So the whole thing that derailed me yesterday? It kept me up half the night and even led to body horror stress nightmares. If you are reading this, Michael Montoure, I have a story idea for you involving tongues and parasites. So that's nice. The good news is, the issue finally got resolved by lunchtime today and all is good with the world. So the second half of the day was lovely and stress free, and wrapped up with glitter and roller disco and healthy dose of Mister Cellophane.

I will say this, though, today's Doctor Who treadmill viewing very certainly belonged right there in the unpleasant half of the day. So let's talk about that.

The Rings of Akhaten

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

This is easily my least favorite Eleventh Doctor story. Don't get me wrong, it's no Planet of the Giants, but it is easily the weakest of the season. The story idea is decent enough - the Doctor takes Clara on her first adventure in the TARDIS and visits the Rings of Akhaten during the Festival of Offerings, and then Things Go Wrong. It just felt like a first or second draft that needed some more polish and attention, especially when it climaxes with a big Eleventh Doctor monologue that feels completely unearned.

No, really. The story surrounds an entire religion built around singing a perpetual lullaby to an ancient space mummy and offering it meaningful tchotchkes to keep it appeased. Except that the space mummy turns out to just be an avatar for Ego the Living Planet Akhaten the Living Sun. The singing is lovely, although one hopes that the painfully stilted lyrics are just an awkward interpretation by the TARDIS translation matrix. The young girl who plays the sacrificial Queen of Years is suitably adorable. The visuals of the panoramic views of the titular Rings of Akhaten are mostly gorgeous. 

But all the zipping back and forth between the the pyramid on one asteroid and the ceremonial space on another, flying back and forth using a space sled right out of Flash Gordon lakes any sense of distance or consequence. And as I said before, the epic monologues at the end where the Doctor fails and then Clara succeeds in talking Ego the Living Planet Akhaten the Living Sun out of existence... well, they just lack any real dramatic weight.

I guess the good news is that, having now watched the worst Matt Smith episode, everything from here on out is much better. So I've got that going for me. As a matter of fact, tomorrow marks the return of the Ice Warriors since The Monster of Peladon way back in the Third Doctor era, and that will be worth bouncing out of bed for in the morning.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Eleventh
Companion(s): Clara Oswald
Episode(s): The Rings of Akhaten
Steps Walked: 7,431 today, 3,265,816 total
Distance Walked: 4.04 miles today, 1,706.84 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 0 today, 6,364 total
Sit-ups Completed: 0 today, 929 total
Is Anything Cool?: Not even close
Weight: 251.68 lbs (five day moving average), net change -55.62 lbs