Gallifrey One 2025
Feb. 21st, 2025 01:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shivverThe profile image is very appropriate. It was an incredibly busy and exhausting Gally this year, but also, I think, the best one (for me, anyway) since the pandemic.
(Ya know, I still haven't written up my Europe trip here, but I'm doing Gally right away. Probably because the Europe trip is already in my travel journal [an actual paper journal which I kept up during the trip] so I feel I've already done it. I'll get to it here someday.)
You might remember that last year, I completely forgot to buy tickets to the con and book a hotel, leading to panic reservations on the train down and then wanting to sink into the floor when we couldn't get into the con (luckily, they still had tickets available). So, this year, I made sure to reserve the hotel and buy the con tickets, and then show the receipts to my husband to prove that I'd done so. And then, about every two or three months, I had to go back and check my receipts and accounts to make sure that I hadn't just dreamt that I had bought the things and shown them to him. But, better safe than sorry. :P
We also decided to fly rather than train down. When we first returned to Gally in 2023 (we skipped the 2022 one, to avoid covid), we took the train even though it meant traveling for a full 24 hours, because the train tickets weren't that much more expensive than the plane tickets and having a private room meant less exposure to covid. We did the same last year (train travel is nice, even in terrible American trains), but this year, comparing the price vs flying, it was about three times as expensive. Yes, you get your own room and all the meals are included, but that wasn't worth it. So we flew.
The weather was terrible, though - the only snowfall this year so far, a few inches on the ground that ended up sticking for about three days. Our original flight was canceled and auto-booked for the next day, which would have meant missing the first day of the con. Luckily, it was easy enough to book for later in the original day, but even then, the flight was delayed due to cleaning off the runway. Then, once we got on the plane, we sat there for over 1.5 hours as they de-iced the plane. (I know it was that long because I listened to most of "Weapon of Choice" in that time.) Apparently, the plane had an extra-heavy coat of ice and they had to bring in multiple de-icing trucks.
But now the con...
The reason why this con was so exhausting and also amazing was that there was always something I wanted to do. On Friday, I had panels to attend every hour of the day and I actually didn't get to eat lunch. I had to eat a protein bar in the middle of the afternoon, which I think is what caused me to have abdominal cramps that made me go back to the room and miss Gary Russell's kaffeeklatsch, which is the only regret I had all con. (I am definitely a Gary Russell fangirl and am sad I never got a chance to go say hi at all this weekend.) There were also two evening things I'd wanted to do that I had to miss - usually I don't do anything in the evening.
Saturday was almost as busy; Sunday had a lot more downtime, but not enough to get pretty much any of the autographs I wanted to get. The one I really needed was Louise Jameson on my "The Light at the End" album cover, but there was BS going on with the lines (not going to explain) and after waiting 20 minutes without movement, I had to run to my next event (which was a paid one so I couldn't skip it).
Another thing that was unique about this con is that my manager at my previous company, Bassist, also came to the con with his family. He started watching DW after I'd gushed about it one too many times in our 1:1s and totally got hooked. (I've mentioned this before, so I won't belabor the point.) It was great to see him and meet his wife and daughter, and he seems to have had a great time. He's a big fan of Moffat, so he got to meet him and he attended his interview panel, and he also attended his script discussion. He and his family also attended Jenna Coleman's script reading, and he got to play Clara in one of the scenes (they were reading from "The Caretaker").
I attended Joel Collin's interview panel. He's the current creative executive producer of the show. They talked first about his background in monster and set design (he worked on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and one of the Muppet movies, for example), and then about his work on the show. The thing I found most interesting was how the process of creating a TV show mirrors the process of creating software. I mean, it only makes sense, right? In both cases, you're trying to create a single cohesive creative product with multiple teams that each do different work but have to work together and communicate with each other, and you're often trying to do multiple projects at the same time.
One of the things he said that really struck me was about collaboration. The interviewer asked him something like, do you encourage all your team members to speak up when they have suggestions and feedback, and he said, absolutely: you want to get all the ideas out there, so that when you make your decision on the direction to go, you know you've chosen the best option. If you don't let people share their ideas, then you only have one option - yours - and you have no idea if it's the best.
The one kaffeeklatsch that I did get to attend was with Nev Fountain and Andy Lane. I don't know if I've heard/read anything by Andy Lane, but I'm a big Nev Fountain fan. The kaffeeklatsch was about writing, but mostly people were asking about how to get published, and it was not at all about writing itself. (Which I didn't care much about either; I was hoping that Nev was going to talk about his own writing and career.) Later on, I visited him at his autograph table to say hi. I'd gotten his autograph at my first Gally, when I didn't know who he was until I saw on his table the CDs for "The Kingmaker" and "Peri and the Piscon Paradox" and I went "Omg those are my favorites!" They still are, too, so I told him that. I got an autographed copy of his new novel The Fan Who Knew Too Much and started reading it on the trip back - so far I'm really enjoying it.
