Today marks the nine month anniversary of the day I started this ridiculous project. In that time I have walked 896.88 miles on the treadmill while taking 1,778,382, watching 512 episodes and 104 stories of Doctor Who, and losing 53.42 pounds in weight. That's another 4.14 pounds since last month. There was actually a point about two weeks ago where I hit a new all-time low at 55.6 pounds lost, but that was the very bottom of an insane stretch where I lost eight pounds in under two weeks, which was clearly unsustainable. The fact that I bounced back up from that was inevitable, but the long-term trend is still awesome. I still have a stretch goal to weigh in under 250 pounds at least once before Christmas, and I think that is totally achievable.

So yeah, very happy with how things are going. Also very happy to have spent another hour today with the second half of my second-favorite Fourth Doctor story. Let's talk about that.

City of Death - Parts 3 & 4

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

In the third part of the story, the Doctor has taken a quick jaunt back to Renaissance Italy in order to visit Da Vinci and find out what's up with all the extra Mona Lisa's. Apparently the Randomizer circuit on the TARDIS can by easily bypassed? And the Doctor can actually steer the thing accurately when he really wants to? Anyway, he doesn't get to meet Leonardo, but he does discover that the bad guy from 1979 Paris is actually the last survivor of the Jagaroth race, and that he was splintered across time into a dozen different eras when his spaceship exploded in primordial Earth four hundred million years ago. 

By the fourth part, the Doctor is back in present-day Paris and has uncovered the real plot, which is for the bad guy to travel all the way back in time to prevent himself from pressing the button that caused his ship to explode. The problem with this plan is that, his ship exploding turns out to be the triggering event that activated the primordial slime via high radiation, thus creating the initial life on Earth. If he succeeds in his plot, the entire history of mankind, not to mention all other life on Earth, will be wiped out. Fortunately, the Doctor and Romana bring along the bumbling detective with a penchant for thumping, and he clocks the bad guy with "the most important punch in history." Hooray!

There is a delicious bit in the last episode where Monty Python alum John Cleese makes a cameo as a snobby art patron who, along with a companion, are pontificating about the brilliance of a particular piece of art which turns out to be the TARDIS. Even after the Doctor and friends dash inside the police box and it fades away, the two art lovers never break their insipid faux-intellectualism. It is a touch of lightness that fits right in with the tone of the rest of the story. Let's face it, you can never go wrong with a John Cleese cameo.

I just can't overstate how much I adore this story, which perfectly marries deft humor with mind-bending science fiction and perfectly showcases the talents of everybody involved. If I could, I would just watch this story again tomorrow. Sadly, though, I have a schedule to keep. Onward ho!

STATS:

Doctor(s): Fourth
Companion(s): Romana
Episode(s): City of Death - Episodes 3 & 4
Steps Walked: 7,366 today, 1,778,382 total
Distance Walked: 4.04 miles today, 896.88 miles total
Weight: 253.88 lbs (five day moving average), net change -53.42 lbs