So, can I just say.... a hundred and twenty eight sit-ups this morning! That is easily the most sit-ups I have done in one session since I left the Army in 1990. So, that's pretty cool. Also: as of today I am on vacation until January 2nd, 2019, which is also pretty cool. On the not-so-cool side, my low number of workouts over the past two weeks has certainly had the inevitable result. I hope to turn that back around in short order. We'll see how that works out. As for The Sarah Jane Adventures, well...  apparently Rani is not amused by my referring to her as NotMaria.

The Mad Woman in the Attic - Parts 1 and 2

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

This story opens with a future segment set in 2059, and with a haggard-looking sixty-five-year-old Rani living in Sarah Jane's home and being the titular mad woman in the attic. Then it jumps back to 2009 to explain how she got there. In a nutshell: she feels like she is dismissed by the whole gang as being NotMaria, so she runs off to have her own adventure. It goes badly.

The story is unique in that it does not have a true villain. There is a creepy abandoned amusement park (that is just begging for the Mystery Machine to roll up and investigate Old Man Sowersby, the caretaker). Inside the park there turns out to be a young alien girl with telekinetic powers who has turned several homeless people into puppets. Then there is Ship, the sentient spacecraft that is trying to care for the alien girl. In the end there is no nefarious plot at all, it is just a chain of misunderstandings, where the ship and the alien girl just need some help.

Also, of course, Rani's insecurities are remedied and she is fully embraced by the whole gang.

Also, also: apparently the licensing issues that kept K9 on an Australian spinoff show locked away monitoring a black hole are finally resolved, and at the end of the story he returns to Bannerman Road to become a series regular. So, yay!

I quite enjoyed this one. It is a fine enough axiom to say that "the villain should be the hero of their own story", but I truly admire a plot structure in which conflict is created not by some Snidely Whiplash caricature, but instead by well-meaning people making choices at odds with one another. Also, I appreciate that this series allows Sarah Jane to be human and to make errors in judgment. She dismisses Rani early on, not cruelly or intentionally but purely by being more focused on something else. In the end she owns up to her mistake, and it is a very sweet and thoughtful scene.

At this point I am fully on board with Rani being her own fully-realized character, and not just NotMaria anymore. Which is nice.

STATS:

Featuring: Sarah Jane Smith, Luke Smith, Clyde Langer, Rani Chandra, K9
Episode(s): The Mad Woman in the Attic - Parts 1 & 2
Steps Walked: 7,424 today, 4,127,269 total
Distance Walked: 3.84 miles today, 2,162.00 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 0 today, 8,900 total
Sit-ups Completed: 128 today, 1,753 total
Weight: 261.44 lbs (five day moving average), net change -45.86 lbs