Today has been a pretty satisfying day. I got to sleep an hour later than usual, and still was able to do a boatload of pushups and put in my 4+ miles on the treadmill. At work I battled a really interesting software problem, and finally conquered it right at the end of my day. I did a Facebook Live video to promote upcoming cabaret at the Orlando Fringe Festival, and a spent a chunk of time this evening practicing clarinet and making some real progress. As I say, it's been a satisfying day.

And, of course, I watched the first episode of Doctor Who with Martha Jones as a companion. So let's talk about that.

Smith and Jones

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

The gist of this story is that a hospital in London is suddenly transported to the surface of the moon, and is then beset by the Rhinoceros-headed Judoon who are acting as pseudo-police goons to hunt down an alien criminal. Mostly it is a vehicle to introduce Martha Jones and to bring her into the Doctor's orbit. Martha is, in a word, awesome. She is a medical student very close to becoming a doctor, and is both smart and inquisitive. When the bizarre stuff starts happening, she remains calm and starts asking all the right questions. She's also got some family drama going on, because the template for early NuWho is still to attract some of the Eastenders crowd, but it's a different kind of family drama than Rose had so it's not a retread.

As for the Doctor, he is still smarting from the loss of Rose but enough time has passed that he is starting to mend.  So naturally, after he and Martha finish taking care of the evil plasmavore masquerading as a nice old lady, and succeed in sending the Judoon scurrying away and transporting the hospital back to Earth where it belongs, he invites Martha to join him in the TARDIS for "just one trip". Sure.

The story itself is fairly light, in that it has to be resolved early enough to give time at the end for introducing Martha to the TARDIS and letting her have her "bigger on the inside" moment. Even so, it is rock solid and tightly plotted. The Judoon look fantastic, and the visuals of the lonely hospital stranded on the moon's surface are gorgeous. 

It's only Series Three, but it feels like a completely new show. Yeah, Martha is going to crush on the Doctor for a bit, but he's not interested and she gets over it, so we are done with romance inside the TARDIS. For that I am overjoyed. At this point I am rolling into Peak Who, and I couldn't be happier about it.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Tenth
Companion(s): Martha Jones
Episode(s): Smith and Jones
Steps Walked: 7,549 today, 2,756,755 total
Distance Walked: 4.10 miles today, 1,436.46 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 141 today, 1,254 total
Is the Doctor So, So Sorry?: He's still kind of sorry that Martha's cousin Adeola died at the Battle of Canary Wharf
Weight: 250.18 lbs (five day moving average), net change -57.12 lbs