Comic Con 2009: It's still Friday and I'm Trying Not to Get Trampled

I'm currently sitting on the floor in the lobby of the convention center itself. My back is to the wall, but my torso and feet are still exposed to people walking by who are texting or generally not paying attention. The WiFi isn't bad here.

I sat through the Prisoner to get to Spartacus. The Prisoner is a remake of that Patrick McGoohan TV show, only this one will be a 6-hour miniseries this fall, playing on three consecutive nights. It's the old question of who's a prisoner to whom, why, yada yada yada.
The difficulty with the first TV show, which was one of my mother's favorites, was that it was boring. I have no doubt this one will suffer the same fate. At least it ends after three nights.

Spartacus looks a bit more interesting. It's too bad it's on Starz, a premium channel I don't have. Lucy plays Lucretia. I'm not sure what role she plays, but she's a devil and obviously enjoys gladiators a great deal. The hero of the piece, Spartacus, couldn't make it to the panel, but sent the usual video greeting. It was nice to hear Stephen DeWright and Rob Tapert talk about how they put it together, the training camp they made everyone (except Lucy) go through, and how they've put some bucks into the production of this show, which is filmed in New Zealand.

Lucy said she almost didn't take the part, as she would have to return to Kiwi Land after living in the States for 8 years. But then she finally figured out that Rob (her husband) wouldn't be returning from New Zealand any time soon because that's where he works. So she joined up, and said that everything has worked out very well for the family. I assume that means the kids are happy, etc., there.

It took me half a mile of walking, and giving advice to other fans who wondered where to cash in their giveaway ticket, when I finally found Room 29A and got my Spartacus goodie bag. Without looking inside, I grabbed it and went off to lunch at the new Hilton, very near the line-up to Hall H. I saw in passing that I would never get into Hall H with that line, so I messaged Ricky that I wouldn't be joining him.

I should mention that I talked at length with one of my seatmates. She was seated in the disabled seat next to me in the middle of The Prisoner panel, and toward the end asked me if I could tell her anything about the show. She told me during the break that she and her boyfriend are splitting up most of the time to see different panels. She follows various shows and wants to see those, like 24. "I watch a lot of TV," she said, almost apoligizing, as she asked me if I watched Dollhouse, Burn Notice, and on and on. She tells the Elite Squad she's disabled -- she has a pacemaker, a bad back, and hearing loss (and forgot her hearing aids today) -- so they seat her in one of the chairs for the disabled, usually near the front. So she doesn't have to stand in the ridiculous lines like the rest of us. After Spartacus, she had five minutes to make it to the 24 panel, and so she said goodbye and left.

As I sat at my table at the Hilton Bayfront in their Grill, waiting for someone, anyone, to notice I was there and take my order, a woman at the table next to me came over and said hello. She said she had noticed I was carrying the Spartacus bag around and wanted to see what they had given me. All the women at the table worked with Starz, but hadn't been able to make it to the panel. As I showed her, she helped me figure out who the autographed photo was, and I still don't remember what she said, but he's not one of the major characters and wasn't at the panel. How interesting!

A brief note about giveaways: In my discussions with several fans at the convention, we all agreed that this convention is well short of giveaways in comparison with years past. Yes, some of the booths are gone, like Inkworks and Sci Fi, but that's no excuse.