The first program we took in was a talk with some some guys who worked on the special effects for the Spielberg-directed War of the Worlds. The host promised the audience that they were a privileged bunch, and that they were going to see something they'd never seen before, and in fact, he didn't think even Tom Cruise had seen this yet. (Hmm, we pondered, what could this thing be? Perhaps a woman's vagina?) Alas, it was merely a brief Japanese trailer for the movie, and the majority of the audience went back to hoping.

Joss Whedon followed to much applause and geeky gushing. He and three stars from his big screen directorial debut Serenity talked about the movie and "Firefly", the series it was based on. Some of the audience members asking questions had a hard time getting past "I just want to say [catching breath] that I think you are all INCREDIBLE! [Nervous pause] And I just want to thank you for being here, and for creating the best science fiction series EVER! And oh my god I can't believe I'm this close to you! What's that? Do I have a question? Umm..no. But you're awe-some." At which point they usually bowed and walked back into the crowd. Despite the frequent...awkwardness, Whedon managed to be affable and quite funny. We desperately need him to come back to TV.

[]

Ed. Note: More Wondercon madness, pictures, and the grumpy first-person account of SFist Shane after the jump.