Saturday got off to a bit of a rough start, as I slept about two hours later than I had anticipated. Things worked out in the end, though, as (aside from getting my blog post up on time), I still managed to do everything I’d hoped to do before I needed to be anywhere in particular.

Before I was quite ready to move on my own, though, ConBuddy texted to say he’d already gotten in the autograph line we’d agreed to meet at, because it got long really fast. So I saddled up and headed down to the patio to wait together.

In fact, waiting in autograph lines took up pretty much the entire morning. Things thankfully ran more smoothly than they had on Friday morning (I think the con staff was finally up to speed on what did and didn’t work well), but there were still just a lot of folks who wanted these big-name autographs. There were a couple of panels I’d considered going to, but neither was compelling enough that I felt sad to miss them in order to get the autographs I really, really wanted.

Similarly, there was an early afternoon panel I’d been considering, but lunch ran well into that time slot, and I wasn’t feeling any urgency to get to the panel. So my friend group decided to have a little down time before meeting up again later.

First up was the sexuality and gender panel, “All the Colors of the Rainbow.” Panels on this topic can often get contentious, or go off the rails in other ways, so I was slightly apprehensive going in. However, the moderator had a strong sense of what she wanted, and took the reins handily. That’s not to say the panel didn’t get animated, but there was far more agreement than discord.

Before that panel was quite over, we slipped out to head to “Team TARDIS 2022” with actors Mandip Gill, Jo Martin, and Sacha Dhawan and producer Matt Strevens. Since I hadn’t managed to see either Sacha or Jo on stage yet, this was a panel I was particularly looking forward to, and became one of the highlights of the con for me. As is always the case with current actors, of course, there were moments when they had to choose their words carefully when answering certain questions, but I always love seeing this end of the convention guest spectrum, when someone doesn’t have all the answers ready off the top of their head because they haven’t heard the questions all a million times already. (In fact, this is Mandip’s first con on the circuit, save for the “here they are!” intro stint at San Diego Comic Con years ago.)

All too soon it was over—except it wasn’t! The panel ended and people started filing out (or ootching forward), Jo Martin took video of the crowd from the stage, and then the moderator announced that they’d been given some more time, and they sat back down and continued for another 10 or 15 minutes. (Since my friends and I were among the ootchers, that worked out fine for us.)

Eventually the panel ended for realsies, and Head Over Feels podcasters Sage Young and Kim Rogers took to the stage to run their “This or That” game with guests Sylvester McCoy and Frazer Hines. With two inveterate jokesters on the couch, you can just imagine how much chaos ensued. There were more serious moments from time to time, but for the most part, it made for an hour of lighthearted fun.

We headed straight to the food trucks then, which ended up being impeccable timing, as we were able to walk right up to the window and order, but by the time we’d stepped over to wait for our orders to come out, there was already a significant line behind us. That gave us a nice, leisurely evening, with something like two and a half hours until the next panel we wanted to see. (Hooray for Introvert Time!)

That final panel was the perennial favorite game show “Would I Lie to You?” run by Paul Cornell (who was in better form than at Friday’s Deathmatch). A writer’s team of Matthew Sweet, Lisa McMullin, and Stephen Gallagher was set against the actors’ team of Colin Spaull, Michael Jayston, and Chase Masterson. Both truths and lies were hilarious, and I laughed harder than I have in a long, long time through most of the game.

After making plans to meet up again for our first panel on Sunday, we called it a night. It really didn’t seem like Saturday night; I can’t help but wonder if the usual last-day-of-Gally feels will return tomorrow, or if things will continue to feel this different.