This Gally was also all about fangirling for the BF series Gallifrey, as everyone except Lalla Ward was there: Louise Jameson, Séan Carlsen, and Miles Richardson, as well as creator/producer Gary Russell (there he is again) and later producer Scott Handcock. The Gallifrey panel was so much fun, with the five of them telling stories of the series production and Jason Haigh-Ellery still stunned by the fact that yes, Narvin does have a following. There were at least five different women cosplaying as Narvin. (At my first Gallifrey, I met JHE at the BF booth, where Séan Carlsen was also standing, and JHE asked me and the woman next to me if Narvin is a sex symbol. We both said, "Yes!" and he was like, omg, don't tell Séan.)
The series began when Louise Jameson and Lalla Ward met while doing an audio (I don't remember which one) and came out saying that they wished they could work together more often; Gary Russell ran with it, wanting to do a West Wing-style drama that was female-led, and this was the perfect opportunity. He wanted Séan Carlsen and created Narvin for him, and at first, Narvin was made out to be the villain; Séan even thought he was the villain through the first couple of series and didn't realize he was a main character until the character started to grow in the second and third series.
At the beginning of the panel, JHE (who was moderating) had each person introduce themselves, starting with Gary Russell next to him and ending with Miles Richardson, on the other end of the table next to Séan Carlsen. When it goto Miles, he boomed out, "I am insulted that I am being made to sit next to this man for a full hour!" He and Séan sniped back and forth at each other during the entire panel. Then they explained that they haven't worked together in over ten years and haven't seen each other in all that time, until they saw each other in Heathrow on the way to Gally, and they've been inseparable the whole time. (Okay, thinking about this, this actually happened in a different panel about voice acting, but I'm not going to write about that panel in this entry, so I'm just leaving this paragraph here.)
A bit later in the con, there was a panel called "The Myths and Legends of Gallifrey", moderated by Gary Russell and including Scott Handcock and one of the audio writers, Alfie Shaw. This was one of the most interesting panels of the con. The panel description said it was going to explore why Gallifrey and its society is so important to the show. The panelists first discussed how it's portrayed differently in various classic episodes, such as how differently the Time Lords appear in "The War Games" and in "The Deadly Assassin", and then how the planet still influences the modern show even though it's been gone for most of it.
Then, they got into a discussion of just how awful the Time Lords really are. They say they're non-interventionists, and yet are quick to step in when things go differently from the way they've planned; the non-intervention policy is just the friendly public face they put on, while backstage, they're ruling the universe with an iron fist. The Gallifrey audios give a more in-depth look at this side of the Time Lords, as the temporal powers start rebelling against this. This, in turn, paints the Doctor in a better light, in contrast to the Time Lords who are only acting in their own best interest.
(I had just re-listened to "Disassembled", and this discussion was doubly interesting because in that audio, the alternative Gallifrey that the characters were in overtly manipulated the universe, to the point of erasing people from time if they were doing something that the Time Lords didn't want to have happen. Romana, Narvin, and Braxiatel were all horrified that these Time Lords would do something like that, but this discussion points out that they basically do the same thing - they just don't say that they do.)
The panelists also noted that the Timeless Child further reveals how terrible the Time Lords actually are, experimenting on a young child to wrest the secret of regeneration from them, then incorporating it into their own DNA and claiming that it had been theirs all along. (The panelists also talked about how brilliant the idea of the Timeless Child was, in that it introduced new history for the Doctor and new information about Gallifrey, Time Lords, Gallifreyans, and Shobogans, and provided new story hooks, without actually changing anything. The only thing they criticized was how it was communicated [as I noted, too, back when the episode came out] - one of the panelists joked, "The Master's Powerpoint presentation convinced me!")
I was especially excited for this Gally because they finally managed to get Miles Richardson. The last time Lalla Ward was there, MR had been scheduled to appear as well but had to cancel at the last minute, and apparently that wasn't the first time.
That voice, though. Every time he spoke was just magic.
During the Gallifrey panel, he was sitting next to Séan Carlsen, and the interviewer remarked on the difference in dress and said that MR came in costume. SC was wearing a black jacket (I think it was leather) and black jeans, while MR was wearing a tailored three-piece suit. (Do they call it that in Britain? Jacket, waistcoat, and trousers?) MR said that he likes to dress well and always dresses like that, and because of that, fans have kind of equated the pictures of him with how Braxiatel must dress.
