Friday at Gallifrey, Revisited

Right, where was I in my painfully slow recap of Gallifrey One's Nineteeth Symphony, Opus 2008 (the con's full name)? As I look back on my entries labeled Gallifrey One, I see that I didn't even write up the stuff from before the Masque of Mandragora except for the briefest of summaries written that Friday night. The problem with not posting full details as they happen is that memories get garbled after a while. Was the VotD screening on Friday or Saturday? (Friday.) Was the Buffy singalong on Saturday? (Yes.) And so on.

Okay, then: once I got to the right hotel and checked in, I managed to cram in a number of events that day. From here on out I'm going to crib from my program book, Lee's con report and my own posts made at the time.

At 4 PM was Gary Russell's interview of Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred, after which I left the main room (which had composer-archivist-restoration specialist Mark Ayre's presentation on Doctor Who) to rush upstairs for things to be autographed. That particular autograph session was largely writer-oriented, and so I got to say hello to Steven Moffat (who jokingly characterized himself as "a disappointment" in person), story editor Andrew Cartmell (who presided over some of my favorite 1980s stories), Andy Lane (whose New Adventures novels I had foolishly left behind at home), Paul Cornell (who remembered my comment on his blog about John Lennon and Paul McCartney), and James Moran (whose interview in Doctor Who Magazine was in one of the issues I left home). Still, it was pleasant to get a quick chat in with each of these guys, especially once I tracked down my well-thumbed copy of the Discontinuity Guide, co-written by Cornell, which I had been reading over lunch at Carl's Jr.

After that was Opening Ceremonies in the main room. I was a million miles from the stage, but that didn't dim my appreciation as emcee Shaun Lyon introduced the weekend's guests.

Steak salad in the sports bar.

A break in the schedule of must-see events followed, which gave me a chance to have dinner with some of the fans in from Phoenix, including the marvelous Lee Whiteside. I had what sounded like a relatively healthy and intriguing menu option, steak salad. This turned out to be a salad with french fries dumped on top of it, and a steak on top of that. It was good, though.

The "Drunken Doctor" poses with "Martha" in the hallway

The Fifth Doctor (left) meets the Tenth Doctor

The Doctor faces "Evil Toby," which didn't happen in the story.

This brings us up to the Masque of Mandragora, which I've already covered in some depth, except that I've found some more pictures I failed to post before. Here they are.

Rob Shearman launches into a funny rant about a
Steven Moffat (left) catchphrase in Just a Minute

My post the other night ended with the Just a Minute game, except that I totally failed to communicate how fun and funny it was. Great stuff, and that's all I'm going to say about it tonight. Some of it was supposedly available online as of last week, but appears to have been taken down now.

After Just a Minute on Friday night, prize certificates (and some actual loot such as gift certificates) were handed out to about half of the costume contestants, some of them very specific to the individual's costume. Cassandra and her "boys" took Best in Show, and I remember Martha and the Cyberboy being honored as well.

This was followed by screenings of "Time Crash" (Moffat's charity piece featuring the Fifth and Tenth Doctors) "Voyage of the Damned" (the highly-rated 2007 Christmas special) and "The Infinite Quest" (an animated adventure that was originally serialized on the BBC kids' show Totally Doctor Who, with Tony Head voicing the main villain). None of these have officially been aired in the U.S., nor released on video. Nevertheless, most of the fans at the convention had already seen them, including me. But seeing them on a big screen with a bunch of other fans was a rather different experience than watching them alone on my laptop!

I was up late Friday night blogging, which made it a little hard to get up the next morning. But Saturday was a full day of stuff to write about, so I'll leave that for another time.

Karen