Today marks the thirteen month anniversary of the day I started this ridiculous project. In that time I have walked 1,339.57 miles on the treadmill while taking 2,579,882 steps, watching 703 episodes and 61 stories of Doctor Who, and losing 57.82 pounds in weight. I have also gone from barely being able to do three push-ups to being able to do forty. I have reached a point where I am no longer actively losing weight, but my body shape continues to change. Heck, just last night I auditioned for a part in a stage production where, if I actually get cast, I will need to be able to roller skate. I feel (to quote the Ninth Doctor) fantastic!

As for this morning's viewing, this is the story that (for me at least) put a stake in the ground and declared, "This is Doctor Who, and it not only has something to say but the skill to say it." So let's talk about that.

Dalek

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

The basic thrust of this story is that the Doctor follows an alien distress signal to an underground bunker in Arizona, and discovers that a billionaire tech genius has not only built a private alien artifact museum, but that he actually has a living Dalek imprisoned there. Naturally the Dalek awakens, and Very Bad Things happen.

Holy cow but this is an excellent story. First of all, it takes the Daleks (who by the end of the classic series had been an enemy of diminishing returns) and turns them back into a genuine threat. With one single Dalek, the show demonstrates the very real possibility that the singular RobotNazi could lay waste to the entire human race. When it first appears on screen it is beautifully weathered and distressed, covered in rust and grime while chained to the floor and impotent to use its weapons. In the second act, when it repairs itself thanks to some accidentally genetic material from Rose, it becomes a gorgeously-menacing golden battle tank. Not only is the prop design itself magnificent, but the story also takes pains to first make fun of and then put to rest the notion that plunger arm is silly or that the Daleks can be stopped by a staircase (although technically the latter had already been settled in Remembrance of the Daleks). By the end of the story this singular Dalek has brutally killed dozens of humans, from unfortunate scientists to armed and militarized security guards, and proves itself to be absolutely terrifying.

On top of that, the story puts a sharp focus on the Doctor's emotional fallout from being the lone survivor of the Last Great Time War. Thirty years earlier the Fourth Doctor struggled with the morality of wiping out the entire Dalek race in Genesis of the Daleks, and now here he is six regenerations later (don't forget the War Doctor), fully prepared to wipe out the last Dalek with no remorse. It is up to Rose to pull him back from the brink, and vividly highlights exactly why the Doctor needs traveling companions.

Buy the real hat trick, the genuine miracle, is the point where the story is able to get you the viewer to actually feel pity for the Dalek and maybe even shed a tear for its passing. By absorbing Rose's DNA it also gains a human's capacity for feelings, leading to a remarkable scene between the Doctor and the Dalek, the last two survivors of the war that wiped out both of their species. It is a masterful stroke of writing. 

In the end the threat is eliminated not because the Doctor does a Very Clever Thing, but because the Dalek cannot live with what it perceives as an incurable sickness and corruption. 

I love this story so much. When I first saw it, I was positive without question that it would be my favorite story of the season. And then along came Father's Day, The Empty Child, and The Doctor Dances. It's just an embarrassment of riches to come.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Ninth
Companion(s): Rose Tyler, Adam Mitchell
Episode(s): Dalek
Steps Walked: 7,639 today, 2,579,882 total
Distance Walked: 4.31 miles today, 1,339.57 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 0 today, 323 total
Weight: 249.48 lbs (five day moving average), net change -57.82 lbs