Of course I had to meet him, as well as get his autograph to complete my Gallifrey collection. He was very attentive and seemed to genuinely enjoy the attention he was getting. I gave him my collection box to sign, saying that yes, I know he's not actually prominent in this particular series of Gallifrey, but that he was welcome to sign over Narvin's face, and he said, "Oh, I absolutely will."
And here's the collection box: Gary Russell in the upper left, Miles Richardson over Narvin's face, Lalla Ward, Louise Jameson, and Séan Carlsen below their images, and Scott Handcock in the lower left (not really visible). (Click for larger.)
There was a panel on the music in Fifteen's first series, though honestly, it was mostly a discussion of the music in "The Devil's Chord". The discussion started with "The Goblin Song", which had had the panelists really hoping for the fabled musical episode this season (sorry, not this time). They mentioned that the Regency-style music in "Rogue" were stylized modern songs, which I remember noticing once while watching the episode (it's hard for me because I don't, in general, know a lot of modern music).
But, "The Devil's Chord"...
The panelists were impressed with how bad the Beatles' and Cilla Black's songs were, because, as they said, "It's really hard to make bad music well". It's not just a matter of putting together boring notes or singing off-key; you have to put in exactly the right kind of wrongness to make the music bad, as opposed to making the singer or the musician sound unskilled. The Beatles in the episode were perfectly good musicians, but the tune of "My Dog Fred" and the backing chords were arranged perfectly to make it awful. (Awful lyrics, too, of course.)
As to the devil's chord itself, as Timothy Drake said, it's a tritone, which is two notes that are six half-notes apart. The chord that banished Maestro was a simple C major chord - a comfortable, happy-sounding chord that's the first chord that any musician ever learns. One of the panelists wondered why it was so simple, and one of the other panelists explained that it makes perfect sense, because the tritone creates tension and leads to the release of the major chord.
The easiest way to hear it for yourself: think of the opening to the theme song of The Simpsons - those three notes where they sing, "The Siiiimp-sons". Now, just think of the first two notes in order. Those two notes are a tritone, and if you stop on that second note, you feel like something more should happen. You really feel like you need to move to the third note. That's the "tension" that the tritone creates.
Now, think of all three notes in order. On the third note, you feel like the tension releases. That's because of the relationship between the first note and the third note, and those two notes are in the C major chord. So, put that all together: the chord that let Maestro in is one that creates tension in music, and the one that banished them is the chord that releases that tension.
All of the panelists were impressed with Murray Gold handling of the music in the episode (including the number at the end, which they called an "aggregated form", which is a term for a number in a musical which is not realistic with respect to the story). Their only question was what was the piece that Blake played that had the tritone, as none of them recognized it and they didn't think it was something that Gold had written himself.
We went to Catherine Tate's second panel (the big celebs draw huge crowds that overfill the main event hall, so they have them do two panels, to reduce the overfill), and that was a blast. Usually the celebs are interviewed in these events, but the ones that are more entertainers rather than actors often opt to do the show alone. CT's was an open mic Q&A. The first person in line at the mic wasdtstrainers, and when I saw her, I whispered to my husband, "She's going to ask about Americons," which, honestly, is what I would have asked about as well. Sure enough... CT was surprised that people still remember and wonder about that, and said that they had written it but it just never got made. :(
CT was having trouble with the stage lights in her eyes; apparently, bright lights and flashing lights give her migraines, so she stopped at first to ask that the stage lights be dimmed and the house lights be turned on instead, and then later again as people's cameras shone lights at her. She pointed at one guy standing at the side and asked (very nicely, I might add) that he stop taking pictures so that the light didn't shine in her face, and while still holding his camera up, insisted that he wasn't. They actually argued for about thirty seconds ("I'm not taking pictures. It's not me." "Sir, I can see the light on your phone right now." etc.). The next person who came up to the mic started with complimenting CT on "I'm so glad to see you advocating for yourself" about the lights, and CT took off with that for the rest of the panel. Any time she mentioned something she did, she phrased it as "I advocated ordering the fish for myself". And she said now she has the idea for her next TV show, The Advocators.
(It was totally hilarious, but I think she was a little insulted by it. I thought it was strangely condescending - you tell someone "good job advocating for yourself" when they're not self-confident and need a bit of support and coaching when they do something well; saying it to someone who obviously has no self-confidence issues is weird. CT does not need a pat on the back like that.)
