JanJans Blog

Still in English Mode. Seems to last longer every year.

Saturday is the longest day of them all. Since we went to bed at an almost reasonable time we were ready to get back to the Maritim in time for Robert Picardos panel, which started at 9:30. Since that evening the river Rhine was supposed to be in flames (Rhein in Flammen, as every first Saturday of May), on all roads near the Rheinauen the right traffic lanes are closed and converted to parking spaces, because of the thousands of expected sightseers. (Is that the right word? Don't know, sounds strange to me.) Combined with about 3000+ FedCon attendees that is a sure recipe for traffic problems.

So we parked the car about 10 minutes away from the Maritim. Just as I entered the convention I suddenly remembered that my camera was still in its bag in the trunk. So much for being awake. Well, what the hell, I won't be seen without my trusty Nikon on any FedCon, so I had to go back to fetch it. Lucky me I had the time.

I arrived just in time for Bob's panel. Being questioned about what he said at the opening - in German -, he translated his speech about having successfully sabotaged Atlantis, which was cancelled shortly after his arrival, to English, and asked us if there weren't any German Sci-Fi shows he could do the same to. Then he sang a bit and talked about the relationship of the Doctor and Seven and that with Seven, who had been assimilated as a child and lost her humanity, his role was reversed to that with Kes, where she had been the mentor of humanity. Furthermore he talked about the character development of Woolsey from a single minded bureaucrat to a responsible leader.

Summer Glau was next. Regrettably she was a bit ill since she seems to suffer from Asthma and had a cold on top of that. Still she seems to be a nice person, not at all completely barking mad as on Serenity (as River Tam) or The 4400 (as Tess Doerner, a paranoid schizophrenic), and not as violent as on The Sarah Connor Chronicles, where she plays the role of a Terminator. (Haven't seen that one, so I couldn't do anything with the questions being raised about that.) She seemed a bit shy but that might have been due to her illness. She talked a bit about how she was cast by Joss Whedon for Firefly.

After that Marc Alaimo and Jeffrey Combs had the stage. Not to be outdone by John Billingsley, Jeffrey Combs entered the stage with his pants down. (As you can see in the photo, Marc looks like he's thinking: "See what I had to work with? No wonder Dukat went crazy!") After he put his pants back on the panel got more serious - but only just a bit.

Nana Visitor was on after that. She is still as energetic as I remember her from the last time she was at FedCon. She talked a bit about the Odo / Kira relationship and then went on to her role on Battlestar where she played a dying cancer patient who meets the president of the twelve colonies in the infirmary on board the Galactica.

Dominic Keating told us - again - that he personally dislikes Pineapple, in contrast to his character on Enterprise, and that he only enjoys it when he is in Jamaica - as part of a cool drink on the beach. Last time he was at FedCon someone in the audience actually bought him a pineapple, but not this year. Instead he got a bottle of German beer which he seemed to favour far more. But on stage he only drank coffee, probably because he was out all night partying. (It seemed he didn't like the flavour of German coffee, though he must have had three or four cups while holding his panel.)

Instead of watching Richard Hatch's second panel we went to stand in line for the autographs. It seems FedCon mainly consists of sitting around panels or waiting in line for something. Since our budget was limited - the Admiral alone was 40€ - and we already had most of the other guests signatures we thought it wouldn't take as long. But when we left the hall, there were already people standing as far as the back entrance. Which is completely pointless, as the weekend tickets always are called in by blocks of some hundert numbers. So we looked for the first person in line with a number higher than 300 - who had day ticket - and boldly merged where no one had merged before. I left Jana there to get some Photographs we had picked out yesterday that we had completely forgotten to buy. When we finally were inside we saluted the Admiral, who commented on our uniforms, and were almost thrown into the brig by the XO. Both were very friendly and talkative. Anyhow it took us almost two hours to get all signatures, because we had to stand in line again for those actors who were not in the "Holodeck".

After that we decided to take a little break, so instead of returning to the "Main Bridge", where Marc B. Lee held his trailer show, we looked for some of our FedCon acquaintances like Igi and finally got some fresh air after we browsed through the dealer room. We had our pictures taken outside the Maritim together with the other members of the Trek Dinner Bonn before we returned inside to present one of our t-shirts to Jonathan Woodward.

