The last day!
Smallville
Secret identities frustrate me. Shows built around them rely on an unending series of coincidences aimed at keeping characters looking the othe rway at key moments or knocked unconscious more often than is strictly healthy. Sometimes, it seems like everyone gets together in an unspoken pact to just be a little dense.
At any rate, the panel for Smallville was lively. Tom Welling was there, in addition to a bunch of the "new" cast members. (Meaning new since I last watched.) The producers promises that the last season will finish with Clark as Superman, which means that they will not only have achieved ten seasons (an accomplishment on television in any genre) but also get to really tell a complete story instead of just a few years of Young Superman. Have to admit, that interests me.
Supernatural
Not one I watch - they seem to trend a bit more towards the gory things that go bump in the night and slime you than I do. I have heard a lot of good things about this show, however, so the panel was cool to see.
I was fascinating to hear the creator talking about how his five year plan worked and what decisions got made as they wrapped up. For example, the decision to actually wrap it up instead of stringing out the mythology. I think that gets to an understanding that the audiences are getting more sophisticated about serialized storytelling on television. Then, there was the choice to hand the reins over to someone else who would bring in their own stories and arcs. Sort of like the soft resets that comic books do when a new creative team comes in.
American Dad
I know I've prefaced a lot of shows with some disclaimer about how I don't watch, but it was still fun. And for the most part it was. I'm always interested in hearing people who are passionate about what they do talk about what they do. It's fascinating to hear the little detail and decisions that went into the storytelling.
This show, on the other hand? When I say it's not my kind of show, it's really really not my kind of show.
Glee
After a bit of an extended greatest hits reel (that had a pretty heavy focus on Kurt, just sayin'), the cast came out. Including Santana, Britany, Tina, Artie, Mercedes and Kurt, plus Ryan Murphy and another producer.
(Another thing I feel like I keep doing is saying "And then there was some other guy," which I feel bad about. "Other guys" deserve props too, right? Next year, I promsie to make an effort to learn the other guy's name. Or at least fake it by looking it up.)
They dropped the requisite hints about Season Two:
-
Kurt gets a boyfriend.
-
Tina falls for "Other Asian Kid."
-
We'll see more of the home life of some of the other kids, including a visit to Mercedes' church with Kurt.
-
There will be a Britany episode (as in Spears and as in our favorite blonde cheerleader).
The questions were fairly standard, with a couple touching on the uncomfortable relationship between Kurt and Finn. Chris Colfer and Ryan Murphy both spoke out in Kurt's defense, making me wonder if they've been getting flack for it. I pretty much filed the whole thing under "Well, duh, they're both teenagers" and waited to see what happened next. My biggest problem with Kurt was that stunt he pulled that resulted in Quinn getting kicked out of her parents' house. Not cool.
The producers didn't go too deep into the issue of theme shows and guest stars, indicating that they needed to focus on the cast they have now. Which they do; that cast is getting rather huge. There's enough material there for years. On the other hand, they will eventually have to handle cast turnover as the characters age out of high school. I imagine some of the newbies we'll see next year are preparation for that.
Convention Floor
You may have noticed that I spent most of my time in panels. There are a couple of reasons I stayed off the convention floor.
-
The panel schedule was really great this year.
-
I'm trying to declutter, so picking up freebies just introduces more "stuff" into my apartment.
-
The lines were so long to get into the rooms that I overcompenstated by going in sooner and staying longer than I otherwise would have.
-
The convention floor was so packed with people that I got a bit of a headache just thinking about it.
Seriously. Wall to wall people. And I have to wonder if it's affecting not just the overall experience for the attendees, but also for the sellers. If no one can get into your booth because it's four people deep just trying to get down the aisle, how are you making money? Or the Warner Brothers line is looping past along the wall and half the people walking by are trying to figure out where it ends? There will always be a group of hard-core highly motivated buyers, but the average person is probably not just browsing to see what's there in that environment. I know I came home with more money that I ever have before.
(The SyFy Channel seemed to cope with all this by not having a booth at all. They had been using that cafe attached to the Hard Rock Hotel for years as "Cafe Diem" and putting up their Eureka signage. This year, they put the people handing out bags right there on the corner. If there was an inside booth that I somehow missed because I wasn't willing to dare the central area of the floor, then I think that's a sad sign of the times.)
Getting more space is the most obvious answer, as is reducing the number of people in the room, but there are drawbacks to either "solution." To give them credit, the convention planners are managing the lines a lot better than in recent years. Meaning that the lines are long, but at least they move and there is less risk of sun-stroke than there used to be. So maybe they just need to turn their attention indoors for a bit.
What Did I Think?
I love Comicon. I love the panels and the people watching and the freebies and being able to buy my father's birthday present and know that it's something he won't have found at Borders. Next year, however, I am going to have to manage myself a lot better, because I was just wiped out when I got back. I may even take one of the four days and go to the beach for some peace and quiet.