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locker_monsterThursday was the first official day of the con. On Wednesday you had the chance to pre-register and I swear like half of the con going fans arrived Wednesday night. The line was super long, snaking down one hallway and up again and then finally down the stairs. When my mom and I finally made it up there, we received our shiny passes, our wrist bands, chose a time for the set tour, and we each received a free Stargate Atlantis bag. I was horrified to hear my mom say she was going to use her for groceries. As you saw, I ended up using mine to get autographs. I had actually brought my copy of Stargate Continuum from home, thinking I would get it signed, but then we got the bag and then I saw the con had an official poster, so sufficed to say, I ended up spending more than I had planned. More on that later.
Anyway, Thursday. Stuff didn't start until the afternoon, which was nice, because it let me sleep in. It's funny how they set up the con. Minor actors open it up and the regular actors close it out. I don't know if it's like that every year, but that's how it went this year.
First up was the costume designer for SG-1 and SGA. I didn't really care so we skipped that panel. I did snap this picture though, but mostly to show how far away from the stage we were.
This is without me zooming in. The actors were so tiny. The one thing I appreciate about how this con works is the seating. They have set seating and you stay in that seat for the entire weekend. No arriving early to stake out a seat in the front row, no fighting over who was sitting where. Where you sit is decided on the level of pass you buy. My mom and I had Preferred Gold, which is just a step down from Gold. But this is what Preferred Gold gets you: a seat near the back. I can see why people buy Gold year after year.
Before the first panel they showed a music video created by a fan. They had these all weekend. Basically, the videos were fanvids that anyone can find on YouTube. Fans won a prize for their entry, so slightly more satisfying than YouTube. Some were pretty good while others were meh.
The next panel was billed as "Working Actors of Vancouver". In other words, "The actors you constantly see in every show filmed in Vancouver." I'll warn you now my pictures don't get any better. It's a sad result of sitting near the back and zooming in to see people's faces plus a lack of flash so the picture wouldn't be washed out. Eh, what can you do.
From left to right, the actors were Fulvio Cecere (Colonel Davison on Stargate and Lt. Thorn from BSG), Kirby Morrow (random ship crew member on Stargate and the voice of Scott Summers from X-Men: Evolution), Heather Doerkson (another random ship crew member and random Marine on BSG), Jodi Racicot (I can't remember his role on Stargate but he was in the short-lived Flash Gordon TV show), Michael Kopsa (again, I can't remember him, but he's been in Dead Zone), and Patrick Currie (Fifth on Stargate and Enzo on BSG). They had some interesting stories about being an actor in Vancouver. Seems with you're a minor actor like that, you take what you can get. Kirby Morrow and Heather Doerkson were surprisingly funny and naturally every woman in the room perked up a little when Patrick Currie spoke.
Next was Gary Jones, Chief Mst Sgt Walter Harriman, the long suffering gate technican. He was pretty funny. You can tell he's used to playing to the fans.
This was the clearest picture I had, which is kind of sad. Later in the evening he and Dean Haglund (Langly of The Lone Gunmen) had a show called Starhole SG-1.5. It was a big spoof, with Gary playing Walter and Dean playing everyone else. To see it cost extra so we didn't go, but I heard it was really funny. Gary also revealed he's in the premiere of Stargate Universe along with Richard Dean Anderson and that the SG-1 set was radically different. Since the set tour wasn't until Saturday, this got the room buzzing. And boy, did he mean radically different.
The next panel was supposed to be with Christopher Heyerdahl, Todd the Wraith, but he had to cancel at the last minute. So instead we got Andee Frizzell, the Wraith Queen. She turned out to be really funny and she had some great stories, especially one from "Submersion". Seems Wraith make-up and water don't mix so well. I didn't take any pictures of her, but you wouldn't recognize her out of the make-up. In fact, that was one of her stories. Some poor soul mistook her for Tricia Helfer at one con.
Friday had some more decent panels. The first one of the day was with David Nykl (Zelenka).
It was so weird hearing him without his Czech accent. He does speak Czech though and he's the one, not the writers, who comes up with all the Czech swearing Zelenka sometimes does on the show. Inexplicitly, someone asked him to say "Harry Potter" in the Czech accent though I'm not sure why. David said it anyway and added "James Bond" and "Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy". Crazy fans. That was the first of many awkward fan questions.
David was nice enough to walk up the aisle to the cheap seats in the back. Row L; that was us. The best part of his panel had to be when some random fan on his iPhone said he had a message from David Hewlett via Twitter. The message was, "Radek who?" That got some laughs. David Nykl asked the fans to Twitter back with, "Rodney who?" and spam David Hewlett's Twitter feed. I hope people did that. This little escapade proved two things; a) David Hewlett actually uses his Twitter feed and b) he actually reads everything there. I assume this fan guy posted on his own Twitter feed about David Nykl's panel and David Hewlett saw it.