I also went to her script reading, which was a lot of fun. The best was the last scene, which was the "Just save someone" scene in "The Fires of Pompeii". They chose a guy in a Tenth Doctor costume to do the Doctor's lines, and he did it in character, with a great DT voice, and he ended the scene (the Doctor going back to save Caecilius and his family) by walking to the front of the stage and holding out his hand to the audience and saying, "Come with me." He was fantastic.
We also attended the interview with Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy, and this, I think, was one of the highlights of the con. The two bickered back and forth, though it's obvious they're good friends. CB made many allusions to SM stealing his job, and many mentions of "Oh, were you in The Hobbit?" Actually, they mentioned The Five(-ish) Doctors Reboot multiple times, and even quoted it, so they must have loved making it. SM's line in the prop TARDIS, "I want to go home now," was ad-libbed. They also mentioned that Peter Davison had an idea for a new one for the 60th, but the BBC did not allow him to make it.
Louise Jameson's interview was also fantastic. This was in a smaller room, and the interviewer was a good friend of hers, so it was much more intimate. She talked about her whole life, from growing up in Essex and having to change her accent between school (where everyone spoke with an Essex accent) and home (where her family spoke in RP), through drama school, working on stage and TV, DW, Gallifrey and other audios, and now in Emmerdale. They displayed one of her costumes (the later one, not the original dark brown one), and she explained that the boots are actually heeled so that her legs looked longer, but the heel is built into the boot so that it looks like boots rather than heels.
The only bad panel that we attended happened to be in the last hour before the closing ceremonies. It was titled "The Memory TARDIS", and the description said that they would be talking about the references to classic and modern DW during Series 14. The moderator started the panel by introducing himself, saying that this was his second Gally and his first time moderating, and it showed.
Despite the panel description saying that it was about Series 14, the moderator started it off with the 60th, asking the panelists about bringing Donna back and referring back to "Journey's End", reusing the comic "The Star Beast", and bringing back the Toymaker. The panelists jumped this topic, and one of them said that the 60th was all about identity: the Doctor trying to figure out who he is, Donna remembering who she is, Rose discovering herself, the Meep pretending to be someone else, and the not-things taking the Doctor's and Donna's identities. And that was it. That's all they talked about. The moderator made no effort to bring them back on topic or to introduce new topics to talk about.
After thirty minutes, they were still talking about identity and hadn't even mentioned Series 14, so we decided to leave. It was thirty minutes until the closing ceremonies in the big event hall, so we figured we would go there early. The panel going at that time was the interview with Jenna Coleman and we expected that would be fun. (No, we don't like Clara, but we do like Jenna Coleman.)
So, we went into the big hall and stood at the back, and up on stage were the interviewer (who we'd seen in previous interviews; he was the one who interviewed CB and SM), Jenna Coleman, and Steven Moffat. That was a surprise, and I checked the panel description and it was supposed to be just JC, not the both of them. In his write-up of the con, nwhyte said that SM "crashed" JC's panel, so I guess he just showed up? That wouldn't have been so bad except that it basically became his panel: in the thirty minutes we were there, JC spoke exactly twice, and neither thing she said lasted longer than thirty seconds. The interviewer was asking questions to both of them (not just to JC), and two times he asked JC something, SM jumped in and answered them himself. I don't know how the people who were there to see JC felt about this, but I was very disappointed to not get to hear her.
The closing ceremonies were as they usually are: the program coordinator Shaun Lyons calling all of the guests (who are still around) on the stage and having them say something to the audience. Colin Baker wrote a poem:
If you want to have fun in LA
You should come to Gallifrey
You'll still be applauded
If you're not in The Hobbit
(And honestly, the laughter was too loud to hear the last line, but it ended in -ay, of course.)
But, the ending was sad: Shaun announced that Gallifrey One will be closing down after three more years. The con started in the early nineties through the efforts of about a dozen people - Shaun was one of them, at 19 - and they want to stop working on it. As they said, it's their story and they want it to bring it to a close. There are hints that other people are now starting to try to organize a new con to take its place.
It was quite a blow. As we were leaving the event hall, we passed by people who were on the floor crying. Gally isn't just a convention; to a lot of people, it's a big family, where they come together once a year to see close friends that they would otherwise have never even met and celebrate a mutual interest. Just before the closing ceremonies, we saw a couple of people hug teary-eyed and one of them walked away, and my husband commented, "That's the hug of two people who only see each other here, and they're saying, 'See you next year'."
Whatever replaces Gally could become that again, but it's going to take a long time and careful management, to avoid becoming "just another convention". I'm very sad that they aren't passing on the torch, or at the very least, letting the con "regenerate" with a new name under new ownership trained by the old guard.
