One fat geek's SUCCESSFUL attempt to regenerate into a not-so-fat geek by watching the entirety of Doctor Who while walking on a treadmill

What the Caterpillar Calls the End of the World, the Master Calls a Butterfly

Aug 11 2017
What the Caterpillar Calls the End of the World, the Master Calls a Butterfly

In the last day I have discovered the beauty and wonder of knee braces. Remember last week when I had my knees x-rayed? (I'm sure you do, because I know that all of my Imaginary Readers are nothing if not faithful.) Well, it turns out I have bone spurs which are compressing the nerves in my knees and causing the burning sensation. Anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen help, but adding some moderately firm knee braces when I am walking has made a huge difference. My wife tells me they also make me look hardcore, so that's cool too. So this morning I took my first spin on the Time Treadmill with braces on, and finished up watching The Mutants.

Let's talk about that.

The Mutants - Episodes 5 & 6

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

The crux of this entire story is that the natives of Solos, unbeknownst even to themselves, have a metamorphosing lifecycle to match the planet's unique 2,000 year orbit and 500 year seasons. The aggressive and unethical experimentation by the Earth scientist (who, in a bit of on-the-nose casting, is of German descent) has changed the planet's atmospheric conditions in such a way that the secondary stage of the metamorphosis is being triggered earlier than it should and in an incomplete fashion. In that sense, the story also serves as a Global Climate Change allegory as well although that was certainly not the hot-button issue in 1972 that it is today. So the first stage is a basically humanoid life form, the second stage are six foot tall insectoid creatures, and at the climax of the story we discover that the final stage is a transcendent and ephemeral god-like being that is able to float through walls and disintegrate enemies with a mere thought. As an allegory it works well, even if the actual science and biology of the concept is bollox.

Overall I liked the story quite a bit, certainly much more than the previous one. If the science was a bit wobbly, it certainly didn't interfere with the story. And at least for this one there really was enough story to justify having six parts, so that was nice. 

Tomorrow I dive into The Time Monster, which has a couple of interesting "firsts" as well as (I think) the third explanation for the destruction of Atlantis. So that should be fun.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Third
Companion(s): Jo Grant
Episode(s): The Mutants - Episodes 5 & 6
Steps Walked: 6,908 today, 1,106,881 total
Distance Walked: 3.63 miles today, 544.20 miles total
Weight: 261.80 lbs (five day moving average), net change -45.50 lbs


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