Dan Shea, Sgt Siler, was next. I could not for the life of me get a decent picture of him. He kept moving around, to the point that someone asked him if he had ADHD.
He had some funny stunt stories and went off on a tangent about how he's in this zombie movie and he has to film an underwater scene. It had nothing to do with Stargate, but hey, what do you want. :-)
There was a break between panels, so we went to check out the Stargate Museum. And by museum, I mean a room in the hotel full of props the production could do without for a few days. They keep all of their stuff though, which is cool.
This painting of Rodney is from "The Game". There were a couple of McKay in that episode and I think I'm right in saying that David Hewlett took one home after filming was done. I mean, how could you not?
The SGC logo. Now, this made me raise my eyebrow. I thought to myself, "Did they just yank this off the wall in the boardroom?" It wasn't until Saturday did I get an answer. I really liked how they put a photo of General Hammond next to it. A nice tribute to the character and to Don S. Davis.
A Jaffa Furling from "200". It was so cute and weird at the same time that I had to take a picture.
And finally a ZPM and a drone. There were costumes and set pieces as well, but this was the stuff that interested me. Seems they recycle props too. Some of the gizmos from "The Game", the Victorian stuff, is being reused on SGU.
The next panel was Connor Trinneer's, Michael or Trip if you prefer.
I have to admit I have a slight crush on Connor from Enterprise. This is the one good photo I have from the con and it's only because I ran up the aisle to take it. This was his first Stargate con, so he admitted his usual Star Trek stories were no good here. At one point someone asked him what Michael really wanted to do with Teyla's baby, like Connor had a hand in creating that storyline. His response was pretty funny though: "Hold it. Love it. Raise it to be a good person. Teach it how to throw a curveball … and kill everybody!" This was a good example, one of many, of taking a weird fan question and making it funny and engaging. Another awkward fan question; someone asked Connor if he had read any of the AU fanfic about Trip being the captain of the Endeavour. Yeah.
Everyone's favourite SG-1 doctor, Teryl Rothery, was next. She's so tiny and cute, and extremely funny, too, the total opposite of her character.
She was giving out hugs left, right, and centre and people weren't even asking for them. She just liked giving hugs. :-) Naturally, someone asked her about Dr. Fraser being killed off. It sounds like the writers wanted to "shake things up". Now, why does that always involve doctors? That remains a mystery.
I got Connor's autograph, included in the ticket package. He was the first to sign my bag and poster. It was nice that autographs for most of the guests were included. My mom had to take up the bag on behalf when we were getting things signed, since you were only allowed one item per person or one item per autograph ticket. This eventually led to a very hectic Saturday night but that's a story for another post...
The Celebrity Cabaret was the highlight of the night. David, Dan, Connor, and Robert Picardo all took part. Dan Shea was mostly just an emcee, but to start things off, he took off his shirt and did some push-ups. Man, that guy is buff. :-)
For David's bit, which seemed a little last minute because he wasn't part of the original line-up, he read from some trashy romance novels and had fans act it out. It was a comment about fan fiction, the "fan" here being actual fans.
It was really funny though, even if all David was doing was reading. At one point he said, "Someone wrote it, you have to do it" to the volunteers, which just made me laugh. Actor's revenge!
Connor was next. He came out first and on his own, munching on a bag of chips. He had been watching David's bit from backstage and all he saw was shadows and the rear projection of the screen. According to him it looked like a cross between shadow puppets and porn. ;-) He and Robert did a radio play type thing, with Connor's character was trying to pitch a movie idea to Robert's character. There was swearing, which made everyone laugh because they were kids on the audience. Whoops.
Robert Picardo was last and his bit was the best by far.
He had some video clips from a website he's part of. One was of a character called Alphonso, an aging Italian gigolo. After the first "Ask Alphonso" clip, he came out on stage singing a song to the tune of La donna è mobile. If that sounds familiar, his character on Voyager also sang the song. The song was about how he has two fandoms now. I don't recall the lyrics because mainly all I could think about was the version he did on Voyager, which ended with the Doctor singing "Illogical." Robert also sang "Twilight Time", much to the joy of the older lady sitting beside me. He also sang another song, something along the lines of "Will you love Stargate tomorrow?" I heard some people were surprised that he could sing. I guess those people didn't watch Voyager.
After the Cabaret was the celebrity cocktail party, or a $79 excuse to have drinks with some of the actors. Mom and I skipped out on that, too.
