Wolf SG-7 covention report from Andrew Thurgood AKA Doofy

( adoption character = Sgt Walter Davis )

Disclaimer :- SGUK would like to point out that any comments made in this report, are comments of the convention attendee, and the same views may or may not be shared by SGUK.

Undercover Operations at Wolf SG-7

(Classified File By Sgt Davis)

Day 1----February 6th 2004…..time…..12.30pm

Location-----Heathrow Thistle Hotel, London, England

Mission----Gather information on Stargate fans(aka Gaters)

I have arrived at the location given to me in the mission briefing….and I am posing as attendee in order to find out how much those attending know about the Stargate program… Even at this early stage there appears to be large numbers of people gathering in the “convention area”. Make my way to the foyer…to await the arrival of fellow undercover agent… Dr Fraiser..

Report will now consist of a statement by an eyewitness(Subject Doofy).

“Having looked forward to this convention for a good while, it was finally great to get going., and there was the usual range of activities going on throughout the weekend consisting of guest talks, photo and autograph sessions. But at SG-7 things were going to be slightly different….

Having arrived quite early to meet up with friends from the Wolf Chat Room and Boards it was a case of grabbing a raffle ticket for the virtual queuing system to get into the hall for the opening ceremony to prevent the usual congestion caused by early mass queuing(and yet people still queued!).

By the time of the opening ceremony at around 8pm I’d met loads of people I knew by name….and now in fact(and my roomie and room!) Well as per usual, people were queuing despite the fact that they didn’t need to… But anyhow…it was time for the guests….minus Dion Johnstone…who’d had a late casting call…..on they came: Steve Bacic, Alex Zahara, Ronny Cox, David Palffy, our surprise guest Jill Teed….and then with a great roar of applause came the SG convention favourite and regular….and resident “Energiser Bunny” Teryl Rothery…

These guests then preceded to move round each table in the room and greet all of the attendees, which with at least 800 of these, took a while, and each of the guests who came to our table were subjected to a game of shock roulette… suffice to say Jill and Alex both lost(Alex squealed like a girl).

Ronny came round to ask for our support in his performance the next day….and he was very open and very generous….nothing like his alter ego!

By the end of the Meet and Greet, only Steve and Ronny had not completed their tour…but that was due to their sheer enthusiasm in talking to every person on each table…..

Well the night duly ended with a disco….with the usual con favourites…YMCA, Blame it on the Boogie, Tubthumping, Star Trekkin etc….but for a Friday night it seemed strangely empty…..probably saving themselves for early hall entry tickets at 6.30am……still, crawled into bed at 2.am ish…another day…”

Day 2…..early rise at 7.00 to catch hall tickets and then a hearty breakfast before the main event began with Alex Zahara, best known for his portrayal of hippie Michael in the episode “1969”, but had also played many other roles on the show – most of which involved copious amounts of make-up-, Xe’ls in “Spirits”, the Alien Leader in “Foothold”, various Unas and as the motion capture model for Anubis’ ‘Super Jaffa”. What makes this all the more remarkable is the fact that before Alex appeared on Stargate he was having to work as a landscape gardener for $10 a day!

He admits it was arduous having to come in for 3.30am to have his Unas make-up applied which took 4 1/2 hours to apply which included a full body suit complete with fake muscles which with time on set meant 18 – 20 hours in make up! Suffice to say there were times when he was caught snoring during takes….

Interestingly, among his Unas roles he includes his stint as the flirty Female Unas waitress in “Beast of Burden”…. and Ironshirt in “Enemy Mine”. But for those who think this all this hardship puts him off, he confesses that he loves working on Stargate, after all he gets paid to dress up!

Now it was the turn of the ultimate Stargate bad guy to make his entrance….Anubis himself….David Palfy….who ironically is the utter opposite of his alter ego! Like Alex, David has had a variety of acting roles….though as he said due to the fact that he does in real life look slightly villainous does his limit his roles as a romantic lead somewhat! He gave this example, his 4 ½ yr old son attends school for a number of days per week and one day the class were asked what their dads did. At the time David had the role of a terrorist in a movie he was in the process of filming, so as children do, his son informed the class that daddy was a terrorist….suffice to say, when he went to see the teacher at school she did her best to avoid him…. So he needs to remind his son that when he sees daddy on screen that it isn’t real.

He also lived and worked in Britain for 2 years including a stint in Joe’s Bar in Chelsea…and also worked in a touring theatre company. An upcoming project includes a film version of Richard III filmed in black and white and in the middle of a snowy wilderness…

Next up was Steve Bacic, and here I have to apologise…only having had played Major Coburn in two episodes, he was more eager to talk about his work on Andromeda and his recent promotion to its main cast for Season 4….. and well I needed to take a break….though he had everyone in the hall thoroughly entertained.

