The five day moving average is a double-edged sword. Today is the third consecutive day in which I have weighed in lower than the previous day, and also the third consecutive day in which the moving average of my weight has gone up slightly. Thanks, math! I think tomorrow is the day it turns around again, so that will be nice. Speaking of turning things around, in this morning's viewing of The Web of Fear the Doctor definitely turned things around against the Great Intelligence.

Let's talk about that.

The Web of Fear - Episodes 5 & 6

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

As expected, the Great Intelligence finally made itself known at the start of episode 5 by speaking through Professor Travers and demanding that the Doctor submit himself to have all of the knowledge sucked out of his brain. Failure to do so will result in the the yetis killing basically everyone, but compliance will be rewarded by freeing everyone. Supposedly.

Given twenty minutes to decide, the Doctor obviously comes up with a clever plan instead which involves wiring up a device to disable yeti at short range, and also by wiring up a sphere to ignore signals from the Great Intelligence and to respond to voice commands from Jamie or the Doctor instead. The end result is a pacified yeti at the Doctor's beck and call. 

There is also more suspicion and misdirection regarding who else is a traitor in their midst, with most of the suspicion being cast upon the cowardly soldier Evans or the similarly cowardly reporter. A small amount of suspicion also points to Lethbridge-Stewart, but c'mon, he's never really a suspect. In the end it turns out to be the miraculously-alive staff sergeant who is serving the Great Intelligence.

Also in the end, the Doctor has a clever plan to defeat the Great Intelligence forever. Unfortunately, he does not adequately explain this plan to Jamie in advance. This leads Jamie to using the pacified yeti to defeat the other yeti and destroy the Great Intelligence's control pyramid, which heroically resolves the current situation but which also leaves the Great Intelligence out there floating around somewhere waiting to return. Specifically, waiting to return 45 years later in The Bells of Saint John.

On the whole I enjoyed this story, if not quite as much as the previous one. Anything with Nicholas Courtney is always going to be watchable, and the redesign of the yeti combined with the claustrophobic sets made for a good time. Tomorrow I start Fury from the Deep, which is notable for two things: the last story with Victoria and the first story in which the sonic screwdriver appears. Yay!

STATS:

Doctor(s): Second
Companion(s): Jamie McCrimmon, Victoria Waterfield
Episode(s): The Web of Fear - Episodes 5 & 6
Steps Walked: 7,126 today, 675,886 total
Distance Walked: 3.66 miles today, 323.97 miles total
Weight: 278.22 lbs (five day moving average), net change -29.08 lbs