So that was day four and five. All through the con I saw posters from Gateworld. You could tell they were from Gateworld forums because they had name tags with their user name on it. So this way people could see each other in person. There were a lot of Gateworld people. It was a little strange seeing an on-line part of fandom out in the real world. I'm so used to interacting with just words. To see real people discussing a show I only talk about on-line, it felt out of place.
Next up: Day Six and Seven. Stargate set tour (whoo!) and autographs aplenty.
Anyway, Thursday. Stuff didn't start until the afternoon, which was nice, because it let me sleep in. It's funny how they set up the con. Minor actors open it up and the regular actors close it out. I don't know if it's like that every year, but that's how it went this year.
First up was the costume designer for SG-1 and SGA. I didn't really care so we skipped that panel. I did snap this picture though, but mostly to show how far away from the stage we were.
This is without me zooming in. The actors were so tiny. The one thing I appreciate about how this con works is the seating. They have set seating and you stay in that seat for the entire weekend. No arriving early to stake out a seat in the front row, no fighting over who was sitting where. Where you sit is decided on the level of pass you buy. My mom and I had Preferred Gold, which is just a step down from Gold. But this is what Preferred Gold gets you: a seat near the back. I can see why people buy Gold year after year.
Before the first panel they showed a music video created by a fan. They had these all weekend. Basically, the videos were fanvids that anyone can find on YouTube. Fans won a prize for their entry, so slightly more satisfying than YouTube. Some were pretty good while others were meh.
The next panel was billed as "Working Actors of Vancouver". In other words, "The actors you constantly see in every show filmed in Vancouver." I'll warn you now my pictures don't get any better. It's a sad result of sitting near the back and zooming in to see people's faces plus a lack of flash so the picture wouldn't be washed out. Eh, what can you do.
From left to right, the actors were Fulvio Cecere (Colonel Davison on Stargate and Lt. Thorn from BSG), Kirby Morrow (random ship crew member on Stargate and the voice of Scott Summers from X-Men: Evolution), Heather Doerkson (another random ship crew member and random Marine on BSG), Jodi Racicot (I can't remember his role on Stargate but he was in the short-lived Flash Gordon TV show), Michael Kopsa (again, I can't remember him, but he's been in Dead Zone), and Patrick Currie (Fifth on Stargate and Enzo on BSG). They had some interesting stories about being an actor in Vancouver. Seems with you're a minor actor like that, you take what you can get. Kirby Morrow and Heather Doerkson were surprisingly funny and naturally every woman in the room perked up a little when Patrick Currie spoke.
Next was Gary Jones, Chief Mst Sgt Walter Harriman, the long suffering gate technican. He was pretty funny. You can tell he's used to playing to the fans.
This was the clearest picture I had, which is kind of sad. Later in the evening he and Dean Haglund (Langly of The Lone Gunmen) had a show called Starhole SG-1.5. It was a big spoof, with Gary playing Walter and Dean playing everyone else. To see it cost extra so we didn't go, but I heard it was really funny. Gary also revealed he's in the premiere of Stargate Universe along with Richard Dean Anderson and that the SG-1 set was radically different. Since the set tour wasn't until Saturday, this got the room buzzing. And boy, did he mean radically different.
The next panel was supposed to be with Christopher Heyerdahl, Todd the Wraith, but he had to cancel at the last minute. So instead we got Andee Frizzell, the Wraith Queen. She turned out to be really funny and she had some great stories, especially one from "Submersion". Seems Wraith make-up and water don't mix so well. I didn't take any pictures of her, but you wouldn't recognize her out of the make-up. In fact, that was one of her stories. Some poor soul mistook her for Tricia Helfer at one con.
Friday had some more decent panels. The first one of the day was with David Nykl (Zelenka).
It was so weird hearing him without his Czech accent. He does speak Czech though and he's the one, not the writers, who comes up with all the Czech swearing Zelenka sometimes does on the show. Inexplicitly, someone asked him to say "Harry Potter" in the Czech accent though I'm not sure why. David said it anyway and added "James Bond" and "Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy". Crazy fans. That was the first of many awkward fan questions.
David was nice enough to walk up the aisle to the cheap seats in the back. Row L; that was us. The best part of his panel had to be when some random fan on his iPhone said he had a message from David Hewlett via Twitter. The message was, "Radek who?" That got some laughs. David Nykl asked the fans to Twitter back with, "Rodney who?" and spam David Hewlett's Twitter feed. I hope people did that. This little escapade proved two things; a) David Hewlett actually uses his Twitter feed and b) he actually reads everything there. I assume this fan guy posted on his own Twitter feed about David Nykl's panel and David Hewlett saw it.
Dan Shea, Sgt Siler, was next. I could not for the life of me get a decent picture of him. He kept moving around, to the point that someone asked him if he had ADHD.
