Gallifrey and All That

A quick post as I'm catching up on things following a fast weekend in Los Angeles for the 19th edition of Gallifrey One, the annual Doctor Who convention in the L.A. area.

This year's convention was their largest attendance ever, at 1080, 270 more than their previous record last year. Since the LAX Marriott handles LosCon with closer to 1500 people, it wasn't overly crowded for the most part, although some of the panels in the secondary programming rooms proved more popular than there were seats for. That should be remedied next year with some changes in their programming layout.

I did three panels, one of which on "Save Our Shows" was up against (and next door to) Steven Moffat's live commentary of Blink (which was one of the overflowing panels), only had a few in the audience, but we had a good discussion with Mark Ayres and Tara O'Shea doing most of the talking. The Anticipating Star Trek panel had a good turnout later in the day as well as the State of SFTV and the Writer's strike on Sunday.

The Masquerade had some good entries, especially the duo who were attendants to a very well made Cassandra that won best of show. The halftime show with Paul Cornell wrangling Sophie Aldred, James Moran, Rob Shearman, and Steven Moffat into doing Just a Minute was hilarious.

Mysterious Theatre 337 taking on Silver Nemesis was a hoot as well. I'd forgotten how cringeworthy some parts of that episode were.

We got a suprise appearance my Joel Hodgson and Josh Weinstein from Mystery Science Theatre to celebrate its 20th Anniversary. They also talked about their new project, Cinematic Titanic . Also on hand to do a presentation on Battlestar Galactica special effects was Adam "Mojo" Lebowitz who showed some of the shots he worked on for Razor, including several iterations of the big reveal of the classic Cylon fighter. It's always fun to see Mojo, especially when he gets all charged up about his work.

As always, it was fun to meet a lot of old and new friends, talk with the writers and the actors, and take part in a fun convention. Next year's theme is 20 Years to Life for the 20th convention.

I'll have a more detailed report and some pictures soon....