Oh, such bliss this morning on the Time Treadmill. Such joy! Not only does the Second Doctor, my Doctor, return to the series, but even better the story focuses on him and Jamie for more than ten minutes before the Sixth Doctor even shows up on screen. Talk about a great way to start my day!

Let's talk about that.

Good lord, what a long day. For the past eleven months I have been watching two 25-minute episodes per day, but this morning's viewing was the twentieth anniversary special that is effectively a movie with no breaking point. That meant that I spent a full 102 minutes on the treadmill, walking further than I ever have in a single day. Then I had a full day of work, and then a big birthday party. Aside from being Alexander Hamilton's birthday, today is my wife's birthday (and also my boss' birthday, and also a friend's birthday), plus my own birthday is on Monday. So we had a whole big thing planned for tonight. Unfortunately my wife has the flu and couldn't go out, but we filmed everyone singing to her. After that I had to go back to work to do a software release, and so now here I am at nearly midnight just finally writing this post.

So let's talk about the big twentieth anniversary special.

This is going to be brief because I'm in Vegas, the conference I have been helping to run is over, and I have a party to go to. But dang it, I still managed to squeeze in an hour on the treadmill and two episodes of Doctor Who because you all matter so much to me, my dear Imaginary Readers. So let's talk extremely briefly about The Three Doctors.

After missing my treadmill session yesterday, I was bound and determined to get it in today. I barely managed it between my main work shift and a working dinner tonight (poor me, I had to go to a fantastical catered dinner with amazing food and live entertainment at the Bellagio, I am sure you are weeping for my plight). That being said, I am truly on my last legs right now. But as I said, I did manage to watch the first two episodes of the very excellent The Three Doctors.

Let's talk about that.

This morning marked my viewing the final episodes of The War Games, and by extension the final episodes of the Patrick Troughton era, the final monochrome episodes, and the end of the 60's. On top of that, I very nearly broke the 270 barrier weighing in at 270.1 lbs. That is a new record low for this project, and I am within three tenths of a pound of dropping below my lowest recorded weight of the twenty-first century. It appears that I may well hit that milestone tomorrow morning, fittingly with an explosion of color as Doctor Who enters the 70's with a new Doctor, a new companion, and a new basic premise for the show. But before then, there were still two last episodes to get through today.

Let's talk about that.

In today's viewing of The War Games, the TARDIS-like transport units are finally identified by name: SIDRAT (pronounced "side rat"). The acronym (which is quite obviously just TARDIS spelled backwards) is never defined on-screen, but apparently in the novelization it is given as Space and Inter-time Directional Robot All-purpose Transporter. Which, let's be honest, is a stretch. But hey, what can you do? Other than that, Doctor Who's longest serial continues to march on, and the forces of good are finally beginning to rally against the forces of evil.

Let's talk about that.

Here it is! Finally, after 250 episodes and five and a half years, in the sixth episode of The War Games we finally hear the phrase "Time Lords". It still won't be concretely associated to the Doctor until tomorrow's viewing, but as a viewer we finally have a name for the Doctor's people. From a historical perspective it is a huge moment, even if it is treated almost as an aside in the story itself.

Let's talk about that.

In my day job I am a software architect, and easily the bane of my existence has been time zones. This is not a unique experience, and Tom Scott does a lovely job explaining why it is such a problem. I actually own a t-shirt that was designed for me by my friend (and fellow Doctor Who fan) Michael Montoure which reads "Time zones will be the death of me". I have long ago lost track of how many hours I have spent dealing with time zone issues, even when using the most stable and well-regarded common software libraries. Just the phrase "time zone" makes me cringe. So you can imagine my visceral reaction when, it today's viewing, the Doctor and companions find a map laying out all of the different wars being fought (the Great War, the American Civil War, etc.), with each one being labeled as a different "Time Zone".

Well, here we are. After more than four months, four hundred miles, and well over 800,000 steps on the treadmill, I have arrived at the final story of what I would consider the first major era of Doctor Who. It's the last monochrome story, the last story of the 1960's, and the last season in which the episodes ran essentially non-stop year-round. It is also notable for quite a few firsts, but those won't come until later in the story. What I watched this morning appeared to be a First World War story set in the year 1917, with a few bits of science-fictional weirdness, right up until the last shot.

Big milestone today, I passed four hundred cumulative miles of walking since I started this project. Looks like I will hit the big 500 around the first of August. Yay me! Small milestone today, I finished The Space Pirates. Finally.