Having finally had supper, now feel vaguely human again. :-)

At eleven o'clock I slipped next to James at the end of the apocalypse panel, but he wandered off, leaving me at the two Doctor Who panels that ended up blending into one. The first was "The Ultimate Smackdown—Classic Who vs. New Who," which wasn't really a smackdown anyway (whatever that is). The chat was mainly about which stories would have never been seen on the original series, and which new episodes resembled old episodes. This melded into the second panel, "After Davies—the Future of Doctor Who," since Russell T. Davies has announced he will no longer be producer of the series, to be replaced with Stephen Moffat. Most folks are looking at this as being a good thing, since there have been many complaints about the series having turned into a minor soap. Moffat wants to bring back off-Earth stories and do serious historicals (without aliens) again. This sounds great to me. I'm sick of the Doctor mooning over Rose and Martha mooning over the Doctor and even sensible Sarah Jane having broken down when the Doctor left her life. Apparently from the rumors the season finale is going to be quite a blowout.

When the panel was over I reconnected with James in the foyer. We both wanted to see the wrapup panel at two, so we re-upped for next year, then sat in the foyer talking with Teri Sears and Kim, then moved to more comfy seats and were joined by Bill Ritch and Adam Levenstein, talking about the convention, Teri's knitting, Bill's job search and various computer languages. At two we all crowded into the last panel, the convention wrapup. We aired our complaints about the hotel restaurant, everyone was thanked, we bounced ideas for next year, but everyone was wildly enthusiastic.

We enjoyed this convention. It would have been nice, especially for the con staff, to have a few more people, but it was so nice as is. All the panels were great, the few guests were wonderful (please, Louis Robinson, come back next year; I'd be willing to just hear him talk about his days at the BBC!), the hotel in general was nice, the con suite was good, and we just had fun sitting and talking to people. Atlanta used to be full of conventions, from the early, cozy Dixie Treks and Phoenixcons, Fantasy Fair, and MOC nearby, now all there is is DragonCon, which is the 500-pound gorilla. There is lots to see at DragonCon, but at the same time it's sensory overload. It's crowded, it's loud, it's frantic, and it's at a time of the year when it's fiendishly hot and you have to walk between hotels. There's really no downtime space, like a quiet area where you can sit and talk.

Anyway, at the conclusion of the panel we sat for about an hour and talked to Kim Holec and others, before going off to Publix to gather the usual groceries and something for supper. We hadn't had lunch and it was four o'clock and the hunger kicked in fast.

I want to urge anyone in the Atlanta area to consider this con next year (it will be on Memorial Day weekend again). There's going to be an additional track that does not concern Doctor Who and Stargate. Heck, just come for the day and enjoy. This is the real thing, a nice weekend with friends rather than Christmas season at WalMart. :-)

Oh, yeah, I did buy all the About Time books (the third, about the Pertwee years, is out of print but a new expanded edition is supposed to come out this year). I never met many books I didn't like...LOL.

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