The Long Game

162 – "The Long Game"
Doctor Who episode
The Editor takes The Doctor and Rose captive
Cast
Doctor Christopher Eccleston (Ninth Doctor)
Companions Billie Piper (Rose Tyler) Bruno Langley (Adam Mitchell)
Others Colin Prockter – Head Chef Christine Adams – Cathica Anna Maxwell-Martin – Suki Simon Pegg – The Editor Tamsin Greig – Nurse Judy Holt – Adam's mother
Production
Writer	Russell T Davies
Director	Brian Grant
Script editor	Elwen Rowlands
Producer	Phil Collinson
Executive producer(s)	Russell T Davies Julie Gardner Mal Young
Production code	1.7
Series	Series 1
Length	45 minutes
Originally broadcast	May 7, 2005
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → "Dalek" "Father's Day"

"The Long Game" is seventh episode of the first series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who that was first broadcast on May 7, 2005. Along with new companion Adam, the TARDIS deposits the Doctor and Rose on Satellite 5, a space station that broadcasts across the entire human empire. However, the Doctor senses things wrong on the station: there are no aliens, and those who are promoted to Floor 500 simply disappear.

Plot

The Doctor and Rose bring Adam in his first trip aboard the TARDIS into the future, arriving aboard Satellite 5, a space station orbiting Earth in the year 200,000. Rose escorts the bewildered Adam around the station, while the Doctor becomes curious as to the station's purpose. The Doctor meets with Cathica, a reporter, and discovers the station is a giant broadcast tower transmitting news across the globe, using special "ports" installed on the foreheads of the reporters to facilitate information transfer. The Doctor believes there is a malevolent purpose to the station that is holding back human development. The Doctor learns from Cathica that a select few are invited to "Floor 500", believed to be the highest promotion they can get, but they never return to the lower floors of the station.

The Doctor regroups with Rose, allowing Adam to roam free after modify his phone to become a "superphone". The Doctor hacks into the computer systems of the station, but is detected by "The Editor". Despite this intrusion, the Editor allows the Doctor and Rose to travel to Floor 500. Cathica, initially resistant, later follows the pair. There, the Doctor and Rose find the Editor, a human, direction control over the station through a number of dead humans, those that were invited to Floor 500, in a freezer-like environment. On the ceiling resides the "Editor-in-Chief", the Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe ("Max" for short), who the Editor answers to. The Doctor learns that Max has controlled the humans aboard Station 5 to broadcast terrifying news to the planet to keep the rest of the species in check, creating an Empire where humans are only allowed to live instead of being in control as the Doctor recalls.

Meanwhile, Adam, allowed to roam free in the Station, discovers he can gain access to information about Earth's future, which he can use for financial gain in his present. When he finds that using the traditional methods to communicate this information to his parent's answering machine is too slow, and opts to receive the port installation, enabling him to receive and transmit the information faster. However, this also allows Max to investigate Adam's mind, and discovers that the Doctor is a Time Lord, and his TARDIS likely nearby, and becomes determined to kill the Doctor. The Doctor, aware of Cathica's presence outside the room, loudly comments on how altering the environmental systems will likely kill Max. Cathica takes the hint, severs Adam's connection, and reverses the cooling system, causing Floor 500 to overheat and killing Max and the Editor.

As humans aboard the station and on Earth come to awake from the stupor they've been in, the Doctor congratulates Cathica and gives her hope for the future. However, the Doctor and Rose are furious with Adam. They take him back to his parents' home, where the Doctor destroys the answering machine tape to wipe the future knowledge off it, and leave without Adam, warning him that he will have to live a quiet life to prevent the port from being discovered.

