Ninth Doctor Era
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The Long Game
"Create a climate of fear, and it's easy to keep the borders closed. It's just a matter of emphasis. The right word in the right broadcast repeated often enough can destabilise an economy, invent an enemy, change a vote."
— The Editor
The one where a head gets pregnant.
Rose, Adam, and the Doctor land on a space station in the year 200,000. The Doctor expects to encounter the centre-of-the-British-Empire satire such as was seen in old Who stories like "Kinda", and proudly tells them to prepare for "Humanity at its height!", with splendid cuisine and high culture. But what they get is a satire of early 21st century culture: a dingy station where people eat things like Kronk-burgers and beef-flavoured shakes, and "high culture" turns out to be the future equivalent of "zillions of channels and nothing on". All anyone aspires to is a trip to the fabled 500th Floor, which is rumoured to have walls made of gold. Also, there's a Bad Wolf channel.
Rose and Adam are still too new to the whole travelling thing to be disappointed, but the Doctor is thoroughly mystified. He befriends Suki and Cathica, a pair of journalists, and convinces them he's from Management. This leads to them showing him how journalism is done in the future: it consists of Cathica opening a hole in her head and having data beamed through it. Now the Doctor is also grossed out.
The intruders have started to attract the attention of the mysterious Editor (Simon Pegg). He lives in the icy dump of the 500th floor, overseeing the flow of information. The Editor is even more intrigued when the computers of the future reports that the Doctor is "no one" and Rose is also "no one". Meanwhile, Adam has snuck off to have his very own hole put into his head by the local head doctor (hey, it's Tamsin Greig!).
The Doctor and Rose discover that the Editor is an employee of the Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe (Max for short), an ugly, toothy, slimy monster living on the ceiling of the 500th Floor. Max has taken control of all information on Earth and is responsible for preventing the "humanity at its height" timeline from happening. He's also using the space station as a fridge to keep himself cool. Adam, meanwhile, uses his new head port and Rose's superphone to send information of the future to his mum's answering machine — unfortunately, this gives the Editor access to everything he knows about the Doctor and Rose, including where to find a key to the TARDIS. Whoops.
Fortunately, Cathica hacks into the computer, shuts down Adam's feed and tampers with the heating to deep-fry Max, who promptly proves he's Made of Explodium and goes boom. Happy ending for everyone in this satellite, except of course for the evil guys. And the good guys who died earlier. And Adam, since the Doctor decides he's too stupid to be a companion. So the Doctor boots him out of the TARDIS, fries his home phone to remove the evidence of his tampering with history, and he's left home with a hole in his head. Just in time for his mother to inadvertently make it pop open ...
For those wondering what happened to good ol' Adam after the events of this particular story, you can find out for yourself in the Prisoners of Time comic.
Tropes:
- Alien Sky: In the year 200,000 Earth is allegedly orbited by four artificial moons, although we never see them.
- All There in the Script:
- Adam's mother is named Sandra.
- Adam's motivation for sending information from the future into his mother's answering machine was supposed to involve finding a cure for his father's terminal illness.
- Ancient Conspiracy: The Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire has been controlled by its news station for 90 years. Of course, there is a deeper conspiracy bankrolling Max's actions.
- And This Is for...: A variation. When the Editor tries to stop Cathica from hacking the station's computers, she angrily resists and snaps part of the reason: "Oh, no you don't. You should have promoted me years back!"
- Arc Words: "And over on the Bad Wolf Channel, the Face of Boe has just announced he's pregnant."
- Artistic Licence – Economics: The Doctor gives Adam a credit stick containing "unlimited credit" (a vendor earlier gave a price in credits, so we know that "credit" does not refer to a loan), although this may have been a result of the Doctor tinkering with the stick rather than something normally possible.
- Bait-and-Switch: Early in the episode, the Editor is shown taking an interest in a security monitor showing the Doctor talking to Cathica and Suki, and calling for a security check. The obvious assumption is that he's suspicious of the Doctor, but it turns out that it's actually Suki he's become suspicious of (and with good reason); he doesn't start wondering about the Doctor until later.
- Big Bad: The Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxaradenfoe, although the season finale reveals he was installed by the Daleks.
- Blatant Lies: There's an implication that the Doctor might have reconsidered about Adam, or at least treated him more leniently than he ended up doing, had Adam not foolishly chosen to lie about the information he'd downloaded onto his home phone when the Doctor had already worked out what the score was. ("Is there anything else you want to tell me?")
- Blunt "Yes":The Editor: Is a slave a slave if he doesn't know he's enslaved?
The Doctor: Yes.
The Editor: Oh, I was hoping for a philosophical debate. Is that all I'm gonna get, "yes"?
The Doctor: Yes.
