Brutal honesty, the trend line on that historical weight chart on the right has been driving me nuts. I've been stagnant in the 240's since before Christmas. In the last week the trend line moved upwards significantly for the first time since I started this ridiculous project. And yet, this morning I weighed in at my lowest weight since beginning the project. Which is both awesome and frustrating. I am going to finish up the Sixth Doctor tomorrow morning, and he will be the first Doctor in the project with whom I have gained weight. As if Colin Baker hadn't suffered enough indignity already. When I started I said very clearly that I didn't care about weight, that it was just a good gross number to track progress against, and that I had no particular destination in mind. I really need to get better at convincing myself that this is true.

Anyway, I finished the latest sub-story in this stupid Space Trial this morning, so let's talk about that.

The Trial of a Time Lord - Parts 11 & 12 (A.K.A. Terror of the Vervoids - Parts 3 & 4)

(TARDIS Data Core page for The Trial of a Time Lord, TARDIS Data Core recap for Terror of the Vervoids)

In true Agatha Christie fashion, there is no shortage of guilty parties as the story builds towards its climax. Among the suspect pool there are plenty of people who have done bad things, and each reveal simply shows up a red herring that has no direct impact on the threat to the ship. There's a hijacking and hostage situation, there are scientific squabbles, but at the end of the day mostly there are Triffids Vervoids running around the ship intent on destroying all animal life.

True to historical form, the Doctor is genuinely sympathetic to the plight of the Vervoids if not to their actions. This story has the Sixth Doctor being the most Doctor-like of his entire run, with barely a wink and a nod to his egotistical underpinnings. This entire season has served Colin Baker well. Had he not been so badly treated by the management at the BBC, and had he been allowed a longer run in the role, he really could have been a truly great Doctor. Well, and had he not been given such a deliberately awful costume.

In any case, ultimately the Doctor is forced to balance the lives of all of humanity should the Vervoids reach Earth vs the lives of the five Vervoids on board the ship that make up their entire race. In the the end the Doctor has to do a Very Clever (but Tragic) Thing, and the sentient plants are completely and utterly destroyed. When that happens, we get at least a glimpse of the Lonely God aspect of the Doctor, and it really doesn't feel like much of a victory.

As for the trial itself, well, the Doctor has just outright admitted to literally being a genocidal maniac. That doesn't bode well for avoiding a sentence of death himself.

I will say that Mel is marginally better in these two episodes. No more fitness shenanigans, and at several points she takes strong and cogent individual action to combat the situations at hand with no guidance from the Doctor. So at least on that count she is ahead of Peri. Hopefully her character will continue this trend. Even so, I can still hardly wait to get to Ace. At least she likes to blow stuff up.

Tomorrow marks one full year since I started this project. Can you believe that? Weird.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Sixth
Companion(s): Mel
Episode(s): The Trial of a Time Lord - Parts 11 & 12 (A.K.A. Terror of the Vervoids - Parts 3 & 4)
Steps Walked: 7,585 today, 2,361,885 total
Distance Walked: 4.40 miles today, 1,220.93 miles total
Weight: 247.40 lbs (five day moving average), net change -59.90 lbs