Hanging out with the fan club

Update: There was a brawl yesterday at lunch. Twelve students expelled, four arrested. One of them was Little Round Boy, who, it turns out, is in a gang. He was instigating the fight in which a student went to the hospital for a major cut over his eye. Good job, you little asshat. No more Little Round Boy.


Last night I went to a mall in Culver City to see tonight's episode of Battlestar Galactica on the big screen, followed by a Q&A with a few of the writers. The ep was good, full of mysteries and intense moments and a frustrating cliff hanger that made the whole audience groan with the pain of anticipation. If you are not watching Battlestar Galactica beat yourself in the head. It moves to Sunday nights in January, so you have no excuse.

I was supposed to meet Maggie there but Maggie doesn't answer her phone, people. I feel both hurt and betrayed.

Just kidding, Maggie. Oh, I understand how important it was for you to hang out with your fancy professional writer buddies who have lots of pull and can jump you in line while I wait for hours all by myself. No, seriously, it's cool. I was totally fine once I cried myself to sleep.

The line for this thing was very long. I missed the cutoff for the first showing by 9 people so I stayed an hour for the second, which ended up better because the Q&A went longer for that one. But I was in line behind the two dorkiest dudes in West LA. It taught me something about human nature.

I've never looked like the dork I am. On top of that, I project an aura of shyness in an unfamiliar situation. That combination made me invisible last night. Five different writers and producers went down the line at various intervals to thank people for coming and have brief conversations about the show. All five of them stopped to chat with the dorky dudes in front of me. None of them even glanced my way because I look like some random girl who stumbled on the screening by accident and has no idea what she's getting into. It was nice because it allowed me to listen to everybody else's conversation.

I make a big deal about my nerdiness, but I have nothing on the guy who showed up wearing an actual Galactica uniform and handed out flyers for the fan club made to look like Galactica memos, complete with cut off corners and the proper show font.

One of the beautiful things about Battlestar is that you don't have to be a dork to appreciate the excellent storytelling. You do have to be a dork to drive from San Francisco to Culver City to wait two hours in line to watch a 48 minute TV show at a mall. Those people were so adorably excited about the whole thing.

I've been in LA for over a year now and the only screenings I've been to are filled with industry people, mostly writers. This was not that kind of screening. The people here were fans, pure and simple, with limited knowledge of the business. They actually booed the WGA when the writers explained how contract negotiations put the BG webisodes on hold. Booing the WGA because they want to give the writers more money? Huh?

Then there was the guy beside me who seemed nice until he started talking about how "Some guy named Ronald Moore" was a bad writer and should stick to producing but should "never put pen to paper again." Doofus.

One of the writers polled the audience on how they watch the show. About half download it on ITunes. About half Tivo it. About five people actually watch the commercials.

The writers said they use actor input tons on the show. Many of the actors have opinions about the direction their characters should go, which makes sense since they spend all day being this one person. So a few of the upcoming episodes about Apollo and Starbuck will use several of the ideas the actors themselves suggested. It sounds like such a nice, collaborative place to work. The writers were really funny, especially Michael Rymer. That dude speaks only the language of sarcasm.

It's good to hear an audience of fans instead of just listening to the writer's perspective all the time. They were so excited and so eager, and had only nice things to say about the series. I guess they would, since they waited in line for two hours to see a show that comes on tonight. On SciFi. At 9.