Con Report: Journey to Where (2010)

As I start this report, I am sitting here on the morning after the last of the convention-related events has ended. There were about 35 who attended at various points, many for the whole weekend, some having to arrive later or leave earlier. Now, as I first write this, it is Tuesday (July 20), and I think I'm the last of the convention to remain in the hotel, sitting up in the eighteenth-floor restaurant eating breakfast. Sort of feels a tiny bit like the last left on Alpha in a sense, yet realizing this might be the perfect time and place to start recording in words a little of who we were who had been here for a time to share in person the appreciation of a great series, via what we did here. :-)

Thursday, July 15

Some of us arrived at the hotel the day before the convention, and started gathering at the restaurant upstairs. We unintentionally gave our server a figurative headache at least, as we started as three (Lindsey, Raja, and myself), grew to six, and then eight, and eventually to 12-14 over the next hour, by adding tables, amoeba-like. John and Alice, Ken S., Paul and Caroline(?), Terry L. (I think), Ryan maybe, Joe (Lindsey's husband) and their child, among others. Eventually, after having gotten up at 4AM after only 4 hours of sleep, I had to leave; but it had been a very good couple of hours.

Friday, July 16

The convention opened at 10:00 the next morning, in a room called Pedernales (after a river somewhere near Austin, it seems). It was kind of a labyrinth to get to the room, and someone later compared it in navigation though not looks to the caves in DOD; it also requiring going through an empty dining room that was always much colder than any other room or hallway. Those were just points of occasional humor, not a complaint at all. The room itself was just the right size, as it would turn out, with enough room for our group and to spread out a little without feeling spread thin. There were neat orderly rows of very nice rotating office chairs that did not remain neat rows as the day went on (they'd be re-ordered overnight but then the process would repeat).

Robert Wood

After the Opening Session was the interactive conversation with Robert E. Wood, who had released Destination: Moonbase Alpha a few months ago. Tony Wynn conducted the discussion and Q&A.

Robert's prior book on the series, despite the proceeds going to charity, had run into problems, and he had to withdraw it. Another company, Telos, later contacted him on whether he wanted to publish it again. He decided yes, but wanted to rewrite it, having realized numerous things he wanted to change. Telos agreed, and he eventually submitted a sample chapter, and it was about two years between first contact by Telos to completion by Robert.

He discussed some aspects of the book, that he did want to include some of his subjective opinion while reviewing the episodes (stating that attempts at purely objective reviews can sometimes come out rather "dry"), but that his favorite parts were writing up the views of the cast, crew, and writers. Also discussed were the proceedings between the two seasons of the series, regarding Barry's attempt to return, and the problems therein. He had wanted to return, despite some of the terms, but it did not work out (discussed in the book as well).

Robert also related some of his ongoing projects regarding Barry Morse, and a book he sent to the convention to be in the charity auction, with lots of photos of Barry from throughout his long career. This book Robert cited as his favorite to work on, so far. (On Sunday, this got one of the highest bids, if I recall correctly.)

Robert related that though Barry sometimes said he kept little regarding his own career, it turns out that "little" was a lot, as was found out after Barry passed away in 2008. Some of this material is going into a Barry Morse Collection at a Canadian university.

Also discussed was the Resurrection audiobook, a one-man reading by Barry, released by Powys Media earlier in the year. It took at least four days recording in the studio, but Barry had come quite ready, having come up with different inflections for each character. Robert related how Barry had, in a sense, made it his own.

The upcoming showing of "The Return of Victor Bergman" was discussed, including a history behind the film. Barry was quite enthusiastic for the idea, having remained fond of the character and sad at how he had simply vanished. The footage of him was shot at a science fiction convention called Vulkon, some years back, then taking a winding path until eventually being handed over to Eric Bernard. He edited this footage and series clips together, along with some effects, to create the final short film, which would be given its first public playing later at this convention.

After the call with Robert Wood ended, a fan fiction book, of the same The Return of Victor Bergman name was announced, including stories by Ellen Lindow, Michael Lindow, and Meredith Kausch, all involving Victor of course. This would go on sale the next day, with proceeds going to the convention's charity, which was LiveStrong, Lance Armstrong's anti-cancer charity.

Afternoon

Some of us went to a restaurant (Thai Passion) for lunch.

In the afternoon, several genre episodes acted by Barry were shown: Isaac Asimov's "The Ugly Little Boy," Ray Bradbury Theatre "Touched by Fire," and Dracula: The Series "My Fair Vampire" (the last being very campy in the apparent opinion of most present, though all still welcome viewings, I think, as many of us have simply not seen a wide variety of his roles).

