I learned something weird and random yesterday: Not only have I lost fifty pounds in weight and six inches from my waistline, but it turns out I have also lost a half inch in collar size. I'm a jeans & t-shirt kind of guy and don't often wear dress shirts, so I probably never would have noticed if not for my new acting gig. You see, several months ago I auditioned for a show, and as a part of that the costume designer tool all my measurements. That was back in early May, about twenty five pounds ago. I wound up getting the job (my first professional musical theatre job, yay!), and last night was the first rehearsal. I suggested to the costume designer that he probably wanted to take fresh measurements since I had lost a significant amount of weight. Most of the changes I had expected, but the drop in collar size really caught me off guard. I had no idea that my neck was getting smaller, but there you go. I have dropped three pants sizes, gone down a shirt size in the chest, and gone down a collar size to boot. How cool is that? And I have Doctor Who to thank for all of that.

Speaking of which, let's talk about MurderBots.

The Robots of Death - Parts 3 & 4

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

I titled yesterday's post 'Ten Little Indians" after the Agatha Christie novel, since this is so clearly a Christie pastiche, so you can imagine how amused I was when today's viewing had a scene where the Doctor and Leela specifically count ten of the deadly robots marching by. I had no idea that was coming. 

Anyway, the gist of the rest of the story is that one of the humans on board the mining ship is actually a brilliant robotics engineer who had been raised entirely among robots because of Reasons, and who no longer identified as being human himself. He saw robots as being the victims of slavery, and so he decided to reprogram them to rise up and be free. And, of course, to Destroy All Humans along the way. This being the case, the back half of the story involves a lot of MurderBots running around attempting murder while the Doctor tries to discover the identity of the bad guy.

Along the way there is also a sympathetic robot, D84, who was actually sent by the corporation to secretly monitor the situation and intervene if necessary. In the end he nobly sacrifices himself, and it is genuinely sad. Also in the end the bad guy gets murdered by his own robots thanks to a dose of helium that alters his voice and makes him no longer recognizable as being authorized to give voice commands. Oops.

For whatever reason, the eponymous Robots of Death remind me of Mister Roboto from the classic Styx album Kilroy Was Here. I guess that gives away my age, being as I bough that album when it came out in 1983 and I played it to death. Sure, the Robotos wore plain gray unitards whereas the Robots of Death wore padded tunics with a distinctive oriental feel, but the wide faces, prominent lips, and large eyes look very similar to me. The hair is way different, but still...

Domo Arigato

Mister MurderBoto

Tragically, this story was the last appearance of the secondary TARDIS control room with the cool wood paneling and brass fittings. I gather the set pieces warped in storage between seasons, and so they reverted back to the traditional white control room with the round things.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Fourth
Companion(s): Leela
Episode(s): The Robots of Death - Parts 3 & 4
Steps Walked: 6,567 today, 1,532,812 total
Distance Walked: 3.45 miles today, 763.18 miles total
Weight: 258.40 lbs (five day moving average), net change -48.90 lbs