The Editor: [chuckles] You're no fun. - Canon Welding: With Children's Ward. Adam's mum is a nurse played by Judy Holt, who played a nurse in Children's Ward who had the same surname as Adam. Of course, it may just be an Actor Allusion.
- Continuity Nod: The Doctor expects this to be the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. The Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire was the setting of "Mission to the Unknown" and "The Daleks' Master Plan" back in the Hartnell era.
- Creative Sterility: The Jagrafess' plan involves encouraging this in humanity. The Editor is so used to it he has no idea how to react when Cathica surprises him.The Editor: I'm trying, sir, but — I don't know how she did it, it's impossible! A m-member of staff with an idea...
- Cuddle Bug: "I'll hug anyone, me!"
- Death Glare: There is a reason that Adam was initially afraid the Doctor was just going to kick him out of an airlock when the dust had settled. The look on his face as he stalks over to Adam without even saying a word is terrifying.
- Disc-One Final Boss: At the end of the story, the evil owners of Satellite Five are destroyed, with the implication that mankind's development will speed up after the Editor and the Mighty Jagrafess stunted it. Instead, it's revealed in the season finale that the Jagrafess had bosses, and those bosses are far worse.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The story is a direct allegory for how media fear-mongering creates isolation and ignorance, with the malevolent media mogul profiting off of this literally being a snarling, inhuman monster that gobbles up dissidents and subordinates.
- The Dog Bites Back: Turns out the Jagrafess should have promoted Cathica years ago.
- Doom as Test Prize: "Promotion" is actually being eaten by the Jagrafess, or being turned into one of its puppets.
- The Dragon: The Editor.Suki: Who do you represent?
The Editor: I'm merely a humble slave. I answer to the Editor in Chief.
Suki: Well, who is he? Where is he?
The Editor: He's overseeing everything, literally everything. So if you don't mind, I'm going to have to refer this upwards. [snaps his fingers, at which point the Jagrafess reveals itself]
Suki: [immediately points her gun at the creature] What is that?
The Editor: Your boss. This has always been your boss. Since the day you were born. - Early Instalment Weirdness: Adam is one of the few New Series companions to leave part-way through a season instead of the finale, much like most Classic Series companions.
- Electric Torture: The Doctor and Rose are subjected to this by the Editor as he demands to know their identities.
- Empire with a Dark Secret: The Ninth Doctor takes Rose and Adam to a news space station called Satellite 5, in the year 200,000 — the era of the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. However, the Doctor notes that progress is relatively slow, or simply ground to a halt with most of humanity being docile. Then he discovers why — The Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire is not a human empire at all, or at least not human-led, and humanity is secretly being controlled by a monstrous alien known as the Jagrafess by controlling information. The Doctor and Rose would appear a century later with Jack Harkness to learn of the Jagrafess' own masters: The Daleks.
- Epiphanic Prison: The Jagrafess is keeping humanity in one, manipulating the media to discourage travel.The Editor: Is a slave a slave if he doesn't know he's enslaved?
- Evil Pays Better: Rose points out that the Editor is helping to keep his own species in the dark. The Editor sulkily replies that "simply being human" doesn't pay very well.
- Explosive Instrumentation: The Editor's monitors start sparking once Cathica takes over.
- Fainting: Adam does this when he sees the view of the future Earth as the Doctor describes what it's supposed to be, leading to this exchange, while the Doctor and Rose don't bother looking back to see what's happened:The Doctor: He's your boyfriend.
Rose: Not anymore. - Faux Affably Evil: The Editor has a twisted sense of humour, as quite impressively portrayed by Simon Pegg.
- Fluffy the Terrible: The Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe. The Editor of Satellite 5 prefers to call him Max, as it's less of a mouthful.
- Foil: Adam's all-too-brief tenure is to show that not everyone is suited to be the Doctor's Companion.
- Forced to Watch: The Editor gets the Doctor to reveal who he really is by shocking Rose in front of him.
- Foreshadowing:
- The Editor's line to Suki/Eva about the Jagrafess having "always been [her] boss", given where a similar line of dialogue was last seen, and what the season finale reveals about who's really behind all this.
- The Doctor says of Cathica's information chip, "She wouldn't remember any. There's too much, her head would blow up."
- Hurricane of Puns: The Editor indulges in a string of puns about referring matters upwards to the Editor in Chief, who oversees things, before revealing to Suki that the Editor in Chief is literally above them, on the ceiling of the room.
- Idiot Ball: Adam. The very first trip he goes on, he tries to use future knowledge for profit and then lies about it right to the Doctor's face.
