particularly the filking, explained in a way that made the entire audience sound like creeps, rather than what it really was. She then kicked off with a few "personal" questions (we cringed so hard), such as what they had for breakfast (MS: "I like my coffee strong and black, like my men."), and what they would serve guests for dinner (LD: "We have toddlers, so Cheerios."). Then, thankfully, she moved on to audience questions.
Well. When I say "thankfully," I mean after the first one, which if you've been following reports at all, you've already heard was wanky. The woman started with "I know half the audience is going to be angry at me..." (or something to that effect) and continued with, "This question is for Paul and Jason. Could one of you kill Carter in Atlantis for us?"
The. Fuck.
The woman was soundly booed by not just half the audience, but pretty much the whole thing, and thus we all learned that the "Kill Carter!" crowd truly is a fringe element. You're allowed to dislike her, but actively seeking her death is something else, you know? And it's completely inappropriate for a panel like this. Luckily, after our loud dissent covered their initial shock, the actors were able to field the question turning it into giving each other crap. That was pretty much the story with them for the entire weekend, really; on my scale, they fell in the middle and were always entertaining, if not always complete in their answers. I will say that the mod did well in interjecting group questions and questions for the less popular guests, although the audience helped there, too.
Lots of other stuff totally happened, but I forget it all. They were pretty. Jason Momoa, amazingly, is larger than Chris Judge, a feat I did not think was possible. I loved watching Lexa and Michael together, though it made it hard to lust after him properly. If Jamie Bamber was feeling the fangirls (shut up, not literally) more than usual this weekend, it's because we all had to redirect our hormones. I wish I could remember more, but it's all such a blur. I feel like there was something else I wanted to mention...oh well, I'll probably find it in someone else's recap.
It was six-thirty by the time we emerged and time for food. I think this was the moment where, as we were walking out, I found myself briefly surrounded by Klingons.
Living the dream, guys. For real.
We regrouped and walked a few blocks to Mama Ninfa's for a loud conversation with Mexican food. I could only hear halfway down the table, but with shutthef_up, beanpot, stargazercmc, surrealphantast, and abyssinia4077 within range, how could I lack? After dinner, some people split off to go back to the programming, while I followed the rest up to the Marriott lounge for another round of kicking back. I was more interested in some of the programming offerings that night, including the "dark side" Stargate sessions and the BSG Frak Party, but people eventually trickled back to tell us that the earlier track stuff had been weak and the BSG line was ridiculous, so we didn't bother moving for the rest of the evening. It was marvelous, and I was somewhat more awake than I'd been Friday night and able to keep up with conversations about the show, about the fandom, and about writing.
Thus passed a day of hot men and fabulous women. The worst part? The con was officially half over.