Friday's first duty was recovering from the hangover caused by the previous night's Stargate: Universe party (did we really eat red caviar on a roof? Yes. Yes we did.) but fortunately that soon passed and we made it to the convention centre just as the crowds began gathering again.
Above: queues continue to grow in the hot sun outside hall H.
The queue outside hall H was once again horrific (it took two hours standing in the sun to get SFXers inside for presentations by Warner for Jonah Hex, and by Disney Animation, Pixar and Hayao Miyazaki) leading to much speculation about whether the Con will need to relocate to an even bigger venue in future years. Upstairs, the Farscape panel in the ballroom was easier to get into. The Farscape group (Rockne S. O'Bannon, Brian Henson, Claudia Black, and Ben Browder) were here to celebrate the show's 10th anniversary, and had a special visit on stage from a representative of the Guinness World Records - the very next updated book includes Farscape, which has an entry for the most number of special effects in a single TV episode. The cast talked about their favourite memories of the show and joked about what they'd do differently if they had the chance (Crichton's beard and helmet).
Above: Rover drops in on the main convention floor as people start getting excited about The Prisoner.
Immediately afterwards was a panel and screening introducing the re-imagined Prisoner six-parter, which airs in the US in November (no ITV broadcast date confirmed for the UK yet). The large crowd was screened nine minutes, in which we saw the new Village and a familiar white Rover. Looked awesome to us, very atmospheric and suitably psychologically dark. There was also an exclusive clip of Number 2 talking to the Village's therapist. Actors Jim Caviezel (6), Lennie James (147), Jamie Campbell-Bower (1112) joined a panel which included screenwriter Bill Gallagher and AMC's vice president Vlad Wolynetz. They revealed that Rover's design was still being debated up to only a couple of months ago, that the A-frame chalets in the Village are real buildings in the show's venue of Swakopmund, Namibia, and that the distinctive costumes of the 1960s will make an appearance at one point as part of the story. Vlad Wolynetz confirmed that he'd spoken to Patrick McGoohan for his thoughts on the show before he died. Look out for more news on this in the pages of SFX magazine.
Above: Tyrese Gibson leaps up from a Legion press conference and insists on a Mayhem photo call.
After Miyazaki raised the roof in the main hall, Sony's public panels included District 9 and Legion. SFX met up with Legion actors Paul Bettany, Tyrese Gibson and Adrianne Palicki plus director Scott Stewart afterwards for a chat, which somehow strayed onto the topic of Tyrese "Transformers 2/Death Race" Gibson's new comic book Mayhem, and Adrianne Palicki's desire to play Supergirl on the big screen. Legion is about the Archangel Michael grabbing a machine gun and coming down to Earth to save humanity from the apocalypse - it has a Constantine vibe to it and will probably be as daft as it sounds.
Above: BBC America prepares for its big weekend push.
Other hot stuff from the show floor included Gary Oldman talking about how Batman 3 would get under way next year, a screening of the missing Dollhouse episode "Epitaph One", and Edward James Olmos's assertion that The Plan won't be the last ever Battlestar Galactica movie (hooray!). Finally, the Star Wars Spectacular finished off the activities in the main hall H, running from 5pm until late. John Barrowman was amongst those signing autographs during the day - the last episode of Torchwood: Children Of Earth just aired in the US on Friday night. We also glimpsed Russell T Davies enjoying himself out and about in the Gaslamp restaurant district as a bunch of us went out to join the San Diego ghost walking tour.
Above: Eoin Colfer sends some Vogon poetry into space from Hyperion's And Another Thing... party - we blag towels.
We rounded the day off by quaffing a few Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters with author Eoin Colfer to celebrate his new novel in the Hitchhikers universe, And Other Thing. Little towels bearing the words DON'T PANIC represent possibly the show's best freebie so far.
Be seeing you.
