Right off the bat, can I get three cheers for hyper-dehydration? As I predicted yesterday, this morning after my regular workout plus doing the yard work I weighed in more than three pounds lower than yesterday and hit my target of getting back below 270 by the 15th. It's not real, it is an artificially low number, and it will certainly bounce back up if not tomorrow then on the day after. But I am just proud enough to take the win. I spent several hours this afternoon walking around in the Florida sun at Epcot photographing princesses with my autistic son, and even though I have been drinking water like crazy I still feel dehydrated. We'll see what tomorrow brings, but for today I am satisfied. The five day moving average has finally turned in my favor, and it's full steam ahead from here.

Now, about Blake's 7...

Powerplay

(Blake's 7 Wiki Recap)

This episode, like the one before it, is scripted by series creator Terry Nation and it shows. It is spectacularly good, and finishes setting up the new direction for the show. In a lot of ways it feels like early in the first season in that sense. It is also, I gather, the one and only episode of Blake's 7 that opens with a repeat / re-staging of the previous episode.

Case in point, Avon and Dayna teleport onto the Liberator and find themselves at the gunpoint of a Federation officer who has taken command of the ship. The main focus of the story, then, is Avon working hard to not reveal he is one of Blake's crew and to outwit the small group of Federation soldiers who are trying to wrest control of the Liberator from Zen. Alternating with that we have Vila with a broken arm stranded on one planet, and Cally receiving medical care on another ship where Servalan is also a patient.

Interestingly, on the Liberator the bodies of the Federation soldiers start piling up even though Avon and Dayna are not the ones killing them. There is a bit of a mystery there as to who the traitor is, which of course turns out to be Tarrant. I knew this was coming only because I knew that he would be (along with Dayna) the permanent replacement for the new crew for the remainder of the series. Had I not been spoiled with that knowledge I would have found that twist to be a genuine surprise.

Mostly it is just a treat to watch Paul Darrow do his thing as Avon. He has been my favorite character on the show since the first moment he appeared, and I am overjoyed to see him take the lead now. Blake was fine and all, but it is Avon who captivates with his complexity. As for poor Vila and Cally, it turns out that both are in the hands of a group of people who pretend to be medical saviors but who turn out to be capitalists who make their living by selling the healthy organs of the people they capture. Oops. At the last possible moment both are teleported on board the Liberator. The final scene has Dayna and Tarrant being given command access to Zen, and our new crew is complete.

I am fascinated to see where the show goes from here. Had it been produced a decade later I would expect the writing to be a thinly veiled commentary on the breakup of the Soviet Union and the fallout as the central government tries to retrench and reassert power while the satellite territories stumble into self-rule. For a show written at the dawn of the 80's, though, I am not quite sure what to expect. I am desperately trying to avoid looking ahead, so that I can enjoy the ride unspoiled. When I originally heard that two out of the four seasons did not even feature the title character, I was curious how that would work. Now I can see it, and I am delighted. The show has transformed from "small group of revolutionaries trying to bring down the government" into "small group of survivors struggling to get by in an unstable universe", and with Avon running the show I couldn't be happier.

It's funny, there was a point where I was sick of the treadmill and I desperately needed to find other things to get away from it. You can see for yourself just how well that has worked just by looking at the chart on the home page. Now I find myself genuinely excited to get back to the treadmill each morning, hooked into the show, and trying to figure out how I am going to keep it rolling for the seventeen days I will be away from home for work next month. I am energized, excited, and back to being all-in on this ridiculous project. Life is good.

STATS:

Episode(s): Blake's 7: Powerplay
Steps Walked: 7,335 today, 4,840,860 total
Distance Walked: 3.39 miles today, 2,511.17 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 65 today, 11,930 total
Sit-ups Completed: 0 today, 7,065 total
Weight: 271.78 lbs (five day moving average), net change -35.52 lbs