I had a good feeling about going out to California for the 1998 Gallifrey One convention. I had recovered from some health problems the week before, which meant I was really looking forward to getting away from the area for a long weekend. I left work on the Thursday before the convention and picked up my convention roommates Greg and Roger, and we drove to the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport.
The flight was relatively noneventful to LA. When we reached LA, we did have a minor crisis in the luggage pickup, when a baggage cart was stuck in the ramp coming from the sky. Wanting to get a move on, I went up and rescued the cart and the rest of the baggage before they all became backed up.
We saw Shaun Lyon checking in Steve Cole and Andy Lane as we were checking in. After dropping off the bags, we went down to the bar (one of the better places to stay during the convention) and talked. We met Andrew "DrLoveCon" Raymond and Suki and Robert Franks in the lobby at around 11:00 PM. They moved in just down the hall from us, and we had a good time watching some of Robert's recent video acquisitions.
Spent the Friday Morning before the convention renaming the TV Series episodes in expectation of a story title debate, like "McGann Cutaway", "Robot Cutway", "Krynoid Cutaway", "Doctor Who and the Silurian Cutaway", and the one episode story "Mission to the Unknown". Nothing like having a sad conversation every now and then...
After the opening ceremonies I introduced myself to Dave Owen, and we then promptly went into the bar where he started off a good round of drinking and talking. It is interesting to hear a bunch of British fans having conversations about Doctor Who and ones Americans have -- we don't have "Barry Letts" sightings, or toast obscure guest actresses from the series. (I'd be interested in finding out some of what goes on at one of these Fan Olympiads, so perhaps some of the ideas could be imported for US conventions or gatherings.)
I ran into Charles Martin in the lobby, and told him that I followed his advice that he gave me at Visions as far as making it out to Gallifrey. He was definitely right with that advice.
That evening we stayed in the bar for a little while and had a nice conversation with Deborah Watling. My favorite part was when she discovers we were there for the convention -- "so you know who I am?". She's a lovely woman.
The "So Many Myths, So Little Truth" was a definite convention highlight. Amazingly, it didn't become an arguement about either story titles or canonicity -- even when various people tried to bring up the subject. Instead, it became a hilarous discussion of pranks played on DWB during the 80s, Terrance Dicks impersonations by Stephen Cole, and mythical casts of characters. David Howe brought some fascinating documentation about story titles -- in my mind, if anything, it reinforced what a silly argument it really is. "Dr. Who & a 100,000 BC" is a personal favorite.
The cabaret, with the inevitable "South Park" meets "Doctor Who" programme cover took place Saturday evening. Many of the convention reports have already mentioned the live performance of "Doctor In Distress" by Steve Cole, Gary Gilatt, Jac Rayner, Paul Cornell, Dave Owen, Keith Topping, and Paul Simpson.
The saturday night dance was a blast. Steve Cole, Dave Owen, and Gary Gilatt doing their best "Full Monty" act to Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Relax". We are introduced to "The Rasputin" , a great little song that I intend to hunt down one of these days. The dance is a lot of fun, and keeps me going until late into the night.
Sunday morning had the brunch with the guests. Despite the less-than-stellar food, we had interesting discussions with all of the guests, with Elsa Frohman (She has pictures from Gallifrey at http://elsaf.home.pipeline.com/Galley.htm) and Suki giving advice about their trips to London, a discussion about Earthquakes with Matthew Waterhouse, and talking to Colin Baker about a web page he plans on putting up.
The Joe Straczynski panel had a lot of good information about upcoming Babylon 5 stories. The line was long enough that I passed on getting an autograph, and attended the next panel about the future of Doctor Who in print. I put a few spoiler notes at the end of this report
I spent a good deal of time over the weekend talking with Gary Gillatt about DWM, the differences between US and UK with regards to Doctor Who, the comic (where he jokingly called me a "bad fan" for not liking their explict break with book continuity when they killed Ace). I was horrified to discover that both Gary Russell and Gary Gillatt had become fans of a spokesperson for a Minneapolis area hardware store chain.
1999 will bring the CyberInvasion of LA, and I am already looking forward to attending next year. I'm planning to stay longer next year and get a chance to see more of LA -- Disneyland, or Universal Studios, or some other piece of LA. I imagine that next year the LA weather will be better and the Minnesota weather will be worse, so I'll be looking forward to the midwinter escape. Thanks to everyone connected to the convention & to everyone I talked to over the weekend.
Some possible spoilers for upcoming BBC Books:
Sam will apparently be changing in the upcoming books. I hadn't realized until this point that Kate & Jon's upcoming "Seeing I" will be doing a lot of the redefining; as long as we don't repeat the ground covered with Ace, this is reassuring. (I don't think she should be killed -- it has been done too much recently). Steve also mentions that there will be new companions in the future, but doesn't elaborate.