Good news! Eight months after Hurricane Irma we are finally getting our roof replaced. It's been a bit of a slog going round and round with the insurance company. In the grand scheme of things we are very fortunate in that we had no major structural damage, but I will be very relieved to have the roof done before the rainy season in Florida starts up in the next few weeks. The workers may be here tomorrow, or else the next day, which may or may not disrupt my treadmill time.

But I did get on the treadmill today, so let's talk Doctor Who.

The Poison Sky

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

Ugh, this story. I had forgotten most of it. Maybe I liked it more the first time around, and maybe I am just grumpy this time around, but still...  gah.

The gist of the back half of the story is that all of the ATMOS-equipped vehicles are pumping out a gas into the Earth's atmosphere. The big reveal is that the purpose of the gas is to turn the planet into a Sontaran clone factory. Meanwhile, Martha is an evil clone and the TARDIS gets stolen by the Sontarans with Donna on board. Oops! In the end tech genius Mark Zuckerberg Luke Rattigan is betrayed by the Sontarans (but not until after he has a completely ridiculous meltdown about how clever he is and how stupid everyone is for leaving him). The endgame is that the Doctor uses some Whatever technology to burn away all of the Sontaran clone gas, recovers the TARDIS and Donna, and then is about to sacrifice his own life to destroy the base ship. At the last moment Rattigan grows a conscience and sacrifices himself instead. Boo hoo.

This is just... not a great episode. The good news is that the writer never contributed another story every again (although she did act as script editor for multiple other stories). The character of Rattigan is just such a weak caricature it is painful to watch. He is fundamentally a stereotype of what non-technical people imagine that technical people are like, and speaking as a technical person it is offensive.

On the upside, tomorrow is The Doctor's Daughter which stars the Fifth Doctor's actual daughter and Tenth Doctor's future wife. It's a bit of a complicated relationship.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Tenth
Companion(s): Donna Noble, Wilfred Mott, Martha Jones
Episode(s): The Poison Sky
Steps Walked: 7,617 today, 2,891,185 total
Distance Walked: 4.10 miles today, 1,508.19 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 100 today, 2,514 total
Sit-ups Completed: 0 today, 929 total
Is the Doctor So, So Sorry?: Yes, twice over - first to Donna for making her go onto the Sontaran ship, and later to Martha for her being cloned
Weight: 250.66 lbs (five day moving average), net change -56.64 lbs