Masterpiece Theatre
Number 11: The Long
Game
The Long Game is
an odd beast. It comes at the midway point of Christopher Eccleston’s sole
season as the Doctor, before the misery-guts decided that playing a character
who occasionally smiles was not for him. Written by Russell T. Davies, the
story exists for one purpose; to show us that the Doctor only takes the best as
his companion. This message comes at the expense of the story somewhat, which
is a fairly perfunctory mystery that the Doctor solves without really breaking
a sweat...
In the Doctor Who
Magazine Mighty 200 survey of all the stories up to Planet of the Dead, The Long
Game places at number 165. It trails in last of the Eccleston adventures, a
long way behind Boom Town and Aliens of London/ World War Three for
reasons that totally escape me, but which I will attempt to unravel.
Of all the stories broadcast during Doctor Who’s triumphant return to the television screens in 2005, The Long Game is the one that resembles
old-school Who the most. This is
quite understandable as the concept comes from a story Russell T. Davies
submitted to the Doctor Who
production team in the eighties at the tender age of seventeen. It was
summarily rejected, which in hindsight is a blessing for us all as Russell may
well have been put off Doctor Who for
life if he had actually worked for the Eric Saward/ John Nathan-Turner regime
with all its inconsistency and in-house fighting. Granted, the initial idea was
probably substantially different from the version that was dusted down and
presented onscreen, but there is certainly an eighties feel about The Long Game. Perhaps this is some of
the problem; long-time Doctor Who
fans were desperate to see the programme succeed. The infant reboot did not
need to remind viewers and by association the BBC paymasters of the dark times
of the mid- to late-eighties, when the show was breathing its last and the
casual audience had long-since departed. But to look at The Long Game merely as a reheated Peter Davison or Colin Baker
story misses the point completely.
Whilst pitching the idea of Doctor Who’s return to the BBC hierarchy, Russell T. Davies wrote a
series document mapping out how the series was going to develop. The Long Game was pitched as The Companion Who Couldn’t,
demonstrating that right from the word go it was designed as an episode that generated
character development rather than a plot-led behemoth. The character of Adam
was created with the single intention to showcase the relationship between the
Doctor and Rose and to deepen it into something more than friendship. He was
never intended to be anything more than a pale reflection of Rose. Adam’s
selfishness and cowardice nearly cost the Doctor at a time when the villain in
the story is struggling to gain any sort of advantage. He reacts in ways that
many of us would if placed in the same circumstances. He freaks out and gets
into trouble through his own stupidity. He skirts around the edges of the
adventure, never in any real danger, and fails to engage in the mystery at the
heart (top?) of Satellite Five. He abjectly fails where Rose succeeded; when
the Doctor is trapped and needs his help, Adam is busy helping himself. There
is a direct link between the Doctor being captured by the Autons in Rose and his imprisonment by the Editor
in The Long Game. Whilst Rose swings
improbably to his rescue in the former, Adam isn’t even aware that his fellow
travellers are in trouble.
But his failure allows the Doctor to see how important Rose
has become to him. He takes another step back from the brink and moves away
from the damaged individual he was at the start of the season. The Ninth Doctor
has the best character development of any of his incarnations, and The Long Game is pivotal in his growth.
He has let someone in for the first time since the Time War, and by this point
needs Rose as much as she needs him. He is lonely, but will not ease that
emptiness in his hearts with just anyone. He has to have an equal, and Rose is
that person. Adam, on the other hand, is not. It’s telling when, just two
stories later, in The Empty Child/ The Doctor
Dances, the Doctor allows Captain Jack on board the TARDIS after the Time Agent has
seemingly sacrificed himself while saving his friends and countless innocents
from a falling bomb. In his actions, Jack proves his heroic credentials, and
redeems his earlier selfish mistakes in the eyes of the Doctor, just as Mickey
does in World War Three. The Doctor
is willing to forgive the brave; self-serving cowards like Adam can go home. By
the time we reach Boom Town, the
Doctor’s rehabilitation is complete. He surrounds himself with the three humans
he has let behind his barrier and he feels more at ease with himself once more.
Yet despite The Long
Game’s undeniable status as a pivotal episode in Series One, it is a story
that is not loved by many. So why is this? We’ve already touched on the
eighties vibe it exudes, but at the same time it is impossible to imagine The Long Game being broadcast back then.
In the original run of Doctor Who,
each Doctor was unchanging. In reality the lead character was just a narrative
function rather than a person in the truest sense. He was never affected
long-term by events or people. His actions were all responses to events and
there was never any lasting development in his personality after the seismic
shift of a regeneration. The Long Game,
and indeed Series One, is unique in Doctor Who storytelling. For the first time
we see the lead character changing in response to an external force, in this
case Rose. We see him come to terms with the events of the Time War and finally
begin to let go of his guilt. It never entirely leaves him – even now as Series
Seven is about to begin, the Doctor is still haunted by the Time War to some
degree. Russell T. Davies had obviously taken on board the lessons that
American TV was providing at the time. One of his admitted inspirations was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with its
constantly evolving characters and season-long plot arcs. But the main
difference between the two series is that Buffy
had twenty-two episodes to play with in a season, so could afford one or two
stories with a primary focus on moving characters and relationships in new
directions at the expense of a more thrilling plot. With only thirteen
episodes, it is much harder for Doctor
Who to do the same. That’s why The
Long Game is something of a disappointment. Its intentions are noble, but
it is definitely weak Doctor Who, and
in a lot of ways it breaks the template. This is not a bad thing; that a
programme nearing fifty years of age can continue to change and adapt is
nothing short of amazing. But it is telling that after Series One, there would
be no more stories focussed solely on character development. Those that moved
the lead characters on were given stronger enemies to bolster them, like the
Krillitanes in School Reunion or The
Dream Lord in Amy’s Choice.