There was then a Space: 1999 version of Match Game, the latter originally a series from about the same time as S19, which had sentences/questions with a fill in "blank" where the these were set up in a lampooning, and often bawdy style. Yes, it often worked this way as well for S19, with many responses causing laughter. One of those that I think was one of those receiving the most laughter at the fill-in answer was (IIRC) regarding John, Helena, and Maya being a ficus tree. (Sorry, you had to be there :-)

Drew Gaska

Drew Gaska from Blam! Ventures then arrived and discussed his plans for a series of S19 graphic novels, including showing some in-progress pages. He discussed aspects of a story framework that treats the episodes as canon and builds a story around both Earth and eventually towards the Moon. It also updates the visual "look" compared to the 1970's comics, drawing on many familiar characters as well as introducing new characters, many of the latter being children or descendents of Alphans or guest characters shown in the series. It struck me as a very coherent and thought-out framework, and now has me looking forward to these eventual releases. The first story is to be "Aftershock!" and he has plans and some preliminary work in on at least two more.

Drew has already produced a non-S19 story series called Critical Millennium (sp?), the first installment of which is released and he had on sale at the convention, along with poster art for his Planet of the Apes series. He was also giving away copies of the poster that some of you have perhaps seen in some form, a dramatic view of the explosion on the Moon starting to drive it away from the Earth, with just the numbers 09.13.99 and 09.13.09 and a myspace.com address, from a marketing effort a couple years ago. He has plans for various sorts of marketing to try to draw in new fans who may or may not be aware of Space: 1999 but find the marketing premises interesting enough to draw people in.

Evening

There were more Barry Morse short film viewings, these being for a Canadian film school. The films were each about 10-15 minutes: "The Projectionist" (about an in-studio projectionist showing what he clearly thinks is junk films for executives, until, tired, he finally digs up his own, unreleased film, from decades before, and shows it, to others' surprise) and "The Sweet Shop" (Barry playing a man who talks to a somewhat unwilling mother's boy whose father has already mapped out the boy's life).

"The Return of Victor Bergman" was then shown in the early evening, presenting, via clips of video and dialogue a great way of showing what happened that led to Victor's disappearance from view and his return, including him giving his extended greetings to various others, to their smiles and celebration. It was a wonderful short film, very plausible, and ended to lots of applause by the fans. I've heard it described as Victor's "gift" to the fans and a sign of how fondly he perceives us. It was touching. Many aspects of the convention felt like they were in memory of Barry, like he was very present in everyone's thoughts. I think it was Arlette who wore another "Victor Bergman Lives!" shirt (like this one Barry wore in 1999).

After that, Carolyn Seymour arrived at the airport and some of us went on the optional cost off-site "Dinner with the Stars" at Sullivan's Steakhouse, about 3/4 of a mile west and south of the convention hotel (Hilton Garden Inn Downtown). The whole meal was wonderful, as was the discussion with both guests of honor, Carolyn and Drew. About 12-14 of us were present total, including guests. Carolyn had many stories to relay on her experiences acting in the U.K. and U.S., some discussion was about various pet animals, just to mention a couple of the varied topics.

Saturday, July 17

(Writing this part later on the same Tuesday, after lots of bicycling in what has struck me as a very bike-friendly city as I checked out more of the cities sights and food. Back to Saturday's events....)

Writer's Panel

The next day started with the Writers Panel, run by Anthony Wynn and Ellen Lindow.

The first part of this started with interactive conversations with William Latham and Mateo Latosa of Powys Media. Some general points were touched on, such as how they got started in 1999 but it took about three years to get the publishing license, in part due to changes in copyright ownership of the series. They got a broad license to do what could be termed Y0-Y3 stories (Y0 being pre-Breakaway, Y3 being post-Dorcons), as well as audiobooks, etc.

More Y1, Y2, and Y3 books are in the works, and even something post-Alpha novel that could be called Y4 (someone then then asked jokingly if there would be Y10 books!).

Tony Wynn touched on one performance of a play of Barry's that he (and Ellen Lindow?) helped with, and how (perhaps paraphrased on my part) Barry had an exacting eye for detail, and how that seemed to come from so many years of experience and accumulated wisdom.

Brief points from throughout this part of the session.... The Year One omnibus delay was briefly touched on. ... William Latham had very strong compliments on Barry Morse's one-man reading of the audiobook of Resurrection. ... "Message from Moonbase Alpha" is considered canon to Powys. ... Bill touched on how he latched onto the character of Victor as a viewpoint or "guide" to the show. ... Before Resurrection, Mateo indicated to Bill not to read the old novelizations (e.g. "End of Eternity"?), but rather to "just set the benchmark." ... Bill: "I can't be done yet: I'm having too much fun."

After this part of the session was over with Latham and Latosa, discussion proceded to the fan fiction anthology to be released at the convention in conjunction with "The Return of Victor Bergman" short film. The book, of the same name, had several stories from three authors: Ellen Celeste Lindow, Michael Lindow, and Meredith Kausch, along with original script to the short film, written by Robert E. Wood and Barry Morse. The book was edited by Anthony Wynn.

