zomg gally yay
I don't really remember the order of events of the week-end, but I can tell you that I adored the panels this year. Seriously. I did I think 8 panels all told:
The Martha panel was AWESOME. Seriously. No lie. We polled the audience, and then basically discussed every instance of pure Martha awesomeness we could remember, and there was a lot of "omg made of awesome". We even managed not to spoil our audience, most of whom hadn't seen episode 6 yet. Go us! There was a lot of discussion of the dynamics between Rose and the Tenth Doctor versus Martha and the Tenth Doctor, and our hopes for Donna in series 4. So there was a lot of meta on the role of companions, the single companion versus multiple companions dynamics, and how unfair it is to judge a companion on whether or not she success as a companion solely on whether or not she is a love interest. Especially since the Tenth Doctor's behaviour with Rose and Martha is virtually identical, yet Martha is the only one who calls him on it and expects answers. And the weird assumption by fans that one has to chose one or the other companion, instead of enjoying both (which seems to be an online thing, more than offline) and slag off the other companions in order to support their faves, whoever the fave of the moment might be. It's all very school playground, and I didn't see any of that actually in the audience, which gave me great hope for the future of mankind. Well, fandom-kind, anyway.
The Care and Feeding panel with Simon Guerrier, ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
paulcornell2, Teh Moff, the always gorgeous Stephanie Crawford, and a lovely guy from Podshock, and we discussed how the new series has created fans of the original series, how new fans aren't as likely to join the existing fandom mainstays of the 1980s and 1990s like local clubs and the Canadian and UK fanclubs, so much as they are being fannish about the show in their online fannish spaces, and how it's most likely that the folks who will take over from our generation to run the cons and websites aren't likely to be people for whom Doctor Who is one fandom among many, but for whom Who is their first and possibly only fandom. Attendance at Gally jumped about 200 people this year, and nearly all of them came from the intarwebs. I think that trend will only continue, as new fans who have never been con-going fen before become con-going fen thanks to Gally.
Did the "Save Our Show" panel with Lee Whiteside (whom I have known for something like 15 years, thanks to LOISCLA) which was actually mostly about how fans can help support a series, talking about successful campaigns, and debunking the myths about campaigns as well. Being fans, we also talked about those series that came back after write-in campaigns and were the worse for it (Nikita and Roswell), or the ill-advised campaigns mounted by fans for series where the principals and creators didn't want to come back as the shows had already had 5+ year runs. And Mark Ayres basically gave us the UK side of things, since the industry works completely differently than here, regarding the commissioning process, and where the funding comes from.
Alas, the Vampire late-night roundtable was less of a round table, and more of Jill and Ingrid and I fighting to get a word in edgewise with Eric Hoffman. However our end of the table had fun at least. I was a horrible socially-inept person in being very blunt about Anne Rice, which really wasn't fair to Jill (who adores the novels) and I need to find her email and beg for forgiveness for my lack of tact, but we also spent a LOT of time discussing male nudity. And that was all good.
I made it to the 10am Liars panel despite staying up until 4am in the lobby with everyone. I still managed every single night to pack it in before robshearman, tho. I can cling to that at least. As I am complete crap at improv, I mostly laughed over everyone else's riffs. Now that I've been on both sides of the table, tho, I'll probably give it a miss near year for sleep instead.
The Squee panel was my fave. We talked a little about the "women drooling over pretty people" version of squee, but spent the whole panel really talking about the gender differences in fannish behaviour and how the drives are the same while the practices are often totally different, and "Squee" in Who Fandom for us more means the female voice of fandom. We talked a lot about fan fiction, and also what we look for in said fan fiction. It was awesome. And I am totally making Christa write that chapter for Chicks Dig....
I kidnapped chaodai for the WGA panel, and it was interesting and I learned a lot, and he made very good points about the advantages of selling a series using a pilot over a presentation--particularly regarding casting. And everyone agreed that the deals that were struck shouldn't have required months of striking to achieve. Paul Salamoff also updated folks with what's back in production, what's been renewed for next year, and what's been cancelled. According to him, my beloved SCC is on the bubble, and likely to die a horrible death. OH NOES. And he is angry with me still for not loving Bionic Woman.
I kinda sort crashed the Gender and Sexuality and the Changing Face of Doctor Who panel. *facepalms* I DIDN'T MEAN TO. I was going to be in the audience and just add comments. You know, like I usually do. But the mod invited me up half-way through, and we covered a lot of ground (including the notion that blonde = the mating form, based on Romana and the Doctor's regenerations into a younger more shagable blond body potentially to become sexually attractive to a partner. Yes, we went there. It was AWESOME). We also discussed romantic AND platonic, versus romantic and erotic. And how both the Master and Romana regenerate into a new personality and physical form that is more like the Doctor, which opened a whole can of worms. And we got to discuss the whole long lifespan = reduced mating drive thing, while still keeping open the notion that just cos you are not biologically driven to reproduce as often as possible does not mean Time Lords Don't Do It For Fun. I think the Master and Lucy prove they can and do. And Jack was talked about a lot as well. It was just a fantastic panel, and I was sad to see it end.
Wow. This is almost a proper con report. Go me!
