Yet Another Journal

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» Monday, September 06, 2004
Dragon*Con: Day 4
"How fast the earth spins..."
Mary O'Hara, Wyoming Summer
I always hate the last day of conventions. It's like the last day of vacation, with the idea of returning to the usual routine; I always ending up shedding a tear or two at the end of both.

We were up early this morning to see the "Buck Rogers Reunion" with Gil Gerard, Erin Gray, and Felix Silla. They were a friendly, upbeat panel, with many stories about pranks on the set, but also some serious tales about how callous Universal was of their health and of the series itself, plus Gerard's criticism of second season producer John Mantley (now we know who to blame it on).

James went off to attend a Space & Science panel that was ultimately cancelled; I attended a panel on Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. Of all the non-media panels I attended, this was the best--the panel and the audience got into a spirited discussion of L'Engle's "Time Quartet" (or as someone called it, the "Time Trilogy and one related book") and touched briefly on some of her other books. Sounds like most of the panelists liked the television film better than I did--although they liked best what I did, the actors themselves.

I then went to a panel on the British SF cult favorite, Blake's 7. This was rather sparsely attended because of the Monday timeslot--a lot of people are checking out or have already left by one in the afternoon. I was particularly interested in this panel, not just because of my fondness for the series, but because I wanted to know if the DVD release of the four seasons just beginning in Great Britain was going to happen here, and in what form (rumors were that the British would get the super-duper set with extras and commentary and that the Americans would get the plain vanilla overly compressed set). Well, apparently sometime in the spring we will be getting the full versions of the DVDs. Cool. Anyway, we also discussed favorite episodes and our theories about the final episode (where everyone supposedly is killed off).

Finally James and I rendezvous'd again--he'd been watching the tribute to DC Comics maven Julius Schwartz--for the Mighty Rassilon Art Players' presentation of The Return of the King and I. This was a daffy, hilarious musical version of Return of the King which included a surprise revelation from Gimli, a pompous Aragorn, the Lost, Lost Riders of Rohan, and several dozen in jokes that touched everything from pop culture to MRAP's past. The cast were all quite funny, but IMHO Neil and Colin Butler came close to stealing the show as Merry and Pippin. Their real-life sibling role suited them well for the bantering that went on.

And finally it was closing ceremonies and time to go. We waved goodbye, took a quick spin by Michael's to spend their 50% off Labor Day coupons, and then went home to pizza, budgie song, and Willow greeting us with joy.