If I had to pick one word to describe this morning's treadmill viewing, it would be "disrupted". On the whole I think I am a good father, but I will be the first to admit that sometimes my reaction to my autistic son's obsessive behavior could be better. Case in point, this morning he was absolutely focused on his small red camera not working. It is worth noting that he has four, count them four digital cameras. Three of them were working properly, but he interrupted me on the treadmill no fewer than four times because that particular one was not. Fortunately my wife stepped in and contained him so I could finish my workout, because by the last time around I was responding less patiently than the autistic person. That's always a bad sign. In any case, I did finish the middle third of Shada. Here's what I thought.

Shada - Parts 3 & 4 (more or less)

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

Even if I hadn't known that this was a Douglas Adams story, I would have known that this was a Douglas Adams story. By this point in the 70's he was no longer the script editor for Doctor Who, and he had already gone on to more acclaim with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This, his last contribution to Who, contains all of the same rhythms and speech patterns that mark his other stories. That's a compliment.

In the middle third, as per usual, the leads get split up. The Doctor has his first face-off with ScarfaceSilverSpaceJumper dude, while Romana and K9 are paired up with the student researcher who kicked off the whole story by borrowing the ancient Gallifreyan WhateverBook. The Doctor has his mind stolen by a Silver Sphere that in no way resembles the one from Phantasm, in that it doesn't have spikes on it. Fortunately it turns out that the Doctor used some kind mind trick to fool the sphere, and subsequently talks circles around ScarfaceSilverSpaceJumper dude's ship computer.

Ultimately Romana and the student researcher wind up captured and taken into deep space when the bad guy steals the TARDIS (which he can control because the silver sphere has the Doctor's knowledge. Then the bad guy starts building a bunch of giant creepy WhateverMosnters.

As for the Doctor, he talks the ships computer through upgrading the propulsion and turning it into a poor man's TARDIS, and then teleports to where the bad guy started out.

Oh, also, along the way back on Earth the Time Lord professor dies. Oops.

As usual with a six-parter, there was a fair bit of treading water and reshuffling characters in the middle part. Even so, it never really dragged. At least, I don't think it did but (as mentioned earlier) I was fairly disrupted in watching it.

Mostly I just enjoyed watching Tom Baker in peak form running verbal circles around all comers.

Tomorrow: I wrap this one up.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Fourth
Companion(s): Romana, K9
Episode(s): Shada - Parts 3 & 4
Steps Walked: 7,046 today, 4,231,563 total
Distance Walked: 3.27 miles today, 2,215.11 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 100 today, 9,600 total
Sit-ups Completed: 0 today, 2,865 total
Weight: 264.76 lbs (five day moving average), net change -42.54 lbs