by Susan Griffiths
| The convention itself was Wolf 359's SG4 event, which was held at the Heathrow park hotel on the first weekend of February. The guests attending were Michael Shanks, Amanda Tapping and Lexa Doig. Until recently, Michael Shanks was not known for his convention appearances, and the announcement that he was appearing at SG4 might have had something to do with tickets for the convention selling like hot cakes… | |
The timing of the event was quite ironic as it occurred several days after Sky One screened "Meridian" - the episode where Daniel makes his departure. At the last convention, Don S Davis, who plays General Hammond, made a heart felt speech asking attendees of SG4 to make Michel feel welcome and that while everyone was sad to see him leave the show, they understood that it was for his own reasons. I think Michael Shanks got the idea that many people were glad to see him.
But… first things first… onto the convention itself…
Friday Evening…
For
me, the weekend kicked off on Friday evening when I went running from my place
of work and jumped on the train. Before I could even think of going to the convention,
there was an important matter to attend to - I just had to see the episode that
marks the departure of Daniel Jackson mainly so I would know what everyone would
be talking about! And sure enough, it was a hot topic of conversation among
the likes of the UK SG1, SG5, SG9 and SG4 convention list members Will and myself
met up with that evening. It was hard to leave the disco, but it was necessary,
as we had to sort out registering early the next day - which was probably the
reason why I really needed coffee on Saturday morning!
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Saturday
Will, RJ and myself turned up at the hotel early to register and get hold of some all important photos of the guests for the autograph sessions that would take place later on in the weekend. We then joined the huge queue to get into the main hall for the opening ceremony. Amanda Tapping, Lexa Doig and Michael Shanks made their appearances to a very warm welcome from the attendees - and as an added bonus, it turned out they were accompanied by one more guest…. Tom McBeath who plays Colonel Maybourne!
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| Amanda Tapping had some amusing tales to tell from the set of SG1 - for example an incident that happened when Christopher Judge was strapped down to a table for a particular episode. Sadly for the people around him, Christopher let rip with evidence that he has a lot of fibre in his diet. But… the joke was on him when it transpired that his fellow cast members could leave the room and he couldn't… |  |
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I wasn't sure what I would make of Lexa Doig as I have never seen a whole episode of Andromeda, but it turned out that she was down to earth and had a few anecdotes to tell about the show… such as a prank that involved a cardboard cut out of Hercules being placed on the Andromeda set for Kevin Sorbo to go running into… during moments when no-one could think of what to ask her, Lexa kept everyone amused by reporting to tap dancing! It turns out that she likes Lord of the Rings a great deal and that she thinks Legolas the elf is "just cool". |
| Michael Shanks had a surprise for everyone when he stepped onto stage. While he's clean shaven and well kept as Daniel Jackson in SG1, he had decided to indulge himself in the facial hair department and was sporting sideburns and a little goatee - he was asked about it and said that it made a change from the way he had to look on the show. |  |
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Like many conventions, SG4 had some video screenings planned, which turned out to be Legend of the Rangers, a Babylon 5 spin off - and very promising it looked, too. While it wasn't Stargate that did not detract from it being an entertaining way to pass the time between guest talks and trips to the bar. The auction, as ever, attracted some hair raising bids in the name of charity with a signed press cover going for £370, a Wormhole Extreme script going for £400 and Amanda Tapping's dog tags, as worn by her in the show, going for £700! |
On Saturday afternoon, tickets to SG5 went on sale and all hell broke loose. There was a swarm of people rushing to queue and the number ticket you got all depended on where you were standing when the announcement was made. The queuing system itself didn't make much sense and in order to cope with the demand for tickets, everyone was issued with a raffle ticket so that they could go and get their tickets later on. I couldn't help thinking that it might have been a better idea to have sold tickets to SG5 after the event to save all the hassles and confusion with queuing, which would have avoided the swarm of people to one part of the building, pushing and shoving to get in line.
There wasn't much to do between the main hall closing and the disco in the evening so we ended up getting some dinner and going to Corinne's room to get changed for the evening, which promised to be interesting given that we had the same DJ from the pervious Stargate convention and the fancy dress to look forward to…
Saturday Evening
The Saturday evening started off with the fancy dress parade which featured some brilliant entries, including a beautiful Nox costume, and Nem, form the episode Fire and Water - who incidently is an alien that kidnaps Daniel! There were quite a few system lords, complete with hand devices that Michael Shanks "appreciated" given the amount of times his character ended up on the wrong side of one. There was also a little drama featuring a member of SGC personnel and someone dressed up as Urgo - and what a team they made! Another high point of the evening was where a very touching music video based on Meridian was shown, which had Michael Shanks and Amanda Tapping in tears… and probably quite a few members of the audience, too! And… then it was on to the disco which promised convention classics galore including favourites such as Star Trekkin', Joe 90 and a few more my convention weary brain can't remember. It must have been a very good night!
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Sunday
| On Sunday morning, we turned up early again and were greeted by the sight of the queue to get into the main hall. Not wanting to be a part of that, I was more than happy to grab a McDonald's and chill out with Will, RJ and Corinne whilst waiting for the main hall to open and the events of the day to kick off. A showing of Meridian, the episode featuring the departure of Daniel Jackson as a regular from Stargate SG1, was shown to start proceedings for the morning, and resulted in more than one person being in tears - well, the episode definitely has its touching moments! However, Michael Shanks was on hand to cheer everyone up with his talk that morning, complete with is impressions of Mr Burns and Smithers from the Simpsons!! |  |
I didn't get to see all of Meridian (a good thing as I didn't have a truck of Kleenex with me) as I headed off for the autograph sessions that morning. I ended up being in the right place at the right time to get to pretty much the head of the queue, which was a real change as usually I associate things like that with a long wait - even though the signatures are worth it. The photo sessions later on in the day were another story with tickets being in high demand. Usually I don't bother with those kind of things but for that one I had to make an exception… how could I pass up the opportunity to have my photo taken with Michael Shanks?
We got our SG5 convention tickets sorted out that morning, too, which was a relief. The big question then was exactly who the guests would be to SG5 and where it would be held. During quieter moments, announcements were flashed up on the main screen - which revealed that the details were yet to be announced!
During the day, there was a lapse in the programme of events and the guests just had to get their breath back after the autograph and photo sessions… several of the stewards came up with an idea to keep everyone entertained for a little while, which involved the people in the main hall thinking of a number and standing up, only to sit down according to the number they had in their mind. I thought of one and ended up being one of the select few who got to go up on stage and wonder what they had got themselves into. Luckily, I was not one of the few who remained at the end, who were treated to the task of stepping through the Stargate and singing "row row row your boat"!!
| As a result the guest talks in the afternoon had to be condensed, with several of the guests doing a group talk during the late afternoon. It turned out to yield a classic moment as Amanda Tapping was able to recite a well loved line from the show: "Maybourne, you're an idiot every day of the week, why can't you take a day off?!" and it helped that she was standing next to Maybourne himself when she said it… |  |
Sunday Evening
As Michael Shanks was not feeling too great, he was unable to attend the closing ceremony, so Amanda Tapping, who was none too well herself it transpired, but was a real trooper, did the honours with Tom McBeath. During the closing ceremony, some teasers about SG5 were announced, as no-one knew for sure who the guests were. Just as it looked like the video they showed would tell us… it informed us that we were to watch the space for details!!
Luckily, they put an end to our suspense and announced that the guests would be Don S Davis, J R Bourne and the guy who plays Jacob Carter! Having had such a good time at SG4 I, like many others I knew, was not too worried about who the guests would be - but having now been enlightened, I can't wait for the next instalment…