He had some funny stunt stories and went off on a tangent about how he's in this zombie movie and he has to film an underwater scene. It had nothing to do with Stargate, but hey, what do you want. :-)
There was a break between panels, so we went to check out the Stargate Museum. And by museum, I mean a room in the hotel full of props the production could do without for a few days. They keep all of their stuff though, which is cool.
This painting of Rodney is from "The Game". There were a couple of McKay in that episode and I think I'm right in saying that David Hewlett took one home after filming was done. I mean, how could you not?
The SGC logo. Now, this made me raise my eyebrow. I thought to myself, "Did they just yank this off the wall in the boardroom?" It wasn't until Saturday did I get an answer. I really liked how they put a photo of General Hammond next to it. A nice tribute to the character and to Don S. Davis.
A Jaffa Furling from "200". It was so cute and weird at the same time that I had to take a picture.
And finally a ZPM and a drone. There were costumes and set pieces as well, but this was the stuff that interested me. Seems they recycle props too. Some of the gizmos from "The Game", the Victorian stuff, is being reused on SGU.
The next panel was Connor Trinneer's, Michael or Trip if you prefer.
I have to admit I have a slight crush on Connor from Enterprise. This is the one good photo I have from the con and it's only because I ran up the aisle to take it. This was his first Stargate con, so he admitted his usual Star Trek stories were no good here. At one point someone asked him what Michael really wanted to do with Teyla's baby, like Connor had a hand in creating that storyline. His response was pretty funny though: "Hold it. Love it. Raise it to be a good person. Teach it how to throw a curveball … and kill everybody!" This was a good example, one of many, of taking a weird fan question and making it funny and engaging. Another awkward fan question; someone asked Connor if he had read any of the AU fanfic about Trip being the captain of the Endeavour. Yeah.
Everyone's favourite SG-1 doctor, Teryl Rothery, was next. She's so tiny and cute, and extremely funny, too, the total opposite of her character.
She was giving out hugs left, right, and centre and people weren't even asking for them. She just liked giving hugs. :-) Naturally, someone asked her about Dr. Fraser being killed off. It sounds like the writers wanted to "shake things up". Now, why does that always involve doctors? That remains a mystery.
I got Connor's autograph, included in the ticket package. He was the first to sign my bag and poster. It was nice that autographs for most of the guests were included. My mom had to take up the bag on behalf when we were getting things signed, since you were only allowed one item per person or one item per autograph ticket. This eventually led to a very hectic Saturday night but that's a story for another post...
The Celebrity Cabaret was the highlight of the night. David, Dan, Connor, and Robert Picardo all took part. Dan Shea was mostly just an emcee, but to start things off, he took off his shirt and did some push-ups. Man, that guy is buff. :-)
For David's bit, which seemed a little last minute because he wasn't part of the original line-up, he read from some trashy romance novels and had fans act it out. It was a comment about fan fiction, the "fan" here being actual fans.
It was really funny though, even if all David was doing was reading. At one point he said, "Someone wrote it, you have to do it" to the volunteers, which just made me laugh. Actor's revenge!
Connor was next. He came out first and on his own, munching on a bag of chips. He had been watching David's bit from backstage and all he saw was shadows and the rear projection of the screen. According to him it looked like a cross between shadow puppets and porn. ;-) He and Robert did a radio play type thing, with Connor's character was trying to pitch a movie idea to Robert's character. There was swearing, which made everyone laugh because they were kids on the audience. Whoops.
Robert Picardo was last and his bit was the best by far.
He had some video clips from a website he's part of. One was of a character called Alphonso, an aging Italian gigolo. After the first "Ask Alphonso" clip, he came out on stage singing a song to the tune of La donna è mobile. If that sounds familiar, his character on Voyager also sang the song. The song was about how he has two fandoms now. I don't recall the lyrics because mainly all I could think about was the version he did on Voyager, which ended with the Doctor singing "Illogical." Robert also sang "Twilight Time", much to the joy of the older lady sitting beside me. He also sang another song, something along the lines of "Will you love Stargate tomorrow?" I heard some people were surprised that he could sing. I guess those people didn't watch Voyager.
After the Cabaret was the celebrity cocktail party, or a $79 excuse to have drinks with some of the actors. Mom and I skipped out on that, too.
So that was day four and five. All through the con I saw posters from Gateworld. You could tell they were from Gateworld forums because they had name tags with their user name on it. So this way people could see each other in person. There were a lot of Gateworld people. It was a little strange seeing an on-line part of fandom out in the real world. I'm so used to interacting with just words. To see real people discussing a show I only talk about on-line, it felt out of place.
Next up: Day Six and Seven. Stargate set tour (whoo!) and autographs aplenty.
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