Continuity

• This is the time period of the "Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire". The first Earth Empire was featured in several Third Doctor stories in the 1970s. It lasted from around the mid-26th century (Frontier in Space) to the early 31st century (The Mutants).
• While this is not the first time that a companion has tried to change history (that distinction belongs to Barbara in The Aztecs), Adam is the first to try to exploit the future for personal gain. The issue of changing history would be dealt with more directly in the next episode, "Father's Day".
• Rose's "superphone", which the Doctor modified to allow her to call back to her own time (c. 2005) in "The End of the World" appears to be intelligent enough to realise who is using it, as it allows Adam to call back to his own time period of 2012 as well as back to Earth without the need for an area code.
• When Adam first calls back to the 21st century, the establishing shot for his parents' home uses the same house that Mickey was in front of when he was captured by the Nestene-animated dustbin in "Rose".
• The related update of Mickey's "Who is Doctor Who?" website has an essay from a 14-year-old Adam Mitchell.
• Adam is the first on-screen companion in Doctor Who history to be evicted from the TARDIS for bad behaviour.
• The junk food vendor on board Satellite 5 is selling "kronkburgers". Kronkburgers were consumed by the guards of an alternate Roman Empire that had conquered the galaxy in the Doctor Who comic strip story, Doctor Who and the Iron Legion, that ran in Doctor Who Weekly #1-#8. They are also mentioned in the New Series Adventures novel The Resurrection Casket.
• Following the "bad wolf" theme begun in earlier episodes of the season, one of the broadcast channels featuring the Face of Boe (from "The End of the World") is named "BAD WOLFTV". (See Story arcs in Doctor Who.) This news story states that the Face of Boe has become pregnant.
• In the two-part finale of the 2005 series ("Bad Wolf" and "The Parting of the Ways") the "people" behind the Jagrafess are revealed to be the Daleks. The finale is set on Satellite 5, now named the Game Station, a hundred years after "The Long Game". The Doctor claims in "Bad Wolf" that "someone has been playing a long game", referring to the manipulation of humanity both before and after "The Long Game" took place.

Production

• In the book The Shooting Scripts, Russell T Davies claims that he had originally set out to write this episode from Adam's perspective, watching the adventure unfolding from his point of view (exactly as Rose did in "Rose") and seeing both the Doctor and Rose as enigmatic, frightening characters. He even gave this outline a working title: "Adam".
• According to the reproduction of the original series outline in Doctor Who Magazine's Series One Special, another working title for this story was The Companion Who Couldn't.
• When the Editor announces the Jagrafess's name to the Doctor and Rose, he pronounces it as "The Mighty Jagrafress of the Holy Hadrajassic Maxaraddenfoe". Actor Simon Pegg has admitted during interviews that he found this an extremely difficult line to say; so to avoid inconsistencies, the Jagrafess roars throughout the announcement (although the subtitles spell the name with the most common spelling). However, during the pre-credits sequence of "Bad Wolf", Pegg's "wrong" pronunciation can be clearly heard.
• In the DVD commentary for this episode, director Brian Grant and actor Bruno Langley refer to an additional motivation for Adam's actions. Apparently, in earlier drafts of the script, Adam's father suffered from a disease that was incurable in his time (2012) and he hoped to learn about a cure which had been discovered between that year and 200,000 (in the shooting script the condition is arthritis). No trace of this motivation remains in the finished programme, although Grant discusses it as if it were still present.
• Langley and Grant also reveal in the DVD commentary that the "frozen vomit" that Adam spits out in one scene was in fact a "kiwi and orange ice cube".
• Voice artist Nicholas Briggs mentions on the DVD commentary for the episode "Dalek" that he recorded voice work for the Jagrafess, but his contribution was not used because it sounded too similar to the Nestene Consciousness (which Briggs had voiced in "Rose").
• According to Russell T Davies in his "Production Notes" column in Doctor Who Magazine #350 and later in the official preview for the story in #356, "The Long Game" was originally written in the early 1980s and submitted to the Doctor Who production office. Whether it was ever read by the production team of the time is unclear, as Davies received a rejection from the BBC Script Unit, who advised him to write more realistic television about "a man and his mortgage" instead. Davies reworked the story for the new series.

Cast notes

• Features guest appearances by Simon Pegg and Tamsin Greig. Pegg had previously played Don Chaney in the audio play Invaders from Mars. See also Celebrity appearances in Doctor Who.

Outside references

• All of the logos of news channels shown in the corners of the television screens feature a symbol consisting of three concentric circles with the first two divided by six lines, possibly Satellite 5's logo. Many of the signs and documents on Satellite 5 also appear to contain a stylised script resembling Hebrew.
• In finance, "playing a long game" refers to implementing a long-term strategy rather than focusing on short-term gains. This refers to the subtle scheme to enslave the human race without its knowledge over a period of decades, or even centuries, implemented by the Jagrafess, and also the even longer game later revealed as being played by the Daleks.

External links

• The Long Game on TARDIS Index File, an external wiki
• "The Long Game" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage
• "The Long Game" at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
• "The Long Game" at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• "The Long Game" at Outpost Gallifrey
• "The Long Game" at TV.com
• Doctor Who Confidential — Episode 7: The Dark Side
• "I'm the Editor." — Episode trailer for "The Long Game"
• "The Long Game" at the Internet Movie Database

Reviews

• "The Long Game" reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• "The Long Game" reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide