Series 1 Episodes: The Long Game

The Doctor, Rose and new companion Adam travel forward in time to the year 200,000 and land aboard Satellite 5, a space station orbiting Earth during what should be the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire, but the Doctor immediately recognizes that the activity aboard the station is not consistent with future history. The Doctor investigates the station and meets with journalists Cathica and Suki that work on Satellite 5, using his psychic paper to pose as a member of management. They tell the Doctor that Satellite 5 is a 600-channel news satellite broadcasting to the Empire, and that they hope to be promoted someday to "Floor 500", the management floor. Rose and Adam investigate the various food stalls near where the TARDIS landed, but Adam becomes overwhelmed with the strangeness of the situation. Rose lets Adam borrow her "superphone" to call his family in the past, but he only gets their answering machine; this gives Adam an idea and he pockets the "superphone". Throughout this, the Doctor and the companions are observed by the Editor, a human in a dark, icy room, watching their actions through security cameras.

The Doctor reunites with Rose and Adam, and are invited to watch a broadcasting session with Cathica and other journalists; Cathica uses a port in the centre of her forehead to process information directly into her brain, which is then transferred to chips in the other journalists' head, who then broadcast it to their appropriate stations. While Adam is amazed at the technology, the Doctor notes that humans should have surpassed it by now. However, the Editor has detected that Suki is an unauthorized intruder in the "newsroom", and announcer to all that she has been promoted and should come to Floor 500. Suki says her goodbyes, as those that go to Floor 500 never come back, and departs; when she arrives, she finds Floor 500 to be cold and populated by shrivelled corpses. She encounters the Editor, who exposes her as a member of the Freedom Foundation, an anarchist underground group. Suki holds the Editor at gunpoint, telling him she knows that the news reported from Satellite 5 is manipulated, and demands to know who controls the station. The Editor points her to the "Editor-in-Chief", who, unseen, descends upon the screaming Suki.

Adam excuses himself to recover his thoughts in an observation lounge, while the Doctor and Rose try to get more information from Cathica. From what Cathica tells him, the Doctor deduces that something is holding the human race back, both in attitude and technology, for the last 91 years - ever since Satellite 5 started broadcasting. The Doctor hacks into the station computers and notes that a lot of heat is being vented from the top floors into the lower ones. The Editor is aware of the Doctor's actions, and allows him to gain the password to come to Floor 500. Rose and the Doctor try to convince Cathica to join them, but she wants nothing to do with it, and leaves their company as they go to Floor 500. There, they encounter the Editor as well as Suki's dead body, being used like several others as a slave to the computer systems. The Editor explains that through Satellite 5, they have been able to change the Empire into a place where humans are allowed to live, using manipulated news to install fear into the human race as to keep them in a closed society. These actions have been controlled by a consortium of banks, and the "Editor-in-Chief", the Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe ("Max" for short), who hangs above their heads. The Doctor notices that Cathica has had a change of heart and decided to follow them to Floor 500 as she listens in unobserved on the conversation outside the room; the Doctor makes sure to verbally note that the Jagrafess' metabolism generates a lot of heat, and thus the station itself is its life support system, venting the heat into the lower floors below.

Meanwhile, Adam, now alone, uses the station's computer to gain information that he relies back in time to his answering machine via the "superphone", but eventually the computer limits his access, though directs him to the medical facility on the station. There, he learns he can get a similar port like Cathica which will link him directly to the archives, which he agrees to after some hesitation. After recovery, Adam goes to the newsroom and opens his port by snapping his fingers, calls his answering machine with the "superphone", and initiates a link with the computer. The Editor is alerted to this, and is able to learn of the TARDIS and that the Doctor is a Time Lord from Adam's mind, and now aims to get the secret of time travel from the Doctor so that he can rewrite history to prevent humans from even developing. Cathica, hearing this, goes to the newsroom on Floor 500 and uses her link to severe Adam's connection and to reverse the flow of the environmental systems, sending heat to Floor 500, causing the Jagrafess to overheat. The Doctor and Rose escape while the Editor tries to sever Cathica's connection but cannot; he then tries to escape as well but is held by Suki's corpse, and ends up caught in the explosion of the Jagrafess. The Doctor congratulates Cathica on her actions, but is furious with Adam; they leave in the TARDIS and return to Adam's present and home. There, the Doctor destroys the answering machine and abandons Adam from the TARDIS, noting that he'll have to live with the port in his forehead, something that if discovered, he could end up dissected. As the Doctor and Rose leave, Adam's mother comes home, and commenting on how time flies, snaps her fingers, causing Adam's forehead port to open, and causing his mother to scream.

Doctor Christopher Eccleston (Ninth Doctor)
Companions Billie Piper (Rose Tyler)
Bruno Langley (Adam Mitchell)
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 1 episode, 45 mins
Originally broadcast May 7, 2005