Another day I slept in instead of working out at 6am, but I got it done later in the day. Today was a sit-ups day (82!), and theoretically tomorrow is the day I get back up to 100+ push-ups in a day. We'll see how that goes. In the meantime, today was Maria's last episode as a series regular on The Sarah Jane Adventures. I gather the actress decided she needed to focus on school instead of acting, so she was written gracefully out of the show while still leaving the door open (and she pops up in person at least one more time this season). As exits go, it was pretty well done...

The Last Sontaran - Parts 1 & 2

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

This story acts as a sequel to the Tenth Doctor two-parter The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky. It turns out that one sole Sontaran survived the destruction of the mothership, and has spent months recovering and plotting for the destruction of Earth in revenge. Said revenge is to be achieved by hijacking a radio telescope in the English town of Goblins Copse, and using that station in order to take control of every satellite currently in orbit and cause them to crash into nuclear power plants around the globe to trigger a world-ending cataclysm. Oops.

Meanwhile, Maria's dad gets a job offer that would require him to move to America. Being a stand-up kind of guy, he is hesitant to accept the job even though it is a dream job that would do wonders for his career. His number one priority is to do what is right for Maria, and to some extent for her mom as well. So most of the story has Maria struggling with whether or not she wants to leave Sarah Jane, Luke, and Clyde behind, whilst also dealing with an alien invasion. So, basically your average Thursday.j

Of course in the end the Sontaran is defeated (surprisingly via a very expensive shoe deployed by Maria's mom to the back of the Sontaran's probic vent), and of course Maria decides that moving is the right thing to do. It was all very well done, even the sly reveal at the end that Maria's mom knows all about the alien stuff.

This was not a bad episode. Perhaps not as excellent as half of the previous season, but still pretty dang good. Putting Sarah Jane face-to-potatoface with a Sontaran for the first time since The Sontaran Experiment way back in 1974 was a great dramatic choice. For some reason I was a little surprised that the Sontaran himself wasn't played by Dan Starkey, who played Commander Skorr in The Poison Sky and more famously played Strax in all of the Paternoster Gang stories, but I guess clone race or not it doesn't really make a huge difference visually whose face is buried beneath the potato head mask.

Tomorrow should be interesting. It's a "scary clown" story, and that's always a fun time.

STATS:

Featuring: Sarah Jane Smith, Luke Smith, Maria Jackson, Clyde Langer
Episode(s): The Last Sontaran
Steps Walked: 7,734 today, 4,074,947 total
Distance Walked: 4.31 miles today, 2,134.53 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 0 today, 8,549 total
Sit-ups Completed: 83 today, 1,421 total
Weight: 257.34 lbs (five day moving average), net change -49.96 lbs