Geek LoveTO’s Ode to Mark Sheppard @ The Ossington
Founded by Emma Wolley and Evan Munday, Geek LoveTO is a monthly series designed for geeks to get together and geek out over common interests. Attendees drink, laugh, discuss, heckle and enjoy 2-3 hour themed screenings. Anyone can submit an idea for a themed evening.
Geek Love started with a successful musical evening of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog and Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s musical episode “Once More with Feeling”, then officially kicked off last month with “Venture Brotherly Love”.
This month’s Mark Sheppard event was curated by Cliff St.Onge. Before the screening Cliff stood up fully clad in his Badger costume (right), as he lovingly explained why Mark Sheppard is so important. He’s “the guy who’s always been there”. From his role as Badger in “Firefly”, the morally ambiguous lawyer Romo Lampkin in “BSG” and Canton Everett III in the newest season of “Doctor Who”, he’s also been in “Supernatural”, “Chuck”, “Warehouse 13”, “Chuck”, “Dollhouse” and played a plethora of roles in sci-fi (and other) television over the years.
Cliff chuckled to himself as he told us about his discovery of Sheppard’s super creepy role in an early episode of the X-Files, the sci-fi show that shaped his own sense of geekery. This episode would be the second half of our screening. Sheppard has never looked more manic (to my recollection) than in that episode. But pretty much everything about X-Files is cheesy, creepy and pretty much awesome.
First up was Badger’s first appearance in Firefly and probably my favourite of the short lived series, “Shindig”. Cheers, laughter accompanied the episode as Badger gets his criminal on, his hands on a pair (of diamonds, not testicles), Kaylee gets her frilly dress, Zoe & Wash get nekked, Mal earns his title Captain Tightpants and gets stabbed “Right here” defending Inara’s honour.
Next we revisited 1993 shoulder pads,power suits, cassette tapes and all in X-Files’ first season episode “Fire” in which Sheppard plays a homicidal maniac who can set fires with his mind. Stalking his prey across the pond and pulling out his terrible American accent (also see Canton Everett III). Moulder got his rocks off with a British “friend”, overcomes his fear of fire and Scully sulks on the sidelines while searching for a scientific explanation for these freak fires.
Before, after and during the mid-screening intermission there was lots of fun geeky conversation about Mark Sheppard, including his work on BSG, Doctor Who, and more and branching out into other sci-fi pleasures, other Geek Love nights, and the ins and outs of why you shouldn’t check out Adam Baldwin’s twitter feed unless you want to have your heart broke, or at the very least, kind of confused #unfollowfriday it could be a thing because the more you know.
The monthly events are held at The Ossington, a smallish bar with a comfortably sized back room with plenty of room for seating, a large projector screen and plenty of air conditioning making this particularly hot and humid July evening very comfortable.
Come get your geek on at Geek Love TO’s Upcoming events:
Monday August 15th, 2011 – Pee Wee’s Playhouse
Monday, September 12th, 2011 – The Fillionaire’s Club (Love for Nathan Fillion) <—*I am especially excited for this night!*
Have an idea for a theme night? Read GeekLove’s submission guidelines here.