Luckily we had picked up on the fact that Christopher Judge and James Callis had switched panels. James Callis had to leave that evening - some said because he had to start filming on Monday, but Marc said in the closing on Sunday that his wife is expecting a baby, so he simply wanted to get home. However we ended up in the middle of the fan film "Der Zeitspiegel", an stop-motion movie made with the Enterprise Action Figures. Cool animation.

When James Callis entered the stage he told us something about Baltars relation with Number Six and his view on the whole Angels story arc. I can't remember anything specific because by that time I was almost asleep: Though I thought I had a good nights sleep the con had taken a heavy toll on me over the day.

My tiredness increased during the panel of Colin Ferguson and Jordan Hinson (from Eureka, which I have seen about half an episode of). Don't get me wrong, for a series I know nothing about it was a rather good panel, and both were rather entertaining, but as you can see, the pictures I took during this time are even more shaky than the rest. Somewhere half through the panel I decided to take a walk to wake me up again. This ended in getting a bowl of pasta from the snack bar outside the con area and two 0.2l bottles of Coke, just to wake me up. After that my brain started working again, at least as good as is possible with my brain.

The Costume Contest was as interesting as always. It is amazing how much time and effort these people put into their costumes. If only I had some free time (and were more skilled at art and stuff than I am) I would definitely like to participate. But none the less I enjoy watching what these people can do. Hats off! (I'm sorry I can't post more pictures in here, but this entry is long enough as it is. You can see more costume contest photos on our science fiction web page, where I put all my FedCon photos. Sorry about the pictures quality, I think I'll need a better camera some time in the near future. If only I had money like I have... cat hair. )

After finishing the costume contest we had a little visit from the Sarlacc Survivor Band, a Star Wars theme show band. They are loud! Reeeeealy loud! (Well, OK, they did it with playback, but that is probably just because of the crappy stage cabeling.) And they were rewarded with a big round of "Zugabe" shouts. Later on they were joined by an Kiss cover group, which was amazing as well. My ears are still bleeding!

By then it was time for another panel I really looked forward to: Christopher Judge, Teal'c from Stargate SG-1. He told us how he wanted to be a football player when he was younger. He said that he would not appear on the next Series, Stargate: Universe, not even on the first episode, though General O'Niell and Dr. Jackson will be in it, which is sad, but he seemed to be OK with it. The series will hopefully air in October this year.

Next up was Michael Hogan, playing Saul Tigh, the XO of the Battlestar Galactica. He still can't believe he's supposed to be a cylon, a thing that EJ already told us. He also talked about his character loosing an eye on the show which was to him as an actor like loosing half of what he can convey in terms of expressions and feelings, since he thought that on television the eyes are the most important asset. Apparently Ron D. Moore phoned him on day while the arc for the second season was developed and told him, that Saul would not leave New Caprica without some kind of visible scarring and that maybe he would lose an eye, which he thought was a joke. Furthermore he was asked about his role on The Little Vampire which he said he liked very much.

The last panel of the day was Mark Sheppard who insisted that he is the president of the twelve colonies. (A little season 4 spoiler. ) The conversation gradually shifted towards cats and dogs, with which he personally has no problems. He also talked a bit about 24 (which, again, I haven't seen - maybe I should watch more TV) as well as Dollhouse (Joss Whedon apparently said, after he was cast: "The name [Tanaka] stays!"). He also talked a bit about firefly, but I can't remember a thing about it.

Instead of going directly to the party we met with Jörg and went down to the Rheinauen to look at the fireworks. All the exploding rockets looked very nice. We joked that maybe Paramount should have sponsored the event, because then they could have put in an Enterprise or two to promote the next movie. Would have been nice, since many people around us were FedConners, who had made the 15 minutes walk from the Maritim.

The party awaited, but I was far too tired to enjoy any of that. I vaguely remember meeting Mark Sheppard in the bar, where he wondered where the heck Gerolstein is, because you can buy it everywhere in the world. The rest is a blur. I almost fell asleep on one of the couches standing around the foyer, a fact I regretted the next day as I had a very stiff neck and a headache from the draught. But all the others seemed to have a good time.

Problem was we couldn't leave early because of the heavy traffic that, as predicted, choked all the roads around the Maritim. So we had to stay till about 2 in the morning and even then we had to take a different autobahn, because there was only one of the three lanes open on the bridge over the Rhine.