(Ya know, I still haven't written up my Europe trip here, but I'm doing Gally right away. Probably because the Europe trip is already in my travel journal [an actual paper journal which I kept up during the trip] so I feel I've already done it. I'll get to it here someday.)
You might remember that last year, I completely forgot to buy tickets to the con and book a hotel, leading to panic reservations on the train down and then wanting to sink into the floor when we couldn't get into the con (luckily, they still had tickets available). So, this year, I made sure to reserve the hotel and buy the con tickets, and then show the receipts to my husband to prove that I'd done so. And then, about every two or three months, I had to go back and check my receipts and accounts to make sure that I hadn't just dreamt that I had bought the things and shown them to him. But, better safe than sorry. :P
We also decided to fly rather than train down. When we first returned to Gally in 2023 (we skipped the 2022 one, to avoid covid), we took the train even though it meant traveling for a full 24 hours, because the train tickets weren't that much more expensive than the plane tickets and having a private room meant less exposure to covid. We did the same last year (train travel is nice, even in terrible American trains), but this year, comparing the price vs flying, it was about three times as expensive. Yes, you get your own room and all the meals are included, but that wasn't worth it. So we flew.
The weather was terrible, though - the only snowfall this year so far, a few inches on the ground that ended up sticking for about three days. Our original flight was canceled and auto-booked for the next day, which would have meant missing the first day of the con. Luckily, it was easy enough to book for later in the original day, but even then, the flight was delayed due to cleaning off the runway. Then, once we got on the plane, we sat there for over 1.5 hours as they de-iced the plane. (I know it was that long because I listened to most of "Weapon of Choice" in that time.) Apparently, the plane had an extra-heavy coat of ice and they had to bring in multiple de-icing trucks.
But now the con...
The reason why this con was so exhausting and also amazing was that there was always something I wanted to do. On Friday, I had panels to attend every hour of the day and I actually didn't get to eat lunch. I had to eat a protein bar in the middle of the afternoon, which I think is what caused me to have abdominal cramps that made me go back to the room and miss Gary Russell's kaffeeklatsch, which is the only regret I had all con. (I am definitely a Gary Russell fangirl and am sad I never got a chance to go say hi at all this weekend.) There were also two evening things I'd wanted to do that I had to miss - usually I don't do anything in the evening.
Saturday was almost as busy; Sunday had a lot more downtime, but not enough to get pretty much any of the autographs I wanted to get. The one I really needed was Louise Jameson on my "The Light at the End" album cover, but there was BS going on with the lines (not going to explain) and after waiting 20 minutes without movement, I had to run to my next event (which was a paid one so I couldn't skip it).
Another thing that was unique about this con is that my manager at my previous company, Bassist, also came to the con with his family. He started watching DW after I'd gushed about it one too many times in our 1:1s and totally got hooked. (I've mentioned this before, so I won't belabor the point.) It was great to see him and meet his wife and daughter, and he seems to have had a great time. He's a big fan of Moffat, so he got to meet him and he attended his interview panel, and he also attended his script discussion. He and his family also attended Jenna Coleman's script reading, and he got to play Clara in one of the scenes (they were reading from "The Caretaker").
I attended Joel Collin's interview panel. He's the current creative executive producer of the show. They talked first about his background in monster and set design (he worked on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and one of the Muppet movies, for example), and then about his work on the show. The thing I found most interesting was how the process of creating a TV show mirrors the process of creating software. I mean, it only makes sense, right? In both cases, you're trying to create a single cohesive creative product with multiple teams that each do different work but have to work together and communicate with each other, and you're often trying to do multiple projects at the same time.
One of the things he said that really struck me was about collaboration. The interviewer asked him something like, do you encourage all your team members to speak up when they have suggestions and feedback, and he said, absolutely: you want to get all the ideas out there, so that when you make your decision on the direction to go, you know you've chosen the best option. If you don't let people share their ideas, then you only have one option - yours - and you have no idea if it's the best.
The one kaffeeklatsch that I did get to attend was with Nev Fountain and Andy Lane. I don't know if I've heard/read anything by Andy Lane, but I'm a big Nev Fountain fan. The kaffeeklatsch was about writing, but mostly people were asking about how to get published, and it was not at all about writing itself. (Which I didn't care much about either; I was hoping that Nev was going to talk about his own writing and career.) Later on, I visited him at his autograph table to say hi. I'd gotten his autograph at my first Gally, when I didn't know who he was until I saw on his table the CDs for "The Kingmaker" and "Peri and the Piscon Paradox" and I went "Omg those are my favorites!" They still are, too, so I told him that. I got an autographed copy of his new novel The Fan Who Knew Too Much and started reading it on the trip back - so far I'm really enjoying it.
