My single biggest embarrassment as a long-time Doctor Who fan is that, given that I have never really watched any of the Third Doctor's era prior to this project, that also means that by extension I have never watched any of the eight original Master stories featuring Roger Delgado. It is an appalling and glaring oversight, and one which finally begins to be rectified with today's viewing of Terror of the Autons. Is Delgado's Master everything I hoped it would be?

Well, let's talk about that.

Terror of the Autons - Episodes 1 & 2

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

There are so so many new things in this story, the first of the eighth season. LIz Shaw is out as the Doctor's companion (she went back to Cambridge), and is replaced by Jo Grant (who will be around for a good long while now). The Brigadier is still there running UNIT, with Sergeant Benton finally appearing as a regular character instead of an occasional one, and they are both joined by Captain Mike Yates - thus completing the classic UNIT primary team. And, of course, the Master is introduced as the Doctor's primary nemesis. We also get the very familiar set of the Doctor's workshop at UNIT with the TARDIS in the corner, which will be become home base for several years to come. All the pieces are in place, and after nearly five months on the Time Treadmill I finally feel like I am in familiar territory (even thought he stories themselves are almost entirely new to me). It's like I have put on a very comfortable pair of slippers and settled down into the perfect easy chair. Finally this, this, is Doctor Who.

In terms of story, the Master arrives and just evils up the joint right out of the gate. He even has a TARDIS with a working chameleon circuit. He uses his hypnotic mind control skills to set a plot in motion in which he uses some traveling circus folk to organize the theft of the only remaining Nestene energy unit from Spearhead from Space, uses a radio telescope facility to broadcast a message to the Nestene Consciousness, and then takes over a plastics factory to begin production of a new set of Autons.

As for the Doctor, he is introduced to his new assistant Jo Grant, whom he dismisses out of hand as being completely useless. His opinion of her, of course, will rapidly change. In the meantime he receives a warning from a visiting Time Lord that the Master is on Earth, with the clear implication that the Doctor and the Master have a lengthy history dating back to their school days (during which, it is worth noting, the Master got better grades).

For the first half of the story the two do not yet meet face-to-face, but there is much feinting and signaling between the two as circumstances develop. The Sherlock/Moriarty allusions are very thinly veiled indeed. There is also a nifty scene where the Master has created a Devil Doll variation of Auton, which subsequently attacks and kills the retired former owner of the plastics plant. You can never go wrong with a Devil Doll attack.

Needless to say, I am enjoying the story so far.

More importantly than that, this story finally arrives at one of the true inspirations for this entire project. Let me tell you about my oldest friend Riff, who is the single finest Master cosplayer in the known universe.

So Delgado it's uncanny...

I am not even being hyperbolic when I say that Chris Chibnall should seriously consider doing a story in which the Thirteenth Doctor spars with the First Master, and he should hire Riff to play the part. You think David Bradley makes a bang-on First Doctor at the end of The Doctor Falls? Well, I think Riff is an even closer doppelgänger to Delgado's Master. It was frankly uncomfortable watching today's episodes, in the sense that every scene with the Master, every single mannerism, it was like I was watching my best friend on screen. So hey, Chris Chibnal, I know you must certainly be lurking among my throngs of Imaginary Readers, so please hit up @TheMasterDances and give him the notoriety he deserves.

Uncanny resemblances aside, there is another much more important reason I mention him. Riff is very much my inspiration and my concrete proof that what I want to accomplish can, in fact, be accomplished. When I first knew him back in our high school and college days, he was what you might affectionately refer to as big-boned. Not a small guy. I'm sayin' he was not what his doctor would have considered to be his optimal weight. And that was the Riff I knew for many, many years right up until the point where I moved away to Florida while he remained in Seattle.

And then he did something absolutely amazing.

Over the course of a year, he quite literally danced his ass off. I didn't see him in person during that year, I didn't see the gradual transformation, I just know that the next time I saw him after our epic cross-country drive bringing two cars from Seattle to Orlando, he was objectively half the man he used to be. The main thing he did was to start dancing. He went out dancing virtually every night, he drank a ton of water, and he shook his ass and let the sweat pour off. And yeah, sure, he modified his diet and sought out other ways to increase his physical activity in general, and did a billion other tiny things, but his passion - the thing that worked for him and kept him engaged and motivated - was dancing.

It has been well over a decade now, long enough that there are very few people in the world who remember the "old" Riff. For most people who know him in the world of science fiction conventions, he is the spot-on Spider Jerusalem, the uncanny Delgado Master, and the mixologist who throws an amazing room party and serves an Omulan Rale that will put you under the table.

But to me he is living proof that if you can find the thing that motivates you and keeps you moving, and if you work at it incrementally over time instead of looking for a magical quick fix, physical transformation can not only be accomplished but sustained. While in costume he might be the cruelest villain in the universe (but with the finest style), but that doesn't change in the least the fact that he is my hero and my inspiration. 

Anyway, hey, tomorrow is more Auton madness. I can hardly wait to get back on my treadmill in the morning to watch it. Thanks, Riff, I owe you.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Third
Companion(s): Jo Grant, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
Episode(s): Terror of the Autons - Episodes 1 & 2
Steps Walked: 6,932 today, 961,371 total
Distance Walked: 3.57 miles today, 469.12 miles total
Weight: 265.70 lbs (five day moving average), net change -41.60 lbs