This morning was the same as yesterday: up early, prep, and out the door. We told the fids we'd be home earlier. Not much, but we were.

I'd popped in the dealer's room for several short periods, but this morning had a chance to peruse more slowly. There is a nice variety of vendors this year, including The Corner Shop from downtown Marietta, and lots of CDs from Big Finish. I did buy James some Thunderbirds pins and he bought himself a SHADO one, and he bought me a Prydonian pendant. James also got a Starfury patch for his backpack and I bought Twilight a magnet that says "bigger on the inside."

I sure could have used something to split me into parts today. I missed "Literary Comfort Food" and "Ask a British Person!" and "How to Ruin Your Franchise," plus panels on Indiana Jones and Gerry Anderson, among others, to see the panels I did. That's the trouble with Timegate—[sarcasm alert!] just too many things going on!

Anyway, I went once more to the Big Finish Q&A because I just like listening to Nick Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery. Briggs is excited to be able to do an audio season of The Prisoner to add new stories to the canon, although I wonder if Patrick McGoohan would feel the same way, as that was always his baby.

Next, James was moderating (along with Scott Vigiue) a panel on Time Travel. We discussed time travel methods (machines, magic, disassociation with modern times) and the problems of traveling in time, where changing one tiny thing (as in the Bradbury story) changes the entire course of history. Not to mention what happens if you meet yourself in the past, or why you would want to time travel. (I don't want to change anything; I just want to see what it looked like really: the Library at Alexandria, ancient Rome and Greece, if there truly was a King Arthur, Washington crossing the Delaware, real pioneers crossing the plains, Perry in Japan, etc.)

Then it was on to see Paul McGann once more. On this panel he talked about some of the movies he had done, including one about the Irish potato famine in which he appeared with all three of his brothers. He said they all love each other, get along, and work well together, but by the time the shoot was over, they were no longer living close to each other! Also, his brother Mark was the first of the brothers to act, although he was going to RADA at the time. (His father knew nothing about acting, and when his mother told him "Paul's is going to RADA," Dad thought he had some sort of disease!) He also talked about being from Liverpool at the time of the Beatles, and how his mother would dress the brothers up as the Beatles and people would get a big kick out of it.

Terry Molloy came on next, and I got the opportunity to ask him about The Scarifyers, which most of the audience had never heard of. He talked about the episode that followed Nicholas Courtney's death and how they made the changeover to David Warner, with the help of an actor who sounded so much like Courtney that it made his eyes fill with tears.

I had a free hour, so I first went back to the restaurant where James was having a late lunch with Clay and Maggi, and Sue Phillips had joined them. Sat down to talk (but was a little pissed that the waitress came by several times and never once asked me if I wanted anything—I think if she had asked I would have ordered some potstickers, but she never did, so they lost that sale). Then Sue went back "on duty" for the Lit track and Clay and Maggi hit the road (they are planning to be back next weekend, so we might get to do dinner or something). I bought memberships for next year as well.

The final big panel was "The Worlds of Doctor Who" with all the guests (except for Louis Robinson, who left early). The panel was "thrown open" to any question, so there were some funny ones as well as serious ones about what types of stories they'd like to do on CD in the future. An unexpected guest turned up as well: a young man named John Moore who has done prosthetics and makeup on the new series and who is here in Atlanta working on Guardians of the Galaxy II. He'd seen the notice of the convention and called Alan to see if he could appear as it will help him get a green card to work here in the US.

We thought about seeing the wrapup panel in the British Pub track, but instead we stayed behind to see the Felt Nerdy Puppet Show, just for a lark. These are puppets in the Muppet sense, and the scenes alternated between Daleks telling bad jokes and a humorous continuing sequence where "Rose" wished for the Doctor to be more serious, only to have him turn into Mr. Spock and driving her crazy with his logic and sobriety. She was much happier with her good old Doctor in the end! After the show, the puppeteers came out and showed us how they worked and what they were made of, and introduced the puppets to the children.

Finally, it was time for the wrap-up panel, talking more about the change of name to WHOlanta and the change of weekend before "giving credit where it was due," to the track organizers, the con suite people, the panelists, and the guests, and then asking questions about how things went. We did complain about the restaurant rates!

And then it was seven o'clock and time to leave Paradise and go back to the world. On the way home we stopped for supper at Panera: I just had soup, but James had a pick two and fell in love with their new Chinese Cashew salad. It looks really good.

Then a dog walk and finally a chance to rest! Can't wait to sleep late tomorrow!

Labels: conventions, Doctor Who, dogs, food, pets

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