This Gally was also all about fangirling for the BF series Gallifrey, as everyone except Lalla Ward was there: Louise Jameson, Séan Carlsen, and Miles Richardson, as well as creator/producer Gary Russell (there he is again) and later producer Scott Handcock. The Gallifrey panel was so much fun, with the five of them telling stories of the series production and Jason Haigh-Ellery still stunned by the fact that yes, Narvin does have a following. There were at least five different women cosplaying as Narvin. (At my first Gallifrey, I met JHE at the BF booth, where Séan Carlsen was also standing, and JHE asked me and the woman next to me if Narvin is a sex symbol. We both said, "Yes!" and he was like, omg, don't tell Séan.)
The series began when Louise Jameson and Lalla Ward met while doing an audio (I don't remember which one) and came out saying that they wished they could work together more often; Gary Russell ran with it, wanting to do a West Wing-style drama that was female-led, and this was the perfect opportunity. He wanted Séan Carlsen and created Narvin for him, and at first, Narvin was made out to be the villain; Séan even thought he was the villain through the first couple of series and didn't realize he was a main character until the character started to grow in the second and third series.
At the beginning of the panel, JHE (who was moderating) had each person introduce themselves, starting with Gary Russell next to him and ending with Miles Richardson, on the other end of the table next to Séan Carlsen. When it goto Miles, he boomed out, "I am insulted that I am being made to sit next to this man for a full hour!" He and Séan sniped back and forth at each other during the entire panel. Then they explained that they haven't worked together in over ten years and haven't seen each other in all that time, until they saw each other in Heathrow on the way to Gally, and they've been inseparable the whole time. (Okay, thinking about this, this actually happened in a different panel about voice acting, but I'm not going to write about that panel in this entry, so I'm just leaving this paragraph here.)
A bit later in the con, there was a panel called "The Myths and Legends of Gallifrey", moderated by Gary Russell and including Scott Handcock and one of the audio writers, Alfie Shaw. This was one of the most interesting panels of the con. The panel description said it was going to explore why Gallifrey and its society is so important to the show. The panelists first discussed how it's portrayed differently in various classic episodes, such as how differently the Time Lords appear in "The War Games" and in "The Deadly Assassin", and then how the planet still influences the modern show even though it's been gone for most of it.
Then, they got into a discussion of just how awful the Time Lords really are. They say they're non-interventionists, and yet are quick to step in when things go differently from the way they've planned; the non-intervention policy is just the friendly public face they put on, while backstage, they're ruling the universe with an iron fist. The Gallifrey audios give a more in-depth look at this side of the Time Lords, as the temporal powers start rebelling against this. This, in turn, paints the Doctor in a better light, in contrast to the Time Lords who are only acting in their own best interest.
(I had just re-listened to "Disassembled", and this discussion was doubly interesting because in that audio, the alternative Gallifrey that the characters were in overtly manipulated the universe, to the point of erasing people from time if they were doing something that the Time Lords didn't want to have happen. Romana, Narvin, and Braxiatel were all horrified that these Time Lords would do something like that, but this discussion points out that they basically do the same thing - they just don't say that they do.)
The panelists also noted that the Timeless Child further reveals how terrible the Time Lords actually are, experimenting on a young child to wrest the secret of regeneration from them, then incorporating it into their own DNA and claiming that it had been theirs all along. (The panelists also talked about how brilliant the idea of the Timeless Child was, in that it introduced new history for the Doctor and new information about Gallifrey, Time Lords, Gallifreyans, and Shobogans, and provided new story hooks, without actually changing anything. The only thing they criticized was how it was communicated [as I noted, too, back when the episode came out] - one of the panelists joked, "The Master's Powerpoint presentation convinced me!")
I was especially excited for this Gally because they finally managed to get Miles Richardson. The last time Lalla Ward was there, MR had been scheduled to appear as well but had to cancel at the last minute, and apparently that wasn't the first time.
That voice, though. Every time he spoke was just magic.
During the Gallifrey panel, he was sitting next to Séan Carlsen, and the interviewer remarked on the difference in dress and said that MR came in costume. SC was wearing a black jacket (I think it was leather) and black jeans, while MR was wearing a tailored three-piece suit. (Do they call it that in Britain? Jacket, waistcoat, and trousers?) MR said that he likes to dress well and always dresses like that, and because of that, fans have kind of equated the pictures of him with how Braxiatel must dress.
