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.

I just don't know what to say about the middle part of The Space Pirates. I know I spent an hour on the treadmill this morning, and watched two more reconstructed episodes. One presumes that something must have happened during those fifty minutes of viewing. I sweat a lot, and weighed within three pounds of my all-time lowest weight in this millennium, so that's nice, but other than that? Blah.

Let's talk about that.

This morning I started on The Space Pirates, which is the last Doctor Who story with episodes that are completely missing. By extension, this means that it is the last Loose Canon reconstruction that I will be watching in this project. There are a couple other notable things about today's episodes, as well.

Let's talk about that.

Remember that moment in M. Night Shyamalan's Signs in which you find that an intelligent space faring race has staged an entire invasion upon a planet where 2/3 of the surface area is covered by an element that is toxic to them, and upon which the same element just spontaneously falls from the sky on a daily basis, but they decided to launch the attack anyway? Turns out Shyamalan was not the first to have an alien invasion foiled by water.

Let's talk about that.

Good news! The Doctor totally didn't die in a horrible rocket crash at the beginning of the third episode of The Seeds of Death. I was so worried, I thought maybe it was the end of the series. Fortunately, at the last moment the cliffhanger was resolved and the Doctor (along with Jamie and Zoe) landed safely on the moon.

Let's talk about that.