This morning was the first day back on my own, now fully-repaired, treadmill. It was a comedy of errors. Part of repairing it was to spray some silicone lubricant underneath the new belt, and apparently a small bit of silicone got onto the front of my right shoe. I had to stop and change shoes after five minutes because every time I would stride forward, my right foot would lose traction and slip out from under me. Then somehow the magnetic key became jostled, and the whole thing cut out again thirty minutes later. Ultimately I made it through, and I think I have worked out the kinks and gotten the refurbished treadmill back into proper shape. Oh, and... I kid you not, at one point during the second episode this morning Sara Kingdom made a crack to Steven about treadmills. It's like the show was speaking directly to me across a gulf of fifty two years!

Let's talk about that!

Counter Plot / Coronas of the Sun

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

This morning's first episode answers the question "how does Sara Kingdom get lumped in as a companion?" Turns out, the top secret station on Earth where they have been running around actually has some scientists doing experiments. As the Doctor and Steven are cornered in a strange room by Sara Kingdom, they (along with some poor white mice who I am totally sure are not pan-dimensional beings looking for the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything) get teleported via some kind of hand-wavy molecular beam. At their destination, the planet Mira, the episode answers the question "how do you create a monster with zero budget?", the answer being "make your monster an eight foot tall invisible bear-thing." By the end of the episode, Sara Kingdom has been turned around to believing in the the conspiracy between Mavic Chen and the Daleks. Just in time for the group to be captured by a Dalek patrol.

Fortunately, in the second episode the Dalek patrol is surprised by an attack of giant invisible bears and our heroes escape. Soon enough they have stolen the Dalek spacecraft, and the Doctor has crafted a decoy copy of the whatever-it-is-ium that the Daleks need for their doomsday weapon. They only need to figure out how to charge up the decoy so that the Daleks will fall for the ruse. Steven suggests using the gravity force from the ship's power core, to which both the Doctor and Sara Kingdom scoff. When Steven argues that gravity force was used extensively in his time, Sara Kingdom replies archly, "Yes, and the Romans used treadmills." Ha! Sara Kingdom just made fun of the entire premise of this project. How wacky!

So anyway, Steven does the thing with the gravity force anyway. It works in the sense that it charges up the fake whatever-it-is-ium, but it fails in the sense the Steven gets knocked ass-over-teakettle and winds up being trapped inside some kind of personal force field. Fortunately, by the end of the story (when the Daleks have recaptured the group and drug them back to the planet Kembel) Steven's personal force field comes in quite handy after he is shot by a Dalek death ray. By a remarkable coincidence, the death ray is just strong enough to remove the force field without harming Steven in any way.

Hooray for Death Rays!

As the episode closes, our three heroes escape in the TARDIS while Mavic Chen and the Daleks have what they think is the final ingredient for their doomsday weapon. Seems like a good time for the whole story to come to a screeching halt tomorrow for a Christmas episode.

STATS:

Doctor(s): First
Companion(s): Steven Taylor, Sara Kingdom
Episode(s): Counter Plot / Coronas of the Sun
Treadmill Joke(s): 1
Steps Walked: 6,740 today, 332,459 total
Distance Walked:  3.38 miles today, 152.23 miles total
Weight: 291.00 lbs (five day moving average), net change -16.30 lbs