February few by!
Over Valentine’s weekend, my partner, James, and I went to Gallifrey One -“the largest and longest-running annual Doctor Who convention in the world.” It was a blast!
The convention is a 4 day event. I flew in from San Francisco to LAX Thursday evening, meeting James there. We decided not go Gally that night because we hadn’t seen each other in weeks!
On Saturday, we got to the Merritt hotel by 10am to go through registration and start our weekend. We spent the two days going to panels, shopping in the Dealer’s Room (tons of different vendors), checking out the art exhibits, admiring all the cosplay, listening to interviews and taking photos with our favorite characters.
Below are some of the panels that we attended:
- The Timey-Wimey Puppet Show –One of the most popular family-related events at the convention (with standing room only!), Mike Horner’s popular puppet show theater returns. Come join the fun for kids and adults alike!
- Radio Free Skaro: Gallifrey One is Required – We’re off and running with our 2016 convention program, starting as we always do with a live taping of our official podcast Radio Free Skaro! This year, the Three Who Rule start this train off on the right track (we’ll never get tired of that joke!) with special guests Peter Davison, Patricia Quinn, Julian Glover, Andy Pryor, Sarah Dollard and Jamie Mathieson.
- Larger than Life: The Role of the Companion in Modern Who – The modern series of Doctor Who has featured each companion doing remarkable and sometimes super human things… but in the meanwhile, there are massive cries for returning back to the old paradigm of a perfectly normal ‘regular person’ stepping into those shoes for the next round. We’ll discuss the evolution of the role of the companion, including addressing some of the reasons why people might be over the larger than life companion role (and why there are sometimes sexist notions behind that), and debating why developing the companion back into a supporting player might not be the best thing for the show in 2016.
- Teaching Moments: Doctor Who 101 – One of the biggest appeals of Doctor Who to families with children is the strong message it sends: to fight without words instead of weapons, to build bridges between strangers, and to look at the universe with an open mind. Our panel will discuss the impact of Doctor Who on children and teenagers, and the life lessons that are learned from the mad man in the box.
We were also able to get photos with some of our favorite characters:
Funny story about our photo with Sir John Hurt! We got the prop photo option, which means our photo has a replica of the Moment– “the most powerful and most dangerous weapon in all of creation, described as the Galaxy Eater, which the Doctor intended to use to end the Last Great Time War.” We were in front of a green screen. Well we didn’t realize that James’s green Beauty & the Doctor shirt would be an issue. When we were close to the front of the line, someone asked James if he had another shirt. At first we didn’t understand the question but then it clicked! Oh no! Green on a green screen! Luckily, I was wearing the Owl Doctor sweater, so I quickly took it off and he put it on and had to zipper it up all the way. If you look at the photo closely, you can see the background above the zipper. teehee
Next year’s Gallery One‘s tickets are going on sale on Saturday, April 16.
chatasweetie 
Super,beautiful work chatita.
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