An afternoon at Space City Con…

This weekend, Houston’s Space City Con was held at the Marriott Westchase. I hadn’t originally planned on going, but I became very interested when I learned that Sylvester McCoy (the Seventh Doctor from Doctor Who and Radagast the Brown from The Hobbit) was going to be attending. My decision to attend was cemented when I learned that the actual TARDIS console prop from the 1996 Doctor Who TV-movie was going to be there, as the console room in that movie is by far my favorite of all the TARDIS console rooms. We managed to get passes for Sunday, and made our way over right after lunchtime.

Once we managed to find a parking spot (thanks to Jennifer finding one in a prime area), we went in and got our wristbands, and then proceeded to explore. The first place we went to was the primary autograph area, just to see the celebs. The first person I noticed was J.G. Hertzler, who is best known as Martok from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. If I had remembered he would be there, I would have gotten him to sign my copy of Injustice: Gods Among Us, as he voiced Deathstroke in the game. We also noticed John de Lancie (Q from the Star Trek franchise), and Jennifer (who had a huge crush on him when she was younger) had a nerdgasm. :-) We also saw Denise Crosby and Walter Koenig, but Sylvester McCoy was not at his table yet.

From there, we made our way across the hotel, when Sylvester McCoy nearly ran over us. Apparently he was doing photos elsewhere in the hotel and was heading back to the signing area. The funny thing was that I didn’t recognize him, as I wasn’t expecting him to be in a scooter. Jennifer heard him talking and recognized his very distinctive voice. :-) Rather than follow him, we decided to head over to the dealer halls to browse around. :-)

After browsing through the artists’ area, we ended up in the dealers’ area, and I browsed about very happily. There were numerous gaming stores that had booths there, and many had games I had either wanted or found very interesting. For example, Comics Unlimited had a copy of Infiltration, which was a game I wanted to try out at the monthly Game Night at my house. Also, another company called Instant Attitudes had a wonderful Weeping Angels t-shirt I ended up purchasing. I considered getting other games like DungeonQuest, but ended up sticking with Infiltration. I also spent a few minutes talking to Eric Kinkead about his game QuestLord, and even played some Galaga for NES at the Game Over Video Games booth. The time spent in the dealer area was almost worth the price of admission in and of itself.

Once we left the main dealer area, Jennifer caught sight of the inside of a photography area, where we saw the TV-movie TARDIS console set up. A woman inside the booth invited us in, and took free pictures of us in front of a Stargate from Stargate: Atlantis, and with a TARDIS prop that had been set up. They were REALLY nice, and allowed me to actually see the TARDIS console up-close. I even got to operate a couple of the controls, which were set up to make noises when operated. I do have to make one confession: the knob for the scanner control lever came off in my hand. Fortunately, it went right back on. After being allowed close to the console, I decided to pay for a professional shot of me with it. :-)

I'm at the TARDIS controls...
I’m at the TARDIS controls…

After going through the dealers’/artists’ area, we went back to the lobby for a snack and a drink to cool down. While there, we saw a Dalek, a Weeping Angel, and a remotely controlled K9 enter the lobby and interact with attendees. We observed them for a while (and even took photos), and then went back to the autograph area. We walked through it, and then got in line for the upcoming Sylvester McCoy panel. While Jennifer waited in line, I went back to the photography area to pick my TARDIS console photo up. It wasn’t ready, so I went back to the line in time for us to be allowed in. Robert Picardo introduced McCoy (ironic having Star Trek: Voyager’s Doctor introduce one of Doctor Who‘s Doctors), and for the next hour McCoy regaled us with stories from filming the series, going to conventions, meeting other Doctors (especially Jon Pertwee), and the like. While I watched the panel, Jennifer went back to the photography area, got the photo, and came back. We didn’t get to see how the panel concluded, as we had planned on meeting Jennifer’s parents for dinner and we had to leave the panel early to make sure we got to them in time.

All in all, I had a terrific time and want to go back next year. Jennifer didn’t hate it as much as I thought she might; in fact, she somewhat enjoyed herself. :-) If interested, I did post the (few) pictures I took from the con to my gallery, which you can find here.