Ugh, I am having a fat day. I also slept too late and had to cut my treadmill time short instead of going the full 55 minutes. Those two things might possibly be related. The good news is that it is almost the weekend, and I will undoubtedly get lots of extra exercise on Saturday and Sunday like usual from walking around Disney World with my son visiting princesses. So that's ok. As for Doctor Who, I finished watching The Krotons this morning.

Let's talk about that.

The Krotons - Episodes 3 & 4

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

One thing I had presumed from the first two episodes was that the titular Krotons were periodically taking the best and brightest of the humans specifically to keep them dumb and compliant. As it turns out, they really were sincerely trying to get the humans to be smarter as a group (within certain boundaries). The point of taking "companions" was to test them periodically to assess their progress. It seems that the Kroton ship is powered by consuming mental energy, and so in order to escape the planet upon which they had crashed the Krotons had implemented a thousand-plus-year strategy to raise up the ignorant locals and get them smart enough to use their brains to fuel up the ship. The Krotons themselves are quasi-organic crystalline creatures, who can potentially live indefinitely barring any physical damage. As such, the two surviving Krotons had all the time in the world to execute their plan.

Of course, they got excited as soon as they had a look at the big brains on the Doctor and Zoe (although not so much with Jamie). There was also some civil unrest afoot among the humans once the Krotons were revealed to be murdering overlords, with one faction wanting to attack the Krotons immediately to reclaim their freedom and the other faction arguing for a more patient approach. Ultimately the Doctor gives the local scientist a recipe for how to manufacture large quantities of a modified sulfuric acid solution, which is used to destroy both of the Krotons and their ship.

That scientist, by the way, was played by James Cairncross. Four years earlier he had played the part of the primary antagonist Lemaitre in The Reign of Terror. I kept thinking he looked familiar, so I wasn't all that surprised when I looked it up. 

On the whole I would not say that The Krotons was a great story, but it was certainly enjoyable enough and well-acted. It felt a bit brief, being the first four-parter in quite some time, but at least that means it didn't feel padded. 

Tomorrow I start The Seeds of Death, which is an Ice Warrior story and which my mind always conflates with The Seeds of Doom from the Fourth Doctor era. So, no giant Krynoid plant, just a group of imposing Martians.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Second
Companion(s): Jamie McCrimmon, Zoe Heriot
Episode(s): The Krotons - Episodes 3 & 4
Steps Walked: 5,355 today, 787,686 total
Distance Walked: 2.60 miles today, 380.89 miles total
Weight: 274.02 lbs (five day moving average), net change -33.40 lbs