Here are my thoughts on Visions, the various panels and parties I attended, and whatever else I can manage to remember... Rather than put down partial names, or get them wrong, in general I won't include people's names unless they are hosting panels...
I drove down from Minneapolis with my brother on Thursday after Thanksgiving dinner. We stayed at his apartment in Madison Thursday night, and then drive the rest of the way to Chicago the following morning. Since he hadn't listened to it, we put in The Ghosts of N-Space. It was about how I remembered it -- fun to hear all of the old voices, but the story was a bit light. We got into Madison in time to catch the tail end of the X-Files marathon on FX. I hadn't seen "Home", a particularly twisted episode of the X-Files. And the last episode they showed featured the Lone Gunmen, which meant that my brother and I spent the convention identifying various convention attendees as one or the other of the three lone gunmen.
The drive down to Chicago Friday morning was very fog-bound...ick. I made it in time to hit the dealers room for Alien Bodies, the Roundheads, and the Book of Lists. All of the BBC Books were gone by the end of Friday. I was surprised by how many of the old Virgin NA and MAs were there -- especially ones like So Vile a Sin, The Dying Days, and Cold Fusion.
I then went to the Doctor Who guest panel. It had been over a decade since I had seen Davison (and almost as long since I've seen Frazer Hines.) Some of the stories weren't that different from what I remembered -- questions about being the dish of the day, or sticking arms up cows rear ends for All Creatures. One of the problems with a British interviewer, I found, was that he did ask a few questions that might have mattered more to a British audience (like the moving around of the time slot). Peter didn't rise to the anti-Matthew Waterhouse questions, basically making it sound more like poor guy was just in over his head. I ran into a few people I met from last year.
The Babylon 5 panel was hysterical -- it's quite a contrast to compare the Who guests from the B5 ones. It was clear they all hated the chairs -- they were clearly not well designed for dresses. Jeff Conway teased Pat Tallman mercilessly for most of the con... They were all interesting and entertaining guests.
I then went to the first of Jon Blum's panels. This was on the Books. It was quite packed -- there were a number of people I knew were on the net, and a few that weren't as well. I was surprised to see how many were following the BBC Books despite their general lack of availability -- more appeared to be following them than the Doctorless New Adventures. Jon carefully avoided spoilers -- especially when it was clear that the questions he was asked could only be answered by giving spoilers. I'm very intrigued by ALIEN BODIES now -- I can't wait to get to it.
We didn't have much of an allenrd gathering afterwards -- there was a Babylon 5 slide show immediately after, so most of us went there instead, I think. Lots of slides for the Neil Gaiman scripted episode followed. The B5 panel went on longer than I would have expected, with all of the old questions that people started to ask.
I grabbed dinner with the TIME RIFT gang, which also provided a gathering point for a bunch of people for the variety and costume show. The TIME RIFT people were all very friendly; so if you haven't seen the video, go ahead and try and get it! There were lots of highlights in the variety show -- people brave enough to sing filks unaccompinied (and not scare everyone off! :) ), a delightful Minbari outfit and poem for Marcus, a hysterical magic/comedy act from Rassilon, a Romana costume from The Androids of Tara, a penguin-possessed Centuari...the talent was in general pretty good.
I then bounced around to a few parties and the bar -- the PMEB party was the most crowded, and probably the most fun. [As it was just down the hall from me, I couldn't have missed it if I tried.] It also proved to be one of the better collections of net Who fans... it was a little frightening when the Estrogen was the most active during their mini-McGann marathon, but later on the Molyneux Mix was a good party tape. I'm amazed the hotel didn't shut us down.
The following morning I showed up a little early for Robert Smith?'s panel on internet fandom. I walked in on the tail end of Lori Summer's fan fiction panel. As you can see if you looked at a photo from the panel which is on a web site somewhere, I thought it was interesting to notice that it was almost all women -- which makes it even more embarrassing that only one WHO books author is female. Lots of net people at this fan panel, of course -- I don't IRC very often, but the impact of the net on fan culture was very interesting. I wouldn't have been at Visions if it wasn't for the net, after all. Robert also put a new spin on canonicity debates that I hadn't thought of before...
Then followed the infamous Animated Who panel -- Ross Ruediger, who represented the project, proved to be much more effective than Karen McCoy has. I don't believe the project will succeed -- none of the stories inspired great confidence, and the artwork was pretty mixed as well, and I couldn't quite picture it being successfully animated. I only hope that they don't get in the way of someone who could produce a better WHO project. I didn't look at any of the documentation that Ross claimed to have -- a letter from Barry Letts, and a letter of intent from a real animation company (whose name I don't recall). I trust that the better equipped fans in the audience will verify and elaborate on any of the details.
Jon Blum's panel on the future of Who followed. The most memorable bit, unfortunately, was when one individual decided that this was a good time to confront Jon on the supposed lack of quality in "Vampire Science", trying to demand a refund. I suppose it made the panel just like radw. The panel had some interesting points -- Peter Davison's comment in an earlier panel that Doctor Who may still need to rest a few years before the demand builds to a point where a new series successfully could be launched played in a little, but I don't think anyone had any reasonable ideas on how a new WHO could be done -- both network and syndicated television seemed to be right out, a multi-national co-production would have too many bosses, and cable's budgets were too small. A fun panel.
I spent the rest of the day in various room parties, skipping the professional variety show. I saw some of TIMEBASE's video production -- both of the ones I saw were excellent. I'm definitely planning on trying to get a hold of these so I can watch them and review them in my own home... I also stopped by the St. Louis CIA's party and the telesnap reconstructions party -- both had lots of great, friendly people.
Sunday was less eventful, I suppose -- I had all of the autographs I wanted, and I didn't find any real bargains in the dealers room that grabbed me. I picked up and watched the REIGN OF TURNER -- it was interesting to see a video that was primarily written and shot when I was most active in fandom; it was quite a historical record of the late 80s. There are a few jokes that I doubt would make as much sense now!
So as I drove back to Madison in time to catch the new episode X-Files, I listened to Neil Marsh's soundtrack to TIME RIFT. It served as a good musical end piece to the weekend, for the trip back to Madison and then to Minneapolis. I don't think anyone goes to a convention like Visions to see the guests really get the best experience -- it's all of the other people that you meet, and all of the acquaintences you renew. We don't really need a new animated WHO with cartoon resurrections of old Doctors and old stories...just something to collect around.