A conference call with Michael was initiated. He indicated his story "Flip Flop" filled in some backstory in regard to Victor, as well as exploring Maya's thought process at some point after being on Alpha. Chapter Five of his story was read to the group.

Meredith, though not present, was "introduced" to the group, Ellen indicating that Meredith has an "amazing point of view" as a writer and can find some very unexpected stories from some interesting character points of view, and that Meredith's "Cat and Mouse" is a good Victor Bergman story that was "just right for the collection."

Sales of this book (proceeds to charity), which also (and far from least) included a copy of the short film on disk followed the end of the session. Among other books for sale included Remember with Advantages (written by Morse, Wynn, and Wood).

Finally, it was pointed out, either in this session or one yesterday, that three of the four writers of the Shepherd Moon short story "Fallen Star" were present at the convention: Raja Thiarajan, Ken Scott, and Lindsey Scott-Ipsen.

Carolyn Seymour

The first main panel with Carolyn Seymour, one of the guests of honor, was in the afternoon. She talked about -- and took questions about -- various parts of her career, and had related information to share. One opening comment is on how she often ended up playing villians, which she relayed in a rather entertaining way, setting a wry yet light-hearted tone that would continue throughout.

She indicated Survivors was the first TV series shot in video rather than film (in hindsight, I'm not sure if she meant BBC, U.K., or overall), and that this series had a big budget. It has now recently been re-started as a new series. She did not have any role she considered "monumental" in the U.S., but still had some good roles. Played the "Evil Leaper" in Quantum Leap. Had a "nice role" in Family Ties. Her favorite roles were in film and theater, not TV. She would like to do some (more?) Shaw or Shakespeare based roles. Asked about how she memorizes lines, she indicated that one ties into emotions, that for her, they are the lynchpin to memorizing lines.

She recalled that the S19 sets were "not always efficient" -- having lots of wood that was sometimes clunky (e.g. doors not closing smoothly). The Trek sets (more than a decade later) were amazing. She also talked about how the roles as visibly alien characters made for long makeup sessions and very long days in the U.S., but that she loved the Star Trek: The Next Generation "First Contact" role of Mirasta Yale.

Alamo Drafthouse

Off-site was screen of the Thunderbirds (pilot episode) and Space: 1999 ("Earthbound") at the nearby Alamo Drafthouse Theater, which is apparently a very well-known place in Austin. The con attendees as well as a fair number of the general public appeared, giving some of them the opportunity to see a TB or S19 episode for the first time, and probably for the first time on a large screen. This main part of the event was preceded by an edited collection of shorts, including "Space: Eternal" (a serious, thematic piece), "Space: 1899" (a hilarious parody of "Space Warp"), and a funny skit lampooning TB, among others. The Alamo Drafthouse is one of the limited number of theaters in the country serving items such as burgers, pizza, beer, etc.

I did not hear until afterwards that there was an unfortunate incident regarding unexpectedly strong enforcement of an anti-noise policy that did not seem entirely appropriate to what was supposed to be, in part anyway, a light-hearted event.

Still, I think most people enjoyed the Alamo Drafthouse showings, including myself. It was the first I had seen a TB episode (to the surprise of some others :-) Plus, S19 on the big screen!

Nick Tate

A videoconference was set up with Nick Tate, in the early evening. First thing was that he took us (via webcam) on a tour of his new residence in Sydney, and some of the outside view.

He was recently in Melbourne filming. This was the first in awhile, after voiceover work had become something of a mainstay for awhile. One is an episode of City Homicide that had a twenty day shoot. He has seven scenes in the "Killer Elite" movie. He also talked about his role on Lost and the casting process, where so many showed up in "Crocodile Dundee" mode while Nick simply showed up as he usually does, and ended up with the role, though he didn't realize it at first.

Nick does not know what happened to Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's marriage. He also indicated that S19 (Y1) wrapped and then ten months went by without a word. It seemed to him that S19 was altogether done, with no new season to come, given the long delay. Nick was asked back due to popularity with the fan base, though he was not impressed with the new producer brought in for the second season.

Sunday, July 21

The day officially started with the charity auction. There was a surprising amount of S19 and genre material up for bid, covering the length of 2-3 tables. Ryan C. and Anthony handled the auction, and almost everything went, among the 25-30 people present.

This was followed by the pizza party and the "celebratory cake" -- the latter designed in the shape of an Eagle! It was chocolate cake with white frosting, and was even elevated on landing struts of a kind, with frosting strips suggesting girderwork. That was a hit with the crowd, something Lindsey arranged with a local bakery (them going off a picture).

