Time and Space: A Doctor Who Journey

Series 1, Episode 7 : The Long Game
Written By : Russell T. Davies
Directed By : Brian Grant
Villians : The Editor, The Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe
Synopsis : The Doctor, Rose and Adam find themselves in the distant future on Satellite 5 which broadcasts the news to the entire Earth empire, only the Doctor feels something is wrong.  Can they uncover the secret of the mysterious Editor and find out who is controlling Satellite 5 and set things right before it's too late?


This episode really begins to set up the long game that Russell T. Davies has been playing all season and will continue for many seasons to come.  When you look back on this, you can see how much was set up in this episode.  Hints of something wanting to control the human race and more of this mysterious Bad Wolf thing.  While the story itself is a little lacking there are a lot of good things in this episode.

My personal favorite thing being the appearance of Simon Pegg as The Editor.
Simon Pegg has long been a favorite of mine, not only for his acting, writing and amazing movies (Shaun of the Dead is one of my favorites) but also because he is a giant fanboy.  Pegg has stated that he has been a Doctor Who fan since he was a child and tells many cute stories about it in his autobiography, including one where he got a Jelly Baby from "his Doctor" Tom Baker at an autograph signing.  Even though he is playing a sinister character in this episode, you can feel how excited he was to be doing it.  He helps all fans out there hold on to the dream of one day being a part of the thing that you love because, well, he got to do it.

Adam Mitchell plays a fairly prominent role in this episode as well.  His purpose seems to be more that of showing why the Doctor is so selective with his companions and also why he generally only travels with one.  Good people are hard to find and the temptation to use the knowledge you can gain from time travel would be too much for almost anyone to bear.  Although we get hints here and there of the Doctor doing just that, his companions always seem to find a way to rise above that temptation and just enjoy the ride.  We also see how hard it is to have two companions because if they separate, how can the Doctor possibly keep track of what both of them are doing.  Adam is not a good companion.  I don't think his character was ever intended to be.  I think he was more of a lesson than anything.

The visuals in this episode, while not the sweeping scenes we saw in The End of the World, are still quite good.  I really enjoyed the use of color on the various floors, especially floor 500 with its shades of blue and grey mixes with a little white.  I found the Jagrofess a little disappointing.  To me it looked just like a giant blob with teeth, but gave no sense of the intelligence that it must have in order to control things as it had been doing for the last 90 years.

While the characters of Cathica and Suki are descent, they don't really grab us they way they should.  I think that we were supposed care more when Suki dies, but I just didn't.  I think we were supposed to cheer more when Cathica starts thinking for herself, but I just thought "about time!"  Perhaps the little set ups of things to come made their character development suffer, but then again, the set ups are really what make you love this when looking back.  Overall, it's a descent episode, but takes a bit of a step back when you compare it to Dalek.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Interesting Details:

• The height of the human empire is around the year 200,000 where the earth is covered in mega-cities, 5 moons and has a population of 96 billion.
• Some people just can't handle time travel.  Adam faints within the first 2 minutes of the episode.
• This is one of the few times the Doctor is shown getting money.
• Foods of choice include a Kronk burger and a beef flavored slushie
• The Face of Boe announces his pregnancy on Bad Wolf TV
• Cathica refers to her fellow workers as "ladies, gentlemen, multi-sex, undersided or robot"
• Humans will believe anything.  No one questions that they never see anyone from floor 500 or that the walls are supposedly made of gold
• Adam shows that he will never be a good companion when he uses time travel for personal gain.
• The Doctor feels that humanity has been set back about 90 years and Satellite 5 started broadcasting 91 years before
• Mars has been colonized by humans.  It also has a University.
• A pico-surgeon is a futuristic brain surgeon
• A vomitamatic freezes waste by way of nanotermites in the lining of the throat, producing vomit ice cubes
• The Tardis doesn't translate the Jagrofess
• The Editor represents a consortium of banks that helped install the Jagrofess
• The Doctor doesn't stay to help clean up the situation.
• The Doctor knows that Adam can never reveal what he knows because of the Type 2 chip in his head.
• There are no mentions of the Time War
• There are no mentions of the title, although it is mentioned in a later episode.