Is it bad that I am counting the days until I am done with K9? Because I will totally be done with K9 in three more days...

The Custodians

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

*sigh* Inspector Thorne is up to something nefarious. You know what really irks me about this story? It would have been fine without Thorne being involved with the setup at all, narratively it didn't matter. The plot involves a virtual reality gaming company using an alien telepath in order to boost the signal of their game and to take over the minds of twenty million children playing it. Then it turns out that the alien is the last of his kind (there seem to be an awful lot of "last of their kinds" running around the Whoniverse), and he is double crossing the company and actually resurrecting his own race by genetically changing all of the captive children. Amidst that, Thorne is complicit in the scheme and is surprised when it all goes south. But the thing is, he didn't need to be involved at all. Here was a great opportunity to bring in Thorne as an unlikely ally in combating this threat, and do do something a little different. Instead, we get this. It is an ok story that could have been much better. And if that doesn't just sum up K9 as a series I don't know what does.

Taphony and the Time Loop

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

Holy crap, a completely original story that does not lean on any of the three major plot tropes of this series, and which provides character building moments for our leads. What happened here? Taphony is a time being who presents as a teenage human girl, and who has apparently been imprisoned by the Department for years. More importantly, Taphony was created by a failed experiment for which Gryffen was responsible. At the start of the story he orchestrates her escape from the virtual prison, because he has agonized over his past actions for years and is trying to set it right. The majority of the story is spent with her draining the life out of Jorjie while also trying (and generally failing) to understand friendship. She prematurely ages Gryffen as punishment for her own long imprisonment, and she just generally behaves in a very threatening and alien way while at the same time trying to become more human. In the end she finally understands why what she is doing is harmful, having learned that friends sacrifice for each other rather than harm each other, and in the nick of time she uses the space time portal to go somewhere safe where she can learn and grow. It is a really complex and moving story, well executed from start to finish. Where the heck has this writing been for the previous nineteen episodes? Can you imagine if this series had been allowed to grow and find its footing with this kind of story? Wow. It's almost disappointing that this story is so good, because it brings the rest of the show into stark contrast. Wow.

STATS:

Companion(s): K9, Starkey, Jorjie Turner, Darius Pike, Alistair Gryffen
Episode(s): The Custodians / Taphony and the Time Loop
Steps Walked: 7,331 today, 4,305,015 total
Distance Walked: 3.77 miles today, 2,252.48 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 0 today, 10,100 total
Sit-ups Completed: 200 today, 4,065 total
Weight: 264.48 lbs (five day moving average), net change -42.82 lbs