This morning, second verse same as the first: breakfast, birdie time, then off downtown.

James and I used to go to a lot of the same panels, but as they have instituted more tracks, we are diverged most of the time. I go to my "spiritual" home, the British programming track, the odd Star Trek panel, a few of the classic television panels or the literary panels. James does a few of the media panels, especially for series or people, but he mostly hangs out in the literary track or the Apocalypse track. But this morning was different; we were both heading to "Whatever Happened to Saturday Morning Cartoons?"

This was great fun--David Gerrold was one of the panelists, so we not only chatted about what was special about Saturday morning cartoons for each of us, and which ones we loved, but we had some inside info on Land of the Lost and just writing for children's programming in general. (And how dumbed down it has gotten.)

Since I had nothing planned for the next hour, I took my leave of James and crossed the skybridge to the Hyatt to see the art show. Little "intestinal art" (violent pictures with monsters and/or vampires ripping open people) this year, thankfully, many cute dragons and other critters, some lovely medieval-type illustrations, a few nice steampunk items, some wonderful 3D items. I then strolled the print shop, wanting to take home the titmouse gryphon and the yin-yang wolf and a couple for James.

I had hardly walked across the barrier to Comics Alley when I found Andy Runton's Owly booth. There is no new Owly digest-sized volume out, but Andy's just done a full color children's book, and there was also the "Free Comic Book Day" comic as well as a new print: winter! I bought that and some tiny magnets of Owly, Wormie, and all the little birds. A few minutes later James appeared; his panel room was empty and the Marriott was already a zoo, making him claustrophobic. So we walked about the art show and the print shop again together.

Finally was off to the best two panels of the day—if laughter is the best medicine, I should surely never be sick again! The first was "Needcoffee.com vs. The Whoniverse," the folks from this review/humor site doing commentary on the first Matt Smith season. With this bunch it is never serious and I hadn't laughed so much in ages. One of the panel had just begun watching Who, so we had neo commentary, critiques of "The End of Time," lots of chat about River Song and just who she kills, and the usual "corpsing." This is so expected that several members of the audience were playing a Bingo game handed out by the panel: you got a square if they made a certain type of joke, or a certain reference, or criticized a certain person. First person with five blocks in a row won a DVD.

There was a long, long line for the Star Trek: The Next Generation panel, but I did make it in at the tail end and was quite happy. If you figured the stars of a serious drama series like Next Genwould carry on a serious panel, you would be dead wrong. This was even more hilarious than the Who panel, with guests Armin Shimmerman, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Jonathan Frakes, and Denise Crosby, with Garrett Wang as the moderator. (They continually teased him about Voyager.) If you want to know anything cool someone said, that would be hard to say; as Marina Sirtis put it, they were trying really hard not to give out any serious answers!

(I have to say that I had forgotten her original accent—saw her years ago at Magnum Opus Con—was so strong!)

LeVar Burton did have some good news: he is putting together a Reading Rainbow website which will be a continuation of the television series. There will be video book reviews, games, and other family-friendly items. Brent Spiner rambled a bit about the bad movies he has made when someone asked him about doing comedy.

There was also an odd occurrence when a reference was made to "chips," and Denise Crosby said "I didn't have any chips," and Jonathan Frakes responded, "Just that one on your shoulder!" and she walked off the stage. He followed her, presumably to apologize...I guess! It was a bit disconcerting!

I've only watched two episodes from series two, but I went to the Merlin panel anyway. I understand Morgana has started going bad, but Arthur's still a git. Figures. Much speculation if Arthur was ever going to twig to Merlin's magic saving him all the time, and if they would continue a series after Arthur became king.

Both James and I had considered going to the Adam Savage (Mythbusters) panel, but when I got to the Hyatt and he arrived from downstairs, there was a line out the door and around the building. Instead we went back to the Marriott for the Space: 1999 panel, which was a bit tongue-in-cheek. Discussed favorite episodes, the change between first and second season ("1999: A Space Odyssey" and "Star Trek 1999" as the moderator called them), the never-ending supply of Eagles, the tie-in products and books (I had no idea anyone was still writing Space: 1999 novels), and other stuff.

I had nothing on at seven, so I went with James to the literary track's Jeopardy game. This was entertaining and I blogged the first half of this entry on my phone between questions.

We finished up at the Sherlock Holmes panel. They were mainly talking about the new iteration of the character, which is done in a modern setting. Now, I've heard about this series, but how is everyone seeing it? Was it on BBC America and we've missed it? Apparently they've taken care to create parallels of Holmes' behavior in the Victorian era to modern day. It sounds quite interesting. The panel also discussed other favorite Sherlock portrayers...Jeremy Brett got most of the votes, as could be expected. One vote for Peter Cushing, too.

And after that panel, it was home again. The temperature today never got over 82°F and at least twice, to avoid that mess in the Marriott, I came down those awful stairs at the back of the Hyatt (James with me the second time) and just walked down the street next to the Marriott to get to the Sheraton because the heat wasn't oppressive. As we drove home it was blessedly cool. The sky this morning was beautiful, a deep blue and scattered liberally with mare's tails; tonight it was mostly clear and we could see a big "star" in the eastern sky. Google Sky Maps said it was a conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus. So we drove home with the windows down, sniffing cool air and the delightful scent of fresh vegetation that hasn't been broiled in the sun.

Labels: conventions

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 8:31:00 PM

Comments:

Yeah, that was really odd when Denise Crosby walked off the stage at DragonCon today after Jonathan Frakes made the "chip on her shoulder" reference. I guess she was pissed. Someone on the panel said to Frakes, "better go after her," and he did. Neither came back on stage---very odd.

# posted by  Anonymous : 3:37:00 AM

 

Obviously he was right about the chip, then!

# posted by  Tina : 12:42:00 PM

 

How interesting about the convention! Jeremy Brett got most of the votes, eh? ;) Re: the new "Sherlock" series--most of it is posted on YouTube--I've seen the first episode, and it was better than I expected. It will be out on the PBS channel in the US in October, I believe.

Since you mentioned Jeremy Brett, I thought you might like this website: http://www.bafta4jb.com

# posted by  Anonymous : 2:41:00 PM

 

Oh, another funny reference after the Frakes-Crosby incident. After they all ran backstage (Crosby, Frakes, and Garrett Wang (moderator)), someone hollared from behind the curtain that they better send Deanna Troi (counselor) back there, too. hah

# posted by  Anonymous : 10:12:00 PM

 

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