- Innocuously Important Episode: By the end of the first series of the return, this episode is revealed to have a key role in the entire series arc (appropriately enough for an episode titled "The Long Game"). It also throws off a major arc in the comics that involves all twelve Doctors.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: The Doctor tells Adam that they're arrived in a time period noted for its fine cuisine and good manners, and is immediately interrupted by somebody who rudely tells him to get out of the way so they can open up a kiosk selling cheap fast food.
- Istanbul (Not Constantinople): Suki claims she was from the Independent Republic of Morocco. Since it's currently known as the Kingdom of Morocco, either Suki didn't get her facts straight or it adds to a massive shake-up in world politics that Doctor Who is always hinting at. Since the episode is set almost 200,000 years in the future, the latter is pretty likely.
- Ladies and Germs: Ladies, gentlemen, multi-sex, undecided or robot...
- Last of Her Kind: Eva/Suki is said to be the last surviving member of the Freedom Fifteen.
- Long Game: Trope Namer.
- The Man Behind the Man: The Jagrafess is the man behind the Editor. They also represent a consortium of banks with an interest in keeping the human race under control. Come the finale, the truth turns out to be much worse.
- Mid-Season Twist: The new companion, Adam, is rather quickly fired for stealing future-tech, and Satellite 5 (the stage for the finale) is introduced. However, the episode's title doesn't even get dropped until the finale.
- The Millstone: Adam.
- Mistaken for Special Guest: Thanks to that wonderful psychic paper of the Doctor's.
- Mister Seahorse: The Face of Boe, in a cameo, is mentioned to have just announced his pregnancy.
- Mythology Gag:
- Kronk burgers were a delicacy in the Doctor Who Magazine Fourth Doctor comic "The Iron Legion".
- The Editor's line to Eva/Suki when she sees Max clearly for the first time — "This has always been your boss, since the day you were born." — is very similar to a line spoken in "Remembrance of the Daleks" when Ratcliffe sees his Dalek overlord clearly for the first time.
- Never My Fault: Another nail in Adam's coffin — "It's not actually my fault, because you were in charge–"
- Nonindicative Name: The title of the episode is "The Long Game", which apparently refers to the Editor's reveal of the role Satellite 5 has played in suppressing the human race. It will turn out in a later episode that the game is even longer than that...
- No Sympathy: The Doctor for Adam. The Doctor is tolerant of Companions who pick up the Idiot Ball because they're Constantly Curious. After all, he's made a career out of it. A Companion who's more interested in lining his pockets than exploring the wonders of the Universe gets dumped back on Earth with technology in his head that would get his brain cut open if The Men in Black found out.
- Notable Non Sequitur: Upon arriving at Satellite 5, one of the first things Rose points out on her own is that it's far too hot.
- Not Quite Dead: The corpses on Floor 500 aren't completely dead. The Jagrafress keeps them just animate enough to run the computer systems on the ship, though they have no emotion or ability... or at least, it seems like they don't. That leads to...
- Not Too Dead to Save the Day: The reanimated corpses on Floor 500 all collapse as a result of Cathica's sabotage, but Eva/Suki's body retains enough animation to grab the Editor and prevent him escaping from the resulting explosion. Since this immediately follows the Editor's attempt to resign, it's possible the Jagrafess is not accepting the resignation.
- Oh, Crap!:
- The Editor is last seen panicking and screaming for the dead Eva/Suki to let go of him, because since she grabbed his ankle he can't escape the room before the overheating Jagrafess explodes.
- The look on Adam's face at the end when he sees the look on the Doctor's face.
- Out of Focus: Whilst this is not a true example of a "Doctor-lite" episode (that began the following series with "Love & Monsters"), the Doctor and Rose are notably less important to the plot than usual and there are some fairly long sequences where they don't appear at all, because it was filmed alongside "The Empty Child" two-parter.
- Overly Long Name: The Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe. (The Editor: "I call him Max!")
- Plot-Sensitive Button: After Rose's manacles short out, she has to free the Doctor using the sonic screwdriver. "What do I do?" "Flick the switch!"
- La Résistance: Suki/Eva was the surviving member of one, and infiltrated Satellite 5 to stop whoever's controlling humanity.
- Room 101: Floor 500 isn't all that it's cracked up to be. It's implied that the only people "promoted" there are troublemakers the Editor and the Jagrafess want to get rid of.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: "Actually, sir, if it's all the same to you, I think I'll resign. Bye then!" The Jagrafess disagrees.
- Self-Deprecation: A small one, when the Editor is going through Eva/Suki's video bio, confronting her about it.The Editor: While we're asking questions, will you please confirm your name?
Suki (recording): My name is Suki MacRae Cantrell. I was born 199'89 in the Independent Republic of Morocco.
The Editor: Liar.
Suki (recording): Hobbies include reading and archaeology. I'm not an expert or anything, I just like digging.
