Harry -
I wonder how daft it would have seemed to us when we first watched this story, back in 2005, that humanity could be completely subjugated by nonstop streams of manufactured news. Humans rendered into mindless cattle, with all sense of curiosity dulled.
Sadly, it didn't take 200,000 years for us to get there. Here we are, just a dozen years after "The Long Game" was first broadcast, and great swathes of society are under the sway of a hideous, bellowing creature that decides what is true and what is false.
Sarah -
It’s depressing that so many sci-fi tropes seem to have become reality in the past year. "The Long Game" felt futuristic in 2005, but now it seems downright prescient. If there was ever a time Planet Earth needed the Doctor, it’s now.
Harry -
Lines like the one about "creating a climate of fear in order to close the borders" are particularly chilling.
Sarah -
I made of note of that line, too. Tyrants are all the same in the end.
The story begins with a classic Doctor Who premise when the TARDIS lands on Satellite 5, a space station in Earth orbit during the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. The cold open has one of my favorite moments. As the Doctor and Rose exit the TARDIS, he prompts her with details about where they’ve landed so she can impress Adam with her knowledge -- “So, it's two hundred thousand, and it's a spaceship. No, wait a minute, space station, and er, go and try that gate over there. Off you go.” Rose leads Adam and the Doctor through the gate to a large viewing window -- where Adam immediately faints, leading to this exchange:
The Doctor: He's your boyfriend.
Rose: Not anymore.
As this story will show us, not everyone is cut out to travel in the TARDIS.
Harry -
Adam was cute for about two minutes, before he started plotting to take advantage of the Doctor and Rose's good natures to enrich himself.
Sarah -
I wasn’t particularly looking forward to watching "The Long Game". It’s been a while, but my memories weren’t that positive. After this rewatch, I think "The Long Game" is generally underrated and a key story in series one.
Harry -
It's not a very pleasant story at all. We see humans regressed into a compliant herd, the supporting cast initially come off as self-serving careerists, a companion goes rogue, and the alien of the week is a very unpleasant monstrosity. Pretty sure the Jagrafess has never been cosplayed.
Sarah -
The person who successfully does so will certainly sweep the costume competition!
Significantly, "The Long Game" is the story that led to double-banking and Doctor/Companion-Lite episodes in future series.
Harry -
I had no idea the productions were so under-the-gun back then. Nowadays they can take a whole year off if they feel like it.
Sarah -
Now, now. Your bitterness is showing.
Harry -
Back to your point about rewatching "The Long Game". I may have watched it one more time when the DVDs were first released, but I never went back to it.
Sarah -
Knowing what’s coming, it feels like a moment to slow down and breathe a bit between "Dalek" and "Father’s Day", two very emotionally charged episodes. Being sandwiched between two very strong stories, penned by amazing writers, makes it easy to miss the quiet competence of "The Long Game".
Most importantly, "The Long Game" sets up the rest of the season and the stunning series finale. (Spoilers!)
Harry -
While checking out the futuristic (yet all too familiar) food court of Satellite 5, our friends meet Cathica, one of the self-serving careerists mentioned above. A journalist, she shows them around while boasting that Satellite 5 is where they make the news -- an odd way of putting it, and the Doctor immediately becomes suspicious. His hunch is confirmed when Cathica shows off the information spike: technology that streams information directly into a person's enhanced brain. The Doctor concludes that the technology is all wrong.
Sarah -
Ninety years behind, to be exact. I found myself wondering about the decision to have the residents of Satellite 5 wear clothing contemporary to 2005 and have two theories. The first is that with the strain of putting a new series on, it was more than enough to worry about the scripts, guest actors, and sets, without having to get all wrapped up in futuristic costuming. The other is that they were afraid of alienating new viewers with clothing that looked too much like a science fiction cliche or Starfleet uniforms. Of course, this being Doctor Who, it’s most likely there was no money left for costuming and the actors were just told to wear their own clothes. Personally, I would have liked to see everyone dressed like the crew in "The Ice Warriors". This is the fashion future I want to see!
Harry -
Absolutely! All it would take is some puffy winter jackets, a few packs of coloured markers, and the power of one's imagination. I might just make one of my own!
Sarah -
Speaking of Starfleet, I couldn’t help but think that Rose’s costume felt like a Star Trek homage. She was the one person in the story who seemed to be dressed for sci-fi!
Harry -
Watching all of this toing and froing on CCTV is the Editor (hello Simon Pegg!). From way up on Floor 500, he monitors all activity on the station, and the computers have picked up a security breach. He can't yet pinpoint who is responsible, and keeps watching as the cameras zoom in on the Doctor, Rose, Cathica and Suki.
Sarah -
I was surprised all over again when Suki turned out to be the person he was looking for. Cathica is enraged when Suki is promoted to Floor 500 over her, not knowing she’s better off where she is -- creepy brain port and all.
One of the things I most fondly remembered about this story was Simon Pegg, who was well on his way to being king of the nerds when he appeared in "The Long Game". He would, of course, go on to hit the nerd trifecta -- appearing in Doctor Who, Star Trek, and Star Wars.
Harry -
I loved seeing Pegg in this story. My introduction to him was in the comedy Spaced, which made the rounds on Canadian TV shortly before Doctor Who returned.
Sarah -
I LOVE Spaced!
Harry -
He wasn't a particularly villainous villain in this story. He spends a lot of time smiling and pulling faces, perhaps as a coping mechanism because of the monstrosity that literally hangs over his head.
