One fat geek's SUCCESSFUL attempt to regenerate into a not-so-fat geek by watching the entirety of Doctor Who while walking on a treadmill

Hardly anything is evil, but most things are hungry. Hunger looks very like evil from the wrong end of the cutlery.

Jul 26 2018
Hardly anything is evil, but most things are hungry. Hunger looks very like evil from the wrong end of the cutlery.

Here I am, driving to the end of this ridiculous project and circling back to nearly a year-and-a-half ago when I wrote about today's episode on its original air date. The funny thing about reaching the end right now is that I am in the midst of finishing a month-long run of acting in a stage show, plus this is my business time of the year at my day job, plus  a few other bits of drama. Still, I am trying to push through to the end of the project in just over a week, so let's get this done.

The Pilot

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

This episode is effectively a reboot of the show (hence the title with a double meaning). On the one hand, it is the perfect time for a new viewer to start watching the show. Every long-running plot thread from the Moffat era has been resolved, there is a brand new companion to do the whole audience surrogate thing ("it's bigger on the inside..."), and in terms of timelines it is decades since the last episode. The Doctor is now a professor at St. Luke's University, lecturing on pretty much whatever he feels like while he and Nardole keep watch over a hidden vault beneath the campus. The vault is, of course, the over-arching mystery of the season, and its contents won't be revealed for several episodes yet (it's totally Missy).

It's just weird to do a reset like this with show runner Steven Moffat already known to be handing over the reins to Chris Chibnall for the next season, and with Peter Capaldi already announced as leaving at the end of the season. This set of twelve episodes just kind of stands on its own as a weird coda before the huge sea change that is coming this fall.

Even so, with all that being said, this is a really great episode. Bill Potts works at the university and is fascinated by the Doctor's lectures even though she is not a student. (Yes, she's a girl, and her name is Bill. She's also gay. Deal with it.)  He takes her under his wing, and soon enough she gets wrapped up in some alien weirdness when a girl she is crushing on gets absorbed by some semi-sentient SpaceEngineCoolant. This leads to a chase across all of time and space, including a stop through the Movellan War with the Daleks. Bill (and the audience) get introduced to the TARDIS, Nardole gets a few laugh lines, the Doctor gets drawn back into the whole "saving the universe" business, and we are off.

After two lengthy eras with a primary companion who exists more to be a plot point than an actual character (The Girl Who Waited! The Impossible Girl!), it is so nice to have Bill Potts just be... Bill Potts. She is brave, funny, engaging, and although she may not be book smart she is certainly clever. She is someone that the Doctor can show off to, strong enough to stand her ground when the Doctor tries to steamroll over her, but still innocent enough to be wowed by the wonders the TARDIS shows her.

Good times ahead, at least for another dozen episodes. Whee!

STATS:

Doctor(s): Twelfth
Companion(s): Bill Potts, Nardole
Episode(s): The Pilot
Steps Walked: 7,185 today, 3,542,979 total
Distance Walked: 3.43 miles today, 1,852.88 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 0 today, 6,747 total
Sit-ups Completed: 0 today, 1,029 total
Weight: 248.14 lbs (five day moving average), net change -59.16 lbs


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