The Editor: Liar! [fast-forwards the recording to another point]
Suki (recording): I want to work for Satellite Five because my sister can't afford university. And the pay scheme is really good...
The Editor: LIAR!
[Suki stares at him defiantly]
The Editor: Let's look at the facts, shall we? [snaps his fingers again; the projection now shows Suki in a trench, wearing army attire, firing a gun and shouting to her comrades] Ah, hidden behind a genetic graft, but that's still you. Eva San Julienne. Last surviving member of the Freedom Fifteen! Hmm, self declared anarchist, is that right? - Shut Up, Hannibal!: The Doctor is captured by the Editor of an evil news channel, secretly controlling the thoughts of every single human.The Editor: Well, now, there's an interesting point. Is a slave a slave, if he doesn't know he's enslaved?
The Doctor: Yes.
The Editor: Oh, I was hoping for a philosophical debate. Is that all I'm going to get, "yes"?
The Doctor: Yes. - Smug Snake: The Editor is incredibly smarmy and condescending, particularly noticeable when he's confronting Eva. He's even like this when attempting to save his own skin, before Eva's corpse prevents him from fleeing.
- Sole Survivor: Eva/Suki is the last surviving member of the "Freedom Fifteen".
- Some Call Me "Tim": "The Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe. I call him Max."
- Spell My Name with a "The": The Editor and the Mighty Jagrafess.
- Starfish Aliens: The Jagrafess is... a big pink mass with a nasty-looking mouth growing out of the ceiling.
- Stuff Blowing Up:The Doctor: Oi, mate! D'you wanna bank on a certainty? Massive heat in a massive body: massive bang. [grins] See you in the headlines!
- Taking You with Me: Either Suki/Eva, or the Jagrafess via possessing her, to the Editor.
- That Liar Lies: Suki MacRae Cantrell's biography is called out as being the work of a liar by the Editor.
- They Would Cut You Up: The Doctor tells Adam after returning him home that he has to live a quiet life from now on to avoid this.
- Thrown Out the Airlock: The Doctor only takes Adam Mitchell home after he royally screws up, but Adam says "Blimey. I thought you were gonna chuck me out of an airlock." Not that the TARDIS has one, as it can generate an atmosphere in vacuum — the Doctor and their companions are frequently shown looking out into space.
- Timeline-Altering MacGuffin: Adam copies information from the Satellite 5 computers, including the future history of computing, to his mother's answering machine. Even a single invention from the year 200,000 would be worth billions.
- Tracking Chip: All humans have a chip implanted in them to enable their brains to work as computers. It also allows the Mighty Jagrafess to read their mind.
- Tranquil Fury: At the end, the Doctor doesn't say anything; he just stalks towards Adam with a Death Glare on his face while Rose tells him to keep calm and Adam babbles while desperately trying to think of an excuse/justification.
- Unperson:The Editor: But that's why you're so dangerous. Knowledge is power, yet you remain unknown.
- The Unintelligible: The Jagrafess.
- The Unpronounceable: The Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe. This one so stumped Simon Pegg the one time he had to say it that he was told to just say it the best he could, and a roaring sound was added in post-production to cover his very minor mispronunciation.
- Unusual User Interface: A hole in the head. As seen in the picture.
- Wham Episode: The episode ends with the Doctor literally kicking Adam Mitchell off the TARDIS due to his attempts to exploit time travel for personal gain. This was the first time that the Doctor has ever expelled a companion for bad behaviour. Russell T Davies admits that Adam was meant to be a short term companion and an example of a companion that didn't work out.
- What Year Is This?: Adam asks this at the beginning. When the Doctor tries this trick straight, he is mocked. Luckily for him, he happens to be talking to news reporters, who, after his insistence, have him Mistaken for Special Guest and thus provide all the exposition he requires.
- Yes-Man: Cathica is an ambitious, ladder-climbing suck-up. She's willing to do whatever it takes to make it to Floor 500, and even after she realizes the walls aren't made of gold she still seems more upset by the fact that she wasn't promoted years before than anything else. It's implied that everybody's scrambling to get to Floor 500, but she's the most blatant about it. Interestingly, she ultimately ends up being the hero of the day.
- You Have Failed Me: In a rare non-villain example. After Adam installs the brain chip and becomes a liability when he almost creates a time paradox by recording the data on his mother's answering machine to use the information for profit, the Doctor kicks him to the curb and leaves him at his home, as he is now a walking paradox waiting to happen.
- Zillion-Dollar Bill: The money stick the Doctor gets for Rose and Adam later turns out to have "unlimited credit" on it when Adam is preparing to get a chip implanted.
"Isn't it funny? The time goes by like that." *(snaps fingers; freezes in horror upon seeing...Adam's new forehead.)*