Sarah -
He's just another in a line of bureaucratic middle men in Doctor Who.
Harry -
Adam, meanwhile, is getting up to no good at all.
Sarah -
It seems a little irresponsible of the Doctor and Rose to bring him into space and then let him wander off on his own with unlimited credits. He was already overwhelmed by the experience, which is how he ends up with Rose’s phone. It was nice of her to let him use it to call home, where only the dog heard his message, but she really should have taken it back. It seems inevitable that he would end up using his unlimited credits to get an infoport installed in his forehead. What a dope.
Harry -
Adam going all in for himself was probably the most shocking part of this story. For decades we've been conditioned to the Doctor travelling with trustworthy people. Taking Adam along from Utah was a rare bad call on his part.
Sarah -
To be fair, he wasn't keen to have Adam tag along and only let him come along as Rose's companion.
Harry -
The scene where Adam has the infoport installed in his head provided another moment of squee, because the nurse was played by Tamsin Greig, who was in Black Books -- another early 00s comedy I loved. It's great that so many actors from both Spaced and Black Books found their way onto Doctor Who over time. This is just the beginning!
Sarah -
Tamsin Greig is great in everything. Her low-key creepy performance is one of my favorite things about this episode.
Harry -
Gosh I'm all over the place with these asides. While I've been chattering away, the Doctor has tried to (figuratively) open Cathica's mind, to make her question things instead of taking everything at face value. And it's worked.
The Doctor and Rose make their way to Floor 500. There, they discover the sickening set up of zombified news conveyors over which the Editor presides. He welcomes our friends with almost campy curiosity (he reminded me of a 1960s Batman villain). Before long, he has them in shackles and the Jagrafess terrorizes them from above.
Sarah -
Sadly, freedom fighter Suki -- portrayed by Anna Maxwell Martin, who has been brilliant in loads of things -- is among the zombified.
Harry -
Cathica quietly seizes the opportunity to tamper with the cooling system that keeps the Jagrafess alive. In keeping with all totalitarian regimes, information is the ultimate weapon. Feeding humans a constant stream of propaganda was enough to keep everyone subdued. There are barely any security forces in place to police the herd, which made it easy for Cathica to throw a fatal wrench into the works.
In a matter of minutes, the overheated Jagrafess swells up like a balloon until the inevitable POP!
Sarah -
Cathica saves the day! Early the in the story, the Doctor scoffs at Cathica calling herself a journalist, but she rises to the title when she exposes the Jagrafess. Sarah Jane would approve.
Harry -
Journalists are the best freedom fighters!
Sarah -
The Doctor, having upset the entire society, does what he's done countless times -- ducks into the TARDIS and leaves the survivors to pick up the pieces.
Of course, before he and Rose can start their next adventure, Adam must be dealt with. The TARDIS materializes in his mum's sitting room and he's unceremoniously booted out the door. The Doctor erases the messages Adam left on the answering machine (how dated is that!) that would give him access to future technology.
Harry -
Considering that Adam was picked up from the year 2012, his mum's answering machine is borderline anachronistic.
Sarah -
The Doctor gets rid of Adam's access to future technology but leaves Adam with the port, which is activated by snapping the fingers, in his forehead. I find this so amazingly wrong and, in retrospect, it is the moment that leads to a development in Doctor Who that most annoyed me in these early years. This is the beginning of the smug and annoying Doctor and Rose "we're so special" BS.
The Doctor snapping his fingers over and over is a total dick move. Rose admonishes him for doing it -- and then does it herself. I kind of hate them both at the end of this story. And it's only going to get worse, isn't it?
Harry -
I always equate the Doctor and Rose's smug exceptionalism with David Tennant's first season, but it definitely starts to manifest itself here. At the very least, the Doctor could have used the sonic screwdriver to permanently close Adam's brain port before leaving him on Earth.
Sarah -
He totally could have sonic-ed that thing to disable it. The final shot when his mother snaps her fingers is so awful. It was the angriest I've been with the Doctor in quite a while.
Harry -
We'll never see Adam again, so we can only guess how he managed. Maybe he patented the port as a new kind of extreme body modification.
A fresh rewatch has not really improved my opinions of this story. It's bleak and dark, but not in a cool way. Humans do not come out of this one looking good at all apart from Cathica, but only because the Doctor was there to open her mind. For me, it's an early example of the misanthropic strain that occasionally pops up in RTD-era Who.
Sarah -
I would say it went up in my estimation, but I may have started off with lower expectations.
Harry -
Whole lotta yuck. Let's move on. Maybe the next story will be a cheery pick me up?
Sarah -
Oh yeah, that's going to be a laugh riot.
Before we move on, I'll continue the Bad Wolf tracking by noting that the announcement of the Face of Boe's pregnancy appears on Bad Wolf TV.
Harry -
Congratulations to the Face of Boe!
Best Line: I liked the Doctor spurring Adam to go and explore Satellite 5: "The thing is, Adam, time travel's like visiting Paris. You can't just read the guide book, you've got to throw yourself in. Eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double and end up kissing complete strangers. Or is that just me? Stop asking questions, go and do it."
Favourite Moment: Simon Pegg's campy scenes.
Lasting Image: Cathica receiving the information spike.
6/10
Sarah -
Best Line: I wrote down the same line. Clearly this happened in later regenerations, when kissing strangers is less of an issue for the Doctor.
Favorite Moment: Cathica saving the day!
Lasting Image: The Editor surrounded by the newsroom corpses
6/10
Our marathon continues with Story #163: Father's Day...
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