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| Adam (Bruno Langley) makes a fateful decision. |
1 episode. Approx. 44 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies. Directed by: Brian Grant. Produced by: Phil Collinson.
THE PLOT
It's the year 200,000, the time of the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. The human race at its height, the center of a vast interspecies civilization.
Only things are wrong. The TARDIS materializes aboard Satellite 5, a space station that transmits news an information to the hundreds of channels on Earth. The reporters have technology implanted in their heads, allowing their brains to be used to directly process the data. It's incredible technology...
Which the Doctor also recognizes as wrong. "Something has set the human race back about 90 years," he realizes. History is being manipulated through the news, Satellite 5 being used to keep humanity from advancing.
Perhaps the man known as "The Editor" (Simon Pegg) has the answers. But The Editor sees all, and he is already tracking the Doctor's progress!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Early in the episode, the Doctor bundles Rose and Adam off while he investigates. He is extremely cheerful as he urges them: "Throw yourself in, eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double, and end up kissing complete strangers." Then he turns away, and the cheer drops from his face an instant, replaced by grim determination. He knows history has been tampered with, and he pushes until he discovers why. Even when captured, he keeps thinking. He notices that Cathica (Christine Adams), the reporter he and Rose befriended, is lurking outside the door as the Editor interrogates him. He makes sure to insert a few very well-chosen remarks in his replies to the Editor, essentially telling Cathica what to do to save him without tipping the villain off in the process.
Rose: The Doctor gives Rose enough information to "show off" to Adam, letting her pretend to identify their new surroundings when they arrive on Satellite 5. Rose enjoys being allowed to essentially playact being the Doctor, though she happily hands things back off to the Doctor when a more complex explanation is required. Here, it's fairly charming, though in retrospect it's the first real sign of the smugness that would mar the Doctor/Rose relationship the following year. She is patient and sympathetic with Adam's culture shock, but it's clear she wants to help the Doctor. Clear to Adam too, who observes that "it will take a better man than (him) to get between" her and the Doctor.
Adam: After what was very much a background role in Dalek, he gets pushed forward in this episode. He mainly acts as a contrast with Rose, and by extension with future companions. While Rose and later companions will tend to act selflessly when presented with crises, Adam sees the level of technology here and focuses on how to use it to help himself. The Doctor responds decisively to Adam's transgression, dumping him off at his home and leaving him there, doomed to an average and quiet life.
THOUGHTS
The Long Game plays much better in retrospect than it did at the time. On original broadcast, it seemed like an adequate bit of filler, a mid-season runaround that was dwarfed by the episodes on either side of it. But writer/executive producer Russell T. Davies pulled a deft sleight of hand, making this apparently innocuous episode one of the key building blocks of the season, an episode that would directly feed the season finale.
Even disregarding that and just looking at The Long Game in isolation, it holds up much better than its initial reception would indicate. Like most single-part Who episodes, the story unfolds at a rapid pace. Unlike too many episodes, though, it doesn't feel rushed or overstuffed. The way in which the story is resolved is planted ahead of time so that it makes sense and feels like an organic part of the narrative. It's well-structured and holds together, with no sense of things being skipped over to fit 70 or so minutes of material into 45.
Simon Pegg is effective as "The Editor," the most visible villain of the piece. His performance mixes camp and menace in equal measure, particularly when he faces down a would-be assassin with cries of "Liar!" when she attempts to hide behind her cover story. It's a disappointment that his confrontation with the Doctor is such a short scene, as watching Pegg and Eccleston go at it is a prospect with much more potential than their screentime here can capitalize on.
I wouldn't begin to argue against this being a second-tier episode. The self-contained narrative is very simplistic, amounting to having to defeat a monster on the Satellite's top level, and the attempts to work in social commentary about media manipulation aren't nearly as sharp as they should be. Still, this is well-made and highly entertaining, with Eccleston in particularly good form. A solid episode, in my view, far better than the "weak link" in the season it generally is remembered as.
Rating: 7/10.
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