Saturday’s Panels at Comic Con San Diego 2020 – Free, Online Edition

Saturday! The top day of every annual Comic Con. Here are the online panels for the biggest of San Diego Comic Con@ Home. You can find all these on You Tube now, for free, although I’m not sure how long they will be available.

Not all these all panels are in hour order. That’s what’s nice about having it all online this year — I can pick and choose as I go, or take a break, or decide which ones are not what I expected and try another.

10am PST — Inglorious Treksperts: 30 Years of Best of Both Worlds

From the first and best sci fi TV cliffhanger of all time: “Mr. Worf…fire!” Dun dundundun! 

Talking with Commander Shelby herself — Elizabeth Dennehy! She does a good interview. Good for her. I wish they’d brought her character back…maybe they still could on the Picard show. She said she’d do it in a heartbeat.

“You’re standing in my way.” — Dennehy explains how she was shocked that Trek fans told her they hated her, and explained Shelby’s mindset as she spoke it. She was not a Trek fan at the time and had no idea the fans were so rabid.

“Separate the saucer section; assign a skeleton crew to create a diversion,” — she uses this line, full of alliteration, to teach her Shakespeare classes in real life now…lol.

“All you know how to do is play it safe. I suppose that’s why someone like you sits in the shadow of a great man, passing up one command after another.” She tells how on the first day on the set Jonathan Frakes was so kind to her, telling her she could use his trailer, bathroom, phone, whatever she needed.

Dennehy didn’t know where the script for part 2 would go, so she had to play for everything — that she could be a Borg, kill or kiss Riker, be a spy…she learned that trick from her soap opera days. She explains how she added a little smirk to one of her moments so she could end up revealed as a villain, if necessary.

She describes her awesome meeting with Trek superfan/Hollywood darling Seth McFarland…she tried to test him and told him she was Commander Shelby and did he know who that was? He practically shouted her lines right back at her, delighting her deeply. And keeping his honor.

YAY, nods to Yesterday’s Enterprise, All Good Things, and Best of Both World 3: Family. All absolute favorites. Best of Both Worlds also paved the way for First Contact and ST: Picard. Resistance is futile…

These Inglorious Trekspert guys are smart. I’ll for now and forever watch their casts (every Saturday, free via the Electric Word app, plus something called The Librarians).

11am PST — Cosmos — Possible Worlds

Neil deGrasse Tyson himself!!!! And Brannon Braga…all these good science buddies live!

Okay, we’re starting with Seth MacFarlane, calling this the strangest Comic Con ever…this is going to be great…

Chemistry, Biology, Geology, Physics, Mathematics!

Damn, I’m bored. It’s just about how grateful they are and patting each other on the back. You just don’t know how exciting any panel will be, based on the title and panelists. But for my awe of science and these scientists I will watch it through.

NDT talks about the power of doubling, and history with chess. Cool. The power of math.

Okay, that was nice but nothing “Earth”-shattering. Ha! Next…

11:00am PST — Back to the Moon and Beyond With NASA

Hosted by William Shatner!!! Also, real astronauts.

Nice discussion of how real science works with fiction. Lunar habitat…

Noon PST — Eye of Newt and Wool of Bat: The Science Behind Magic Potions and Spells

This is totally worthwhile if you like botany and/or the minute details of Harry Potter. As I said, you never know which panels are worth sitting through.

1pm PST: Picard 2020: A Literary Retrospective

An unusual panel, in that the panelists talk about what classic books Jean-Luc Picard would have enjoyed in this life, besides, of course, Shakespeare. 😉 This was worth seeing if you are a Captain Picard fan! Why we see Jean-Luc as a person to look up to.

2pm PST: Blast Off with Disney+’s “The Right Stuff”

I want to watch this show. Even though only men are astronauts.

3pm PST: Surviving the Hunger Games: Are the Odds Ever in Your Favor?

A nice discussion on what people thought about living during the Games, and of being tributes. If you are a Hunger Games fan this is worth watching.

4pm PST: Bill and Ted Face the Music

Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, Samara Weaving, Brigette Lundy-Paine, William Sadler, director Dean Parisot, alongside writers Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson, gather for a lively panel moderated by filmmaker and fan Kevin Smith.

A great combination of the old and new actors and in Bill and Ted. Good job ya’ll.

5pm PST: Harry Potter and Black Panther: Using Pop Culture to Become Superheroes

Boring, now. Next. I have a lot of panels to view today and this was merely okay.

6pm PST: Farscape … To Be Continued

YAY Farscape! The actors I loved who love their characters: Chiana, Pilot/Crais, Stark, Grayza…this was exciting! I met Chiana a few times at other Comic Cons, and once she told us she loved RunPee. She actually asked to take a photo with us! Seriously, this was an amazing moment for RunPee and we wish we could find that picture.

The description:

“Farscape is now on Amazon Prime and there has been talk of its return. Join Farscape cast members in celebration of this epic sci-fi series! Panelists include Gigi Edgley (Chiana, Farscape), Ricky Manning (writer, Farscape), Rebecca Riggs (Commandant Grayza, Farscape), David Franklin (Lieutenant Braca, Farscape), Lani Tupu (Captain Crais, Farscape), and Paul Goddard (Stark, Farscape). Moderated by Kirk Thatcher (Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Challenge).”

---

Overall, a nice day. But it wasn’t as exciting as seeing these panels in person. It might be that so few actors and directors actually took part. A lot of things felt very cobbled together. But since I doubt anyone got paid for these panels, I’m grateful for what we got.