After that were screenings of the Video Contest entries. John and Alice had four entries. One had been seen at the Alamo Drafthouse Theater the day before, namely "LUNAtics" ("introducing" the characters, credit style, but in a humorous way, such as some of John's wildest expressions, Alan sleeping in various Eagles interspersed with crash sequences, momentary clips of all of Maya's transformations, Sandra fainting, Helena seeming "fond" of "shock therapy"). The other three were "Seven" (set to a song of that name), "Eye of the Storm" (ditto), and another whose name escapes me ("Future" something?). They were all very good, but I think my favorite was "Eye of the Storm" -- it used a strongly lyrical and thematic song (by the Cruxshadows), and the clips chosen were very "connected" thematically to the lyrics of the song. I had most of this songs "playing" in my mind for most of the rest of the con, and have since purchased the three of them I could remember, none of which I was previously familiar with.

Carolyn appeared at an informal Q&A session. She talked briefly about how she is sometimes mistaken for Sarah Douglas, who she missed getting the role of Admiral Cain in the new Battlestar Galactica. In "Zorro," Carolyn was directed by her husband on the time, how she had some close calls (injury-wise) on the set, used a jet pack once, and regarding some of her favorite co-stars. She was friends with Catherine Schell before S19, and Nick Tate via S19.

It was then time for some farewells, though some had been starting earlier in the day as some attendees had to start traveling even before the con wrapped. Some of us went to a Texas BBQ place (Stubbs) within walking distance. After that, most or all of us who went for food then walked down to the Congress Ave bridge to watch the bats for awhile. They congregate out of sight underneath the bridge, in grooves between bridge sections, and emerge at dusk, in the hundreds of thousands, over the course of 30-60 minutes.

After returning, some of us stayed up for awhile to watch more genre clips featuring S19 actors, and also "Moon Zero Two" starring Catherine Schell (good performance in a somewhat limiting role). Amusingly, at least three of her roles in her career were "on" the Moon.

All Three Days

All throughout there were various clips shown from other works of Barry, Carolyn, Barbara Bain, Catherine Schell, Zienia Merton, and Tony Anholt at least. The A/V setup, clips, and such were well organized by Lindsey's husband Joe. Personally, I had never seen most of these other actors' roles, unfortunately. In some cases, I had scarcely ever seen Zienia, Barbara, or Tony in roles outside of S19. Shown here, there was a clip of The Benny Hill Show with Zienia, for example, and then an episode of some mystery or suspense show featuring her and Tony. Plus a brief Zoo Gang clip of Barry, as another example. Very interesting to see all of these.

Monday, July 19

Though the convention proper was over, there was another optional, day-long event. Lindsey, Paul, Arlette, Ken, myself, plus Richard (a friend of Lindsey's), rented a small bus and drove to Houston to visit NASA's Space Center.

There, we toured part of the compound, including the 1970's and 1980's era Mission Control, saw a Saturn V on its side and separated into its stages, inside a large building, toured a mockup of the flight deck (two floors) of a shuttle, and were given a "briefing" on the upcoming Shuttle Transport System mission and International Space Station expedition (the latter are called "expeditions" not "missions").

As of this time, there are only two more scheduled STS missions, with the option for a third, and the presenter indicated if you want to see a shuttle launch, you better plan for it soon. (One of the missions is in November.) After that, Russian Progress supply modules and Soyuz crew modules will ferry to and from the ISS, though the ESA(?) and JAXA (Japan) are working on new craft.

After NASA, we stopped at a small Lord of the Rings themed restaurant (Hobbit Cafe?), then headed back.

Miscellaneous and Summary

Lindsey and her crew had a well-organized and very enjoyable convention. There were a few schedule changes, which is pretty much unavoidable, but it really ran smoothly. There was plenty of videos to see, including a lot of stuff rarely seen. "The Return of Victor Bergman" short film was great, as was there being a release of the fan fiction book of the same name. Carolyn Seymour was a great guest, as was Drew Gaska whose under-development S19 work looks and sounds great. It was a pity that Catherine Schell could not make it, but those sorts of things happen too. We did get to converse remotely with Nick Tate, who still made it a great conversation, as did similar discussions with Mateo Latosa, William Latham, Robert E. Wood, and Michael Lindow.

Maybe I don't know the definition of Relaxacon, because this, while having "only" one programming track, was nonetheless filled with planned activities, as well as ad hoc decisions on where to go for lunch or supper or such. I do not get to many science fiction conventions, so they are always a treat, and always great to connect with fellow fans in a more direct and sustained way.

My thanks to all the organizers and participants. It was great meeting up with friends from before and meeting new people there too. I look forward to the next convention, whenever that may be.

---David

P.S. And yes, the "Journey to Where" episode was shown at the convention, which is good. :-)

T-07/20/10:  rpt-bgn
W-07/21/10:  drft1dn
S-07/25/10:  drft2dn
M-08/09/10:  drftWxp
M-09/13/10:  posting