As I am sure all of you, my dear imaginary readers, recall, I was recently in a production of Xanadu. At one point in the show I quoted from the classic Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem Kubla Khan. You can imagine, then, just how amused I was when that exact quote came up in its entirety of today's episode of Torchwood...

Greeks Bearing Gifts

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

Random side note: I have now mis-typed 'Bearing' as 'Bearking' four times in a row -- including genuinely and un-ironically in this sentence. I have no idea why my fingers keep doing that. Weird.

So, today's episode was...  ok? After two consecutive genuinely good stories, this one was just kinda lukewarm. The story concerns Tosh being picked up by a hot chick who is Totally Not an Alien, and who gives Tosh a magical necklace that lets her hear what people are thinking. Shockingly, hearing what her co-workers really think about her does nothing to boost Tosh's ego. Also shockingly, her new girlfriend turns out to be an alien after all.

Also, Greg is not an alien.

All of which leads to the moment when Tosh brings her alien girlfriend to the hub, at which point her alien girlfriend looks around and says, "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea." Meanwhile I, on my treadmill, let out a squeal of delight. So, I guess bonus points for writer Toby Whithouse for making a classical reference in 2006 that would later be used in a Broadway farce in 2007, and which I would later perform in 2018. Twelve years is a seriously long way around for a Welsh show to deliver a line of dialogue that will delight exactly one American viewer, so bravo!

And on that note I am going to bed. The good news is that I remember the next two episodes being particularly good, so that's something to look forward to.

STATS:

Featuring: Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, Ianto Jones
Episode(s): Greeks Bearing Gifts
Steps Walked: 7,546 today, 3,759,147 total
Distance Walked: 4.03 miles today, 1,965.26 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 0 today, 7,051 total
Sit-ups Completed: 0 today, 1,029 total
Weight: 257.50 lbs (five day moving average), net change -49.80 lbs