Talking of enemies, the Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy
Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe is an undercooked creation. It looks suitably nasty,
but how the hell did it take over the Earth? It just hangs there and roars.
There’s no sense of any intelligence to the Jagrafess. There’s no attempt by
the script to explain how it got there in the first place and how it manages to
control and subvert the news. It is simply a monster that’s there because the
story needs some sort of threat. It is never revealed how and why the Daleks
used it in the first place, only that they wanted to set Earth’s progress back
by ninety years and somehow pave the way for the Gamestation and its
unnecessarily complex method of capturing people for the Daleks to harvest.
Perhaps the Jagrafess is a cousin to the Slyther, that unholy walking bag in The Dalek Invasion of Earth (See the
video below for the full shambling horror)?
It would make sense for the Daleks to keep on using the same old madcap
monsters in their plans of conquest. But
the episode is there to set up the events of the season finale, when the Doctor
revisits the same location one hundred years later. Even The Long Game’s title is a reference to the Dalek’s plan in the
final two-parter, although it makes no sense in the context provided in this
episode.
It is worth referring back to the original pitching document
prepared by Russell T. Davies to sell the series. It states very early on that
each story should be able to grab the headlines: Rose sees the end of the
world, The Doctor meets Charles Dickens, Aliens invade Downing Street, Return
of the Daleks. It is very difficult to summarise The Long Game in the same way. A giant space leech controls the
Earth, maybe. Or, Adam shows why the Doctor picked Rose. Not exactly
attention-grabbing headlines... In a similar vein, Davies states that each
story should be strong, but The Long Game
is not a strong story. It does not exist to be a strong story. But it is a
fascinating insight into the Doctor’s psyche and the criteria he has for
choosing his companions.
For all the series’ fundamental optimism about the future of
the human race, the reboot has occasionally skewed towards the dark side, and The Long Game is quite a dark concept.
It is an enjoyable enough story, but perhaps it veers too far from the purity of
the concept too soon for the audience to accept. However, it should never be
dismissed as a poor story, because it patently is not. So let’s look at all the
good things The Long Game has to
offer.
Ten Reasons The Long Game has walls made of gold
1.
Arriving on Satellite Five, the Doctor
immediately senses that something is wrong, but to investigate he needs to get
rid of Adam. So he uses his sonic screwdriver to access some credit and gives
it to Adam. His exchange with his unwanted companion perfectly sums up the joy
of time travel. ‘There you go, pocket money. Don’t spend it all on sweets,’ he
tells Adam. ‘How does it work?’ says the bewildered boy. ‘Go and find out,’
says the Doctor. ‘Stop nagging me! 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!’ He smiles at Adam and Rose as they head off, but the next second the
smile is gone. The Doctor is in business mode.
2.
Doctor Who has a grand history of gloriously
left-field guest appearances. When Adam goes in search of technical support to
access Satellite Five’s computers, we get another one. Tamsin Grieg, as the
unnamed nurse who talks Adam into having the Type 2 Port inserted into his head,
is simply wonderful. Her slightly snarky and sarcastic tone is at odds with the
written material and she brings a very minor character to life brilliantly. She’s
worth watching just for the slightly confused way in which she says ‘Oh Danny
Boy’.
3.
Simon Pegg is excellent as the Editor, so much
so that it is nigh-on impossible to think of another actor who would have done
so much with a villain who is in essence nothing more than a glorified
middle-manager. He brings charm to the role, underpinned by a definite sense of
menace. He is the first truly villainous human the Doctor encounters in the
rebooted series and he sets the bar high for all who follow. He reins in his
usual comedy routines in a way that Peter Kay fails to do in Love & Monsters, and you can see why
Hollywood came calling not long afterwards.
4.
Anna Maxwell-Martin manages to convince us all
that Suki MacCrae Cantrell is simply a naive and happy character, until her
abrupt about-face into a member of the Freedom Fifteen terrorist organisation. Her act
has everyone fooled, the Doctor included, and she very nearly
manages to stop the Jagrafess without the Time Lord’s help. The story leads us
to believe that she will be the Doctor’s surrogate companion, so when her true
identity is revealed and she is killed and zombified, it’s quite a shock and a
loss to the rest of the story.
5.
Ice-zombies are quite a sore subject in this
blog. It wasn’t so long ago I was suffering through Dragonfire and its icicle mercenaries. Luckily The Long Game shows the old series how to do it. They have an eerie
quality, helped enormously by the blue ambient lighting and when the dead Suki grabs
the Editor’s leg to stop him from escaping you get a chilling (sorry) hint that
there is still a conscience trapped in there somewhere.
6.
The Doctor is furious with Adam. He summarily
takes him home and literally chucks him out of the TARDIS. The righteous anger
of a Time Lord is scary to behold. And yet he can’t resist clicking his fingers
to open Adam’s new forehead orifice. And neither can Rose. And when Adam’s mum
arrives home unexpectedly you can see the punchline coming. Once she clicks her
fingers and the episode ends, you wonder what happened to poor old Adam. Was he
dissected in a slapstick manner by Lee Evans in some UNIT Guantanemo Bay facility, or was he taken to Torchwood and touched up chopped up by Captain Jack instead? I
remember the stupid theories people had at the time that he would turn up as
Davros in the final episodes of the season