Of course I had to meet him, as well as get his autograph to complete my Gallifrey collection. He was very attentive and seemed to genuinely enjoy the attention he was getting. I gave him my collection box to sign, saying that yes, I know he's not actually prominent in this particular series of Gallifrey, but that he was welcome to sign over Narvin's face, and he said, "Oh, I absolutely will."
And here's the collection box: Gary Russell in the upper left, Miles Richardson over Narvin's face, Lalla Ward, Louise Jameson, and Séan Carlsen below their images, and Scott Handcock in the lower left (not really visible). (Click for larger.)
There was a panel on the music in Fifteen's first series, though honestly, it was mostly a discussion of the music in "The Devil's Chord". The discussion started with "The Goblin Song", which had had the panelists really hoping for the fabled musical episode this season (sorry, not this time). They mentioned that the Regency-style music in "Rogue" were stylized modern songs, which I remember noticing once while watching the episode (it's hard for me because I don't, in general, know a lot of modern music).
But, "The Devil's Chord"...
The panelists were impressed with how bad the Beatles' and Cilla Black's songs were, because, as they said, "It's really hard to make bad music well". It's not just a matter of putting together boring notes or singing off-key; you have to put in exactly the right kind of wrongness to make the music bad, as opposed to making the singer or the musician sound unskilled. The Beatles in the episode were perfectly good musicians, but the tune of "My Dog Fred" and the backing chords were arranged perfectly to make it awful. (Awful lyrics, too, of course.)
As to the devil's chord itself, as Timothy Drake said, it's a tritone, which is two notes that are six half-notes apart. The chord that banished Maestro was a simple C major chord - a comfortable, happy-sounding chord that's the first chord that any musician ever learns. One of the panelists wondered why it was so simple, and one of the other panelists explained that it makes perfect sense, because the tritone creates tension and leads to the release of the major chord.
The easiest way to hear it for yourself: think of the opening to the theme song of The Simpsons - those three notes where they sing, "The Siiiimp-sons". Now, just think of the first two notes in order. Those two notes are a tritone, and if you stop on that second note, you feel like something more should happen. You really feel like you need to move to the third note. That's the "tension" that the tritone creates.
Now, think of all three notes in order. On the third note, you feel like the tension releases. That's because of the relationship between the first note and the third note, and those two notes are in the C major chord. So, put that all together: the chord that let Maestro in is one that creates tension in music, and the one that banished them is the chord that releases that tension.
All of the panelists were impressed with Murray Gold handling of the music in the episode (including the number at the end, which they called an "aggregated form", which is a term for a number in a musical which is not realistic with respect to the story). Their only question was what was the piece that Blake played that had the tritone, as none of them recognized it and they didn't think it was something that Gold had written himself.
We went to Catherine Tate's second panel (the big celebs draw huge crowds that overfill the main event hall, so they have them do two panels, to reduce the overfill), and that was a blast. Usually the celebs are interviewed in these events, but the ones that are more entertainers rather than actors often opt to do the show alone. CT's was an open mic Q&A. The first person in line at the mic was
dtstrainers, and when I saw her, I whispered to my husband, "She's going to ask about Americons," which, honestly, is what I would have asked about as well. Sure enough... CT was surprised that people still remember and wonder about that, and said that they had written it but it just never got made. :(CT was having trouble with the stage lights in her eyes; apparently, bright lights and flashing lights give her migraines, so she stopped at first to ask that the stage lights be dimmed and the house lights be turned on instead, and then later again as people's cameras shone lights at her. She pointed at one guy standing at the side and asked (very nicely, I might add) that he stop taking pictures so that the light didn't shine in her face, and while still holding his camera up, insisted that he wasn't. They actually argued for about thirty seconds ("I'm not taking pictures. It's not me." "Sir, I can see the light on your phone right now." etc.). The next person who came up to the mic started with complimenting CT on "I'm so glad to see you advocating for yourself" about the lights, and CT took off with that for the rest of the panel. Any time she mentioned something she did, she phrased it as "I advocated ordering the fish for myself". And she said now she has the idea for her next TV show, The Advocators.
(It was totally hilarious, but I think she was a little insulted by it. I thought it was strangely condescending - you tell someone "good job advocating for yourself" when they're not self-confident and need a bit of support and coaching when they do something well; saying it to someone who obviously has no self-confidence issues is weird. CT does not need a pat on the back like that.)
