Convention Report: London Film and Comic Con

We arrived at LFCC about 10am on Saturday 7th. Our Mission: To report on the phenomena that is Comic Con….
Despite being early and having a schedule that a Space Station operations manager would be proud of, we still managed to be 15 mins late to the Star Trek talk (the horror!).
This consisted of Gates McFadden, Elizabeth Dennehy, Hallie Todd and Tracee Cocco. As Sam walked in she pointed at Tracee and yelled ‘Ohh its HER from ops!’ – so crass! 

 

The sound quality in the talk was sadly rather poor so it was difficult to hear but we caught an amusing story about how the crew surprised Patrick Stewart after the Best of Both Worlds arc. He hadn’t been filming on the bridge for some time, what with being a Borg and all. When he finally returned to the set, Gates was waiting for him in a bath robe and had decorated the bridge with throw pillows , pictures of hunky men and Champagne to surprise him. Apparently, he was delighted!

It reminds us of that scene from The Big Bang Theory with Amy Farrah-Fowler and Sheldon ‘playing Doctor’. We reckon they got busted and made a joke out of it.  Hint: there was no operator behind that camera!
Not only was the sound not great but for some reason the actors weren’t on the stage but sat level to the audience. This would have been great if you were in the front row but not so much for everyone else. Fortunately these issues were quickly addressed for the other talks.

We had a quick run to the ladies where we bump into Jewel Staite. We lost all sense of coolness as we grinned at her like a pair of Denobulans.  We started to panic as we momentarily forgot whether her name is Jewel or Kaylee. We stayed safe by saying “Hiiiiiiiiii” trying to make it last as long as a conversation.

We walk out of the ladies feeling pretty dorky (and that’s pretty bad at Comic Con!) and walked right into – but sadly not literally – Nicholas Lea!

Now we are giggling like Bevis and Butthead.

We run back into the Talk Stage area and are ready for the X-Files talk. When we first became friends, this was our second love after Trek.

Mitch Pileggi looks like he hasn’t aged a day. And Nicholas Lea seems more like his character in The New Series of V than Krycek (he had two arms!).

Mitch made a good point about how shows like the X-Files had better episodes when there was less money invested in them. We feel rings true for shows like Star Trek and others in that genre, in the absence of special effects, creative writing is a necessity. It is also flattering as a fan because these types of shows require a level of intelligence and imagination from the viewers.

When a fan asked about the possibility of working with Gillian Anderson again, Mitch said he’d love to hear Gillian call him ‘Sir’ one last time!

Sadly we didn’t make it to Jeri Ryan’s talk as we were getting Karl Urban’s autograph but we had seen her in a talk a couple of months ago (See Queen of our Collective interview).

Carole was excited as a Jem’Hadar about to get its White fix. We had done some mental prepping for this moment (see ep 20 Celeb talk) It wasn’t good for our confidence queuing next these hot geek girls but they were very sweet.

Carole was cool in front of Karl, she spelt her name out, asked good questions , “How are you today?” “Are looking forward to the Dredd panel?” “Would you like to see my TiTs later?” (Trekkies In Training obviously!?)

Sam, however, yelled “Carole has an e in her name, e … E!”

We were impressed that Karl knew we were Trekkies by Sams TWOK broken insignia necklace – he even flashed us an LLAP.

To cool off from ‘The Karl’ we had a walk around the venue. We loved the Olympia’s Grand Hall as a venue, a vast improvement from Earls Court. The Hall is a wow factor by itself. The original Victorian design and the glass barrel-vaulted ceiling give a sense of an airy, light and open atmosphere.

Where’s Wheaton?

It’s hard to compare to last year in size but it certainly seemed busier with more traders. We also find that the variety of guests attending means a wider variety of traders selling. This can sometimes mean that Star Trek products are harder to find but there seems to have been a surge in demand in the last  5 years and we put that down to the Movie, to CBS relaunching the series on TV and the Fans determination not to ever let Trek fade into the background.

Hints about traders. Remember the 284th  Rule of Acquisition: Deep Down Everyone’s a Ferengi. Become friendly with the traders, make them your new best friends. They are resourceful and can get you things you desire. Also remember the 3rdRule: Never pay more for an acquisition than you have too.

The final hour of the last day of the con is a good day to shop.
Speaking of traders, a lot of people have asked Sam where she got her TWOK insignia from. Sam: I got it from a trader called RB Replica’s at Collectormania last month. Their website is www.rbreplicas.com and they hand make them themselves. The quality is topnotch and comes in gold or silver coloured. I stitched it to a piece of black ribbon myself.
We had hoped to have interviewed Gates McFadden but unfortunately she was unwell – the intensity of camera flashes can cause migranes so we always keep ours switched off when taking non-posing shots. But she did continue to sign autographs for the fans. What a trooper.

But we did get to talk to Elizabeth Dennehy (Commander Shelby) and Tracee Cocco (Lt. Jae). We’ll post these shortly but suffice it to say, both were lovely.

Time to get Jeri Ryan’s autograph, Robert Duncan McNeil had cancelled due to family illness but it was great to see Jeri again. Jeri had brought her husband Émé and their daughter Giselle Émé and they sat along side Jeri and played with colouring pens.

We had to laugh when we saw Jeri tweet this:

It’s got to be this guy:

It’s always nice to see Jeri, she is a real sweetie and we’re honoured to have seen her twice in the last few months.

Our final act was to attend the Firefly talk with Jewel Staite and Adam Baldwin. We were thrilled to see so many Firefly fans in the audience. Seeing as the series ended nine years ago and only consisted of one short season and a movie.

Jewel and Adam have a great stage presense and at times it almost seemed Kaylee and Jayne were up there.
We had to leave after the talk as we had to be back to Portsmouth for friends hen-do that evening but not before tracking down Jill from Destination Star Trek London to get the leaflet with the new guest announcements (Nana Visitor and Rene Auberjonois). Seeing the leaflet and talking to Jill made it all more real and exciting. That’s the next event we’ll be attending!

Carole and Sam would like to thank Showmasters and all their team for having us along and allowing us to report on this event. All staff were very helpful and courteous and we’re looking forward to seeing you all again at Destination Star Trek London. LLAP!

See our Facebook page for more photos from this event.