"So, after a day of doing touristy things in Paris yesterday, today was my first day at this year's Comic Con France. The autograph system turned out to be crazy thanks to them doing something totally different from what they'd said it would be in answer to a direct question on their Facebook. I queried it with one of the girls working the autograph booth later and she said she knew the info was wrong and had asked her boss to change it, but he wouldn't. Anyway, the upshot was that despite having only a single queuing lane for all three Merlin people you could only try and get a ticket for one of them on each run through the queue. Hence most of today was spent repeatedly queuing. I ended up with a ticket for Colin on the 1st come 1st served session (not that I was given a choice as to who I wanted at that time, though others apparently were) and was lucky and got a winning ticket for Bradley later. I missed out on Katie in the draw and this actually turned out to be fortunate.


The length of time taken going through the queue meant there was no chance to eat as it was already time for the first autograph session. Katie was sitting next to Colin and when I got called forward she promptly recognised me and said hello. She queried if I wanted her to sign my DVDs as I waited for Colin. I told her I hadn't been lucky enough to get a ticket despite trying twice. At this she took the box from me and proceeded not only to sign the DVD with her pic on, but also the inner cover with the picture of her in chainmail. I told her she'd get me in trouble and she wrinkled her nose and said, "Fuck it!" I thanked her and finally moved on to Colin. As he signed for me I took the chance to tell him how much I'd enjoyed seeing Parked in Brussels.

With the first signing session accomplished it was straight on to the panel. They'd clearly underestimated the popularity of Merlin as the hall they used had nowhere near enough seats. A lot of people had to stand around the sides or at the back - a fact Bradley commented on later in the talk, commending them for standing for so long. I was lucky and found an odd open seat and could finally get off my feet for a while. A lot of the panel seemed to be done from some kind of prepared scripts and be very general in nature, presumably because France is only just starting season three. The need for translation also slowed things down. Bradley actually asked how many people spoke English and almost everyone put their hand up. He then said thank you for learning our language as we Brits are so bad at languages. He added that if you asked the same question in the UK (i.e. how many spoke French) everyone would keep quiet and hide - including him!

One of the more interesting questions was what each of them had found the most difficult scene to film. Colin's was the one right at the start of season three episode one when Merlin, Arthur and the army are riding over the hills. He said it was freezing in the Brecon Beacons when they filmed it and when the director asked him to do the lines again he couldn't move his face to speak! Katie said her was when Merlin poisons Morgana at the end of season two. She said she made Colin cry and he made her cry and it was very emotional to do. Bradley chose any banquet scene because they last about twenty seconds on screen and feel as if they take days to film. Actually, in my experience at Pierrefonds they really can take days!

I noticed that in the pre-prepared part of the panel it once again fell to Bradley to extol the virtues of the Merlin and Arthur friendship. He talked about the whole Arthur bullying Merlin thing and how you couldn't do that forever and as they're always there for one another they became friends. I admit I kind of zoned out through a lot of the scripted stuff as it didn't really add anything to interviews etc. we've already seen.

The panel over it was time for the second autograph session, which it transpired got cut down to only half an hour. This meant anyone who'd queued repeatedly and managed to get more than one ticket was told they could only use one of them and had to chose a single actor to see. It seemed terribly unfair to spring a change like that on people at the last minute and I was glad I only had the ticket for Bradley.

At any rate, as they were hurrying us through, the con staff wrote our names on the back of our tickets to speed up personalisation. When it was my turn I said, "Hello, Bradley" and was pleasantly surprised when he replied, "Hello, Karen, we've met before, haven't we?" As this was the first time he's actually given any indication of remembering me it was a nice way to round off the day. As he signed the DVDs he commented that he liked these (season three's packaging) better than the others. I asked him why and he said it was because they were moodier than the others.

And that was the end of Merlin day! In summary: many hours queuing, no food, but still an all round enjoyable experience (and thank you to part of Team Merlin for keeping me company during the endurance queuing)! Tomorrow I get to do it all again so I can go to the Steven Moffat talks. I also need to go through the ridiculous number of photos I took (I know I have some lovely ones of Colin from the signing), but I'll probably only get a few up before I get home as I'm in serious need of sleep now."