I also went to her script reading, which was a lot of fun. The best was the last scene, which was the "Just save someone" scene in "The Fires of Pompeii". They chose a guy in a Tenth Doctor costume to do the Doctor's lines, and he did it in character, with a great DT voice, and he ended the scene (the Doctor going back to save Caecilius and his family) by walking to the front of the stage and holding out his hand to the audience and saying, "Come with me." He was fantastic.
We also attended the interview with Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy, and this, I think, was one of the highlights of the con. The two bickered back and forth, though it's obvious they're good friends. CB made many allusions to SM stealing his job, and many mentions of "Oh, were you in The Hobbit?" Actually, they mentioned The Five(-ish) Doctors Reboot multiple times, and even quoted it, so they must have loved making it. SM's line in the prop TARDIS, "I want to go home now," was ad-libbed. They also mentioned that Peter Davison had an idea for a new one for the 60th, but the BBC did not allow him to make it.
Louise Jameson's interview was also fantastic. This was in a smaller room, and the interviewer was a good friend of hers, so it was much more intimate. She talked about her whole life, from growing up in Essex and having to change her accent between school (where everyone spoke with an Essex accent) and home (where her family spoke in RP), through drama school, working on stage and TV, DW, Gallifrey and other audios, and now in Emmerdale. They displayed one of her costumes (the later one, not the original dark brown one), and she explained that the boots are actually heeled so that her legs looked longer, but the heel is built into the boot so that it looks like boots rather than heels.
The only bad panel that we attended happened to be in the last hour before the closing ceremonies. It was titled "The Memory TARDIS", and the description said that they would be talking about the references to classic and modern DW during Series 14. The moderator started the panel by introducing himself, saying that this was his second Gally and his first time moderating, and it showed.
Despite the panel description saying that it was about Series 14, the moderator started it off with the 60th, asking the panelists about bringing Donna back and referring back to "Journey's End", reusing the comic "The Star Beast", and bringing back the Toymaker. The panelists jumped this topic, and one of them said that the 60th was all about identity: the Doctor trying to figure out who he is, Donna remembering who she is, Rose discovering herself, the Meep pretending to be someone else, and the not-things taking the Doctor's and Donna's identities. And that was it. That's all they talked about. The moderator made no effort to bring them back on topic or to introduce new topics to talk about.
After thirty minutes, they were still talking about identity and hadn't even mentioned Series 14, so we decided to leave. It was thirty minutes until the closing ceremonies in the big event hall, so we figured we would go there early. The panel going at that time was the interview with Jenna Coleman and we expected that would be fun. (No, we don't like Clara, but we do like Jenna Coleman.)
So, we went into the big hall and stood at the back, and up on stage were the interviewer (who we'd seen in previous interviews; he was the one who interviewed CB and SM), Jenna Coleman, and Steven Moffat. That was a surprise, and I checked the panel description and it was supposed to be just JC, not the both of them. In his write-up of the con, nwhyte said that SM "crashed" JC's panel, so I guess he just showed up? That wouldn't have been so bad except that it basically became his panel: in the thirty minutes we were there, JC spoke exactly twice, and neither thing she said lasted longer than thirty seconds. The interviewer was asking questions to both of them (not just to JC), and two times he asked JC something, SM jumped in and answered them himself. I don't know how the people who were there to see JC felt about this, but I was very disappointed to not get to hear her.
The closing ceremonies were as they usually are: the program coordinator Shaun Lyons calling all of the guests (who are still around) on the stage and having them say something to the audience. Colin Baker wrote a poem:
If you want to have fun in LA
You should come to Gallifrey
You'll still be applauded
If you're not in The Hobbit
(And honestly, the laughter was too loud to hear the last line, but it ended in -ay, of course.)
But, the ending was sad: Shaun announced that Gallifrey One will be closing down after three more years. The con started in the early nineties through the efforts of about a dozen people - Shaun was one of them, at 19 - and they want to stop working on it. As they said, it's their story and they want it to bring it to a close. There are hints that other people are now starting to try to organize a new con to take its place.
It was quite a blow. As we were leaving the event hall, we passed by people who were on the floor crying. Gally isn't just a convention; to a lot of people, it's a big family, where they come together once a year to see close friends that they would otherwise have never even met and celebrate a mutual interest. Just before the closing ceremonies, we saw a couple of people hug teary-eyed and one of them walked away, and my husband commented, "That's the hug of two people who only see each other here, and they're saying, 'See you next year'."
Whatever replaces Gally could become that again, but it's going to take a long time and careful management, to avoid becoming "just another convention". I'm very sad that they aren't passing on the torch, or at the very least, letting the con "regenerate" with a new name under new ownership trained by the old guard.
