This morning I took the most steps, walked the furthest distance, and weighed the least I have since I started this project over eight months ago. In my 55 minute workout I clocked in 7,694 steps and 4.21 miles. By comparison, on Day 1 walked only 5,649 steps and 2.4 miles in the same 55 minutes. Better yet, I weighed in at 255.1 lbs, far outstripping my previous record of 255.9 set two weeks ago before I bounced back up. Of course the real question is, will I stay in that neighborhood tomorrow? We shall see. It was a nice bit of sunshine after a very frustrating two weeks of backwards progress. We shall see.

I also finished watching the current story this morning, so let's talk about that.

The Sun Makers - Parts 3 & 4

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

The cliffhanger at the end of the second episode had Leela, K-9, and two rebels trapped in a corridor by an approaching security force. Upon the start of the third episode, the two rebels escape with K-9 but Leela is captured. She is unsurprisingly sentenced to a public execution in an effort to draw out the Doctor, who is back in the undercity with the rebels. He rallies them to take up arms against the Company, and instigates a plan to knock out the central facility that is pumping the mind-altering gas into the city's air ducts and keeping the populace docile. The episode three cliffhanger has Leela about to be horribly executed by way of being slowly burned to death in a hot steam vent, with the Doctor crawling through the air ducts to try to rescue her.

Also unsurprisingly, at the start of the fourth episode the Doctor does indeed rescue her, and then heads for the Collector's palace to force a final showdown. There is a funny little bit where the Doctor refuses to kill one of the guards, but rather hypnotizes him into a deep sleep. While doing that, Leela also falls into the trance and the Doctor has to carefully wake her up while keeping the guard asleep. In the end there is a battle of wits between the Doctor and the Collector, who turns out to be an alien from the planet Usurius (Get it? The bad guy who has been bleeding humanity dry via usurious taxes is from a planet named Usurius.) Completely unsurprisingly, the Doctor has more wits than the Collector, who literally wilts away. Humanity is saved! Hurrah!

Actress Louise Jameson is on record as saying that this was far and away her favorite episode. That has less to do with the merits of the story itself, I think, and more to do with the fact that Robert Holmes deliberately split up the Doctor and Leela for most of the story so that they wouldn't have to interact on set. She says they are great friends now, which I don't doubt, but at the time things were very contentious on the set between them.

Also, to really appreciate the tone of this story you need to understand the context of the era in which it aired. The British economy was in free fall with unemployment at record levels, and it was the dawn of the Conservative movement with Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in the U.K. sweeping into office on a very pro-business and anti-union platform. In that context, the story is a cutting commentary on the dangers of unchecked corporatism. 

On the whole I liked it just fine, although as I said yesterday I wish the characters of Gatherer Hade and the Collector were not quite so cartoonish. Ultimately, at least, the Collector had an excuse as he turned out to not even be human. I have to admit I enjoyed Hade's final comeuppance, being completely confused by the lack of respect and deference by the newly freed populace as they hoisted him off the top of a skyscraper.

Death and taxes, man. Death and taxes.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Fourth
Companion(s): Leela, K-9
Episode(s): The Sun Makers - Parts 3 & 4
Steps Walked: 7,694 today, 1,614,219 total
Distance Walked: 4.21 miles today, 806.32 miles total
Weight: 258.18 lbs (five day moving average), net change -49.12 lbs