This morning I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Catherine Tate, a.k.a. Donna Noble, at MegaCon Orlando. As one would expect, she was absolutely lovely. I got her autograph on my Time Treadmill inspiration poster, and then got this photo with her:

Prior to that, however, I watched the Craig & Sophie episode of Doctor Who, so let's talk about that.

The Lodger

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

The premise of this story is just delightfully fun: the Doctor gets stranded in Colchester, Essex, England when the TARDIS gets stuck in a denaturalization loop. This leaves Amy trapped inside the TARDIS while the Doctor tries to figure out what is causing the interference that is preventing the TARDIS from landing completely. Therefore, as makes perfect sense, he moves into an apartment with Craig Owens (played by James Corden). Because sure, why not?

As a side note, James Corden and Matt Smith are long-time friends, and their chemistry together comes through on screen beautifully.

So anyway, Craig has something mysterious going on upstairs in the apartment above, which the Doctor is trying to investigate without the use of technology. Also, Craig is desperately in love with his best friend Sophie, who is also desperately in love with him, but neither of them have the nerve to say anything. Can I just point out, if two people as so clearly in love that even the Doctor notices, it's pretty serious.

So the Doctor does a bunch of wacky things like walking around in just a towel, playing soccer (sorry, I can't call it football without sounding like a pretentious American poser), and cooking omelets. It's a heck of a lot of fun. After such a heavy emotional story like Vincent and the Doctor, and leading into the season finale, this story makes for the perfect palate cleanser. In the end it turns out that there actually is no upstairs, it is actually a stranded spaceship using a perception filter to hide and appear to be a second story. it is also luring in humans to try to pilot the ship away, and all of them keep burning out. It takes Craig and Sophie, with there absolute desire to stay in one place together, to short circuit the program and set everything right. 

Aw, how sweet.

I love this episode a lot, even if it is just light and silly entertainment. That's the beauty of Doctor Who in that from week-to-week it can be literally anything. Period drama. Sitcom. Action romp. Military adventure. Western. It's what keeps me coming back to the treadmill day after day.

Tomorrow:  the great Matt Smith monologue, the one that will inevitably be used in any retrospective looking back on the various incarnations of the Doctor, the one that absolutely defines who he is as a character. So that'll be cool.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Eleventh
Companion(s): Amy Pond
Episode(s): The Lodger
Steps Walked: 7,570 today, 3,077,544 total
Distance Walked: 4.07 miles today, 1,605.83 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 0 today, 4,364 total
Sit-ups Completed: 0 today, 929 total
How Many Times has Rory Died?: 2 Is Anything Cool?: Yes, bow ties are still cool
Weight: 249.36 lbs (five day moving average), net change -57.94 lbs