rusty_armour | Reversed Polarity! (Reply)

On Saturday, I had the privilege of attending Reversed Polarity, a Doctor Who 50th anniversary convention. I was interested as soon as I heard about it, but learning that Peter Davison (my favourite Doctor) would be attending was definitely the clincher -- not that I really needed one. As usual, I met up with

lazigyrl and

njc2007, who kindly allowed me to crash with her on Saturday night. And, as usual, we all had a blast.

After we grabbed breakfast and I registered, we went to this great writing workshop run by J.M. Frey called "World and Culture Building". Then, as the workshop ended early, we were able to go to "Building the TARDIS and Worshipping the Emperor," a panel run by Mark Townsend (the brains behind Dalek Dreadnaught) and Paul Aves. After a wonderful panel with Dan Starkey (Strax),

lazigyrl and I checked out some of the models on display and did some shopping in the Marketplace. We then took a look at the Charity Auction Display and supported Gilda's Club by voting for our favourite Doctor Who villain. I voted for the Master (big surprise) and

lazigyrl voted for the Daleks (my second choice). We caught the end of the Graeme Harper panel to make sure we got seats for everyone before the Peter Davison panel, which was awesome because it was Peter Davison. The poor man was asked some rather strange but humourous questions. These were two of my favourites:

What was it like having to stick your arm up all those cows in All Creatures Great and Small?

What's it like being related to David Tennant?

One of the funniest moments was when someone asked Peter Davison to read lines from a Colin Baker episode, which he did really well, if somewhat begrudgingly. As I said to

lazigyrl afterwards, the panel made me love Peter Davison even more.

Following the Peter Davison panel was the Dalek Dating Game, which was as surreal and hilarious as you might expect. The highlight was

njc2007 being picked to be one of the three bachelorettes/companions when the Tenth Doctor was a contestant. However, we all agreed that the whole thing was worth watching for the villain stage of the show. A kid dressed up as an Adipose said his method of killing the Doctor would be to tear off all his limbs and feed them to him. The next big laughs came during the Masquerade, which featured some fantastic contestants as well. At the Retro Dance Party, we were all thrilled when Dalek Dreadnaught rolled on to the dance floor, rocking and spinning and issuing powerful blasts of co2.

There are probably more details I should include, but I'm lazy and I have several pictures to share, pictures that are much more interesting than what I've just written.

Mark Townsend displaying a very hard-to-find TARDIS lamp

Another TARDIS lamp model

All that's left of Paul Aves' TARDIS. It fell apart after being exposed to
three Canadian winters. The next model is going to be kept under a carport.

Daleks...obviously

A "Victory of the Daleks" Dalek

lazigyrl with the same Dalek. Take note of

lazigyrl's ingenious costume.
She marked her limbs the way Amy Pond did every time she spotted the Silence.

Dan Starkey checking out the Daleks

Lucky shot of Dan Starkey!

lazigyrl and I were
extremely fortunate to be in the area when we were!

Watch on YouTube

During his panel, Dan Starkey said he was making up Sontaran Christmas carols
during the filming of the last Christmas special. In fact, one of the songs
he came up with was used in the episode. Anywaaaay, Dan Starkey mentioned
that there was a YouTube vid of his carols, so, naturally, I dug it up.