Today marks the seven month anniversary of the day I started this ridiculous project. In that time I have walked 678.23 miles on the treadmill while taking 1,367,292 steps, watching 400 episodes and 78 stories of Doctor Who, and losing 47.84 pounds in weight. I did not realize until I started typing this out that today marked my 400th episode viewed. How cool is that? I was feeling a little bit frustrated that I have only lost 5 pounds in the last month, until I looked at last month's checkin and remembered that the previous month I had only lost 2 1/2 pounds. So by that measure, this month has been twice as successful as the one before. Also this month, I had to go through my entire wardrobe and pull out a huge stack of pants and shorts to stop wearing. Anything with a 46" or 44" waist was yanked, leaving me with only 42" items. In fact, I had to go shopping for two new pairs of jeans, because I had no decent ones left that didn't look like clown clothes on me. Truth be told, even the 42s are getting a little bit loose on me -- if I am not wearing a belt they start sliding down. I think there is a very good chance I will be down to a 40" waist by Christmas. All of which is to say, I am very pleased with how things have gone so far. I am not even halfway through he project and I have already achieved more than I ever really expected. I am truly fascinated to see where this ends up.

As for Doctor Who, I watched the first half of Revenge of the Cybermen today. Let's talk about that.

Revenge of the Cybermen - Parts 1 & 2

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

Holy cow, Cybermen! We haven't seen them since The Invasion in 1968 (unless you count a brief flashback in The War Games). The Third Doctor never even faced them, not once! For that matter, this story is the one and only time that the Fourth Doctor encounters them.

Here's a macabre bit of trivia for you: Of course the Cybermen are notable as being the nemesis in The Tenth Planet, during which William Hartnell's First Doctor dies and regenerates into Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor. Well, during the week between when Part 1 and Part 2 of Revenge of the Cybermen originally aired, William Hartnell sadly passed away. 

Here's a much happier bit of trivia: This story was the very first one ever released on home video, in both VHS and Betamax, back in 1983. For an entire generation of Doctor Who fans (more specifically, for my generation of Doctor Who fans), this was THE Cybermen story. At the time of its release, there were no other existing complete Cybermen stories as all of the sixties-era ones had been purged from the BBC archives. No older stories, no Third Doctor stories, no other Fourth Doctor stories... until they made a resurgence with the Fifth Doctor, Revenge of the Cybermen was the one and only story that anybody could actually watch in any format. For me, I first discovered Doctor Who because this story was one of six that was originally published in the United States by Pinnacle in 1979. I read this one, and Genesis of the Daleks from the same set, and became an immediate life-long fan.

This one, right here. I wish I still had it.

So yeah, this particular story is a personal landmark one for me.

Does it still hold up? Oh yes, indeed it does. Although it does not have anywhere near the same weight as the previous story, it is still a very tightly-plotted and well-structured adventure. It is primarily set back on Nerva Beacon, to whence the Doctor along with Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan have been returned by the Time Ring. Unfortunately, they have arrived several thousand years earlier than planned and so the TARDIS is not their waiting for them. The Doctor assures his companions that she will be along presently, all they have to do is wait a bit. Also unfortunately, there has been some kind of plague that has wiped out almost the entire population of Nerva Beacon, leaving bodies strewn every which way. The only four survivors are holed up on the other side of the station, and one of them is a traitor.

Of course the plague isn't really a plague, it turns out to be a poison secretly administered by leaping Cybermats. There is a nearby asteroid, which turns out to be a fragment of Voga, the legendary Planet of Gold. If you've been taking notes, you will already remember that gold can be used as a deadly weapon against the Cybermen. Down on Voga there are two factions: the ruling class, who want to maintain a peaceful and secretive status quo, and then the military/mining class who want a rise to power. Oh, and then there is the ship full of Cybermen who ultimately dock with and invade Nerva Beacon by the end of the second episode.

It is just so delicious to have these stories with so much complexity, and with rapidly shifting factions and circumstances. Honestly, this one could have been a six-parter and I would have been fine with it. At four parts, it is a lean and mean story that clips right along at a brisk pace. I am most certainly looking forward to tomorrow's conclusion.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Fourth
Companion(s): Sarah Jane Smith, Harry Sullivan
Episode(s): Revenge of the Cybermen - Parts 1 & 2
Steps Walked: 7,084 today, 1,367,292 total
Distance Walked: 3.59 miles today, 678.23 miles total
Weight: 259.46 lbs (five day moving average), net change -47.84 lbs