Steve was followed by a slightly manic Stacey Monroe, star of “Wormhole Xtreme”…sorry, that’s not right….Jill Teed, our surprise guest made her entrance….and if Teryl decided not to attend any more cons, well Jill could certainly replace here in terms of sheer manic energy(almost). As she was a last minute addition she did seem rather shell- shocked, but did speak of her enjoyment of working on Stargate on a particularly funny episode and while they did not appear with the main cast during the episode she did take a few pointers from Amanda Tapping for her role.

One particularly embarrassing moment occurred toward the end of filming where she suddenly realised she had a rather urgent need for the ladies room….she apologises for the expression she can be seen wearing in the end credit “outtakes”…. Oddly as a postscript to this, when she later mentioned this to the director, Peter DeLuise ,he said that his wife had experience exactly the same thing at the same moment…..

Jill also stated she is good friends with Peter and his wife and successfully predicted the birth of their child, even though Peter said they couldn’t have any…..

Could you follow that? Well, the next guest Ronny Cox, certainly could and opened with a taster of the evening’s performance with a rendition of a couple of his songs with his band which promised much for the evening ahead.

Having had such a long and varied career it was never going to be dull with Ronny who happened to be one of the most gracious and humble people I have seen at a convention, and his enthusiasm for working on Stargate was clear. Ronny’s first acting role was in the film “Deliverance”, which he made at the age of 32, a late start to a now long and impressive acting career back in 1972. In fact, Ronny says that shooting was extremely dangerous with both him and one of his co-stars, Ned Beatty nearly drowning a number of times, whereas Burt Reynolds(to his slight chagrin) avoided such mishaps. Another irony was that as he was living in New York he was seen as coming from the New York “school” of actors, but he was born and raised in New Mexico!

He had much to tell us about his portrayal of Senator Kinsey, particularly his joy in working with Richard Dean Anderson who he says is an extremely competent and giving actor. Ronny also gave his background on the character and (some of) his thoughts on the character’s development. Kinsey is a Christian Fundamentalist whose goal as a politician is to protect his country from invaders, which explains why he is so eager to get access to alien technology and by any and all means necessary, and the more power he has the easier it will be to protect the nation…sound familiar?

The final Q & A was by the lady who put E into energetic….Teryl Rothery….and for those who had never met her before she was a revelation. I will make a further apology at this point, having seen Teryl a number of times and listened to all her wonderful stories(which I never tire of) it is hard to remember (for me) which ones she told at SG-7. Suffice to say she regaled us with stories of her times spent entertaining the US troops overseas(I believe she may just have volunteered to do this for some of ours too whilst she was at the convention), the infamous “Puff ‘n Ruffle” practiced by the male members of the cast and the complete avoidance of what happens in the upcoming “Heroes pt 2”….though some people did persuade her not to…a story for SG-8 perhaps? Suffice to say there were jokes (on screen) played on her by the Tech crew complete with flushing toilet noises…..probably caused by the fact that Teryl loves roaming the isles asking for questions…and that always gives the camera and lighting guys a headache…..

But all good things come to an end because Teryl had to rush off for her photo shoot session…and so did a large number of attendees…..my friends who were watching me have my photo taken with Teryl said I looked nervous…but it doesn’t show in the photo!

Before the evening events took place, it was time for the autograph sessions….but as I was not toward the end of that session, I decided to wait until Sunday as I needed to get ready for the fancy dress party….(not easy with a cold shower and no heating in the room) with a western theme…

After more queuing (whilst they set up the room for Ronny’s entertainment)we entered the room (at the back) and watched the fancy dress competition….with the child entry being won by an outstanding Skaara costume and the overall prize by an amazing Unas costume….but at Stargate conventions the entries are always of the highest(mostly) quality.

With that came the evening’s entertainment, and Ronny and his 3 band members(including his son) raised the roof and received many(deserved encores) with a mixture of stories and songs which I can not do justice in this report. Ronny had been nervous about performing in front of such a large audience(over 800) but he was overwhelmed by our response…and the fact that his allotted slot of 90 minutes was probably doubled says it all…a unique and memorable experience.

This mood of happiness extended into the disco with a much more crowded and happy dancefloor than the previous night. The convention’s resident DJ and his crew did us proud and we all left having had a great time….after all every great convention needs a great disco….sleep is for tortoises at conventions after all….

To be continued…..