A week ago I added pushups to my morning workout routine. Being a total wimp, I could only do three. Since then I have been able to add another one each day, such that this morning I was able to do nine pushups without resting. That's a 300% increase in only a week!! at that rate,by my math, by the end of March I will be doing.... let's see... 729 pushups in one go without resting. How cool will that be? Wait, what, that's not how it works? Huh. Well, anyway, after a year of primarily cardio I am slowly introducing strength training. It's a little tough, with an hour of each day committed to the Time Treadmill, but I am doing the best I can. I just did the math, and it is going to be August before I complete this project.But pushups are a good start, and I will add more variations as I can. If anyone has advice on what home strength training tools work vs what ones are scams, please send me a note. I would love some practical advice.

Meanwhile, over on Doctor Who, I watched the first two thirds of possibly the most batshit insane plot ever devised for the show. Let's talk about that.

Delta and the Bannermen - Parts 1 & 2

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

I am going to try to describe this story, but it may take longer to write than to just tell you to go watch it. Also, as I describe it, please also imagine that not only is it insane but that it is hellatiously fun. Five stars, would watch again.

On a battlefield that does not at all look like an English rock quarry, the titular Delta (a white-clad beautiful but capable battle-hardened princess) is trapped in a losing last-stand fight against the titular Bannermen (a group of black-clad mercenaries who, of course, are also carrying banners). Delta manages to escape, along with a mysterious package, by stealing one of the Bannermen spacecraft.

Meanwhile, the TARDIS materializes in some kind of space toll plaza  where, randomly, they are ten billionth customer and, as such, the Doctor and Mel win an all-expenses paid trip to 1959 Disneyland with an intergalactic tour group.

Because, of course they do.

This tour group is comprised of a bunch of giant walking poop emojis who walk through a Transformation Arch to disguise themselves and 1950's humans. 

Because, of course they do.

The tour bus is a spacecraft disguised to look like a 1950's motorcoach. For some silly reason the Doctor decides to let Mel take the bus while he follows along in the TARDIS. At the last moment, Delta arrives and then ducks onto the tour bus taking up the Doctor's empty seat.

Meanwhile on Earth, the United States is launching a new satellite. Elsewhere on Earth, in South Wales, two American CIA agents make use of an actual police call box in order to call the White House and get instructions from the President's right-hand man.

Because, of course they do.

As the tour bus enters Earth orbit it collides with the newly launched satellite, which causes them to go into a death spiral into the Earth's atmosphere until the Doctor does a Very Clever Thing and saves everyone. The TARDIS and the tour bus land in front of a Welsh holiday camp called Shangri-la.

Because, of course they do.

The Doctor bluffs everyone's way into staying the night in Shangri-la while he grows a new crystal thingy to repair the tour bus.

There is a getting-to-know-you dance where the local band plays rockabilly. There is a mysterious stranger following Delta around. Delta's mysterious package turns out to be an egg from which hatches the Chimaron Princess, initially a little green reptilian thing, but she grows rapidly. There's an unrequited love story between the local young mechanic / rock band singer and a young woman named Ray who was clearly intended to become the next companion but then the showrunners changed their minds. There is a weirdly amiable bee keeper who pops up now and then. The two CIA guys run around the South of Wales searching for the lost satellite. The Bannermen arrive and blow shit up. There is a rockabilly version of the Doctor Who theme song. 

It's just... the whole thing is weird and random and impossible to describe properly and it is absolutely lovely in every possible way.

Sylvester McCoy continues to shine as the Doctor. Mel continues to be completely worthless as a companion, but she is so minimized and shoved offscreen by both Delta and Ray that it doesn't matter. The incidental music is dead on for setting the mood of the piece, somehow managing to be both futuristic and retro-fifties at the same time. The locations and costumes are great, the effect at the end of the first episode with the hatching of the Chimaron Princess is nothing short of brilliant, and if the spaceship effects are a bit dodgy it doesn't really matter.

I have never been so happy to be so completely wrong. Having never watched the Seventh Doctor era before, but armed with my knowledge of the behind-the-scenes strife and gutted budges, I really expected these three weeks to be a slog. Instead, I am loving every minute of it. Hurrah for weird and random, especially when it all turns out to be so well-constructed and hangs together perfectly.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Seventh
Companion(s): Mel
Episode(s): Delta and the Bannermen - Parts 1 & 2
Steps Walked: 7,498 today, 2,406,605 total
Distance Walked: 4.12 miles today, 1,245.95 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 9 today, 38 total
Weight: 246.54 lbs (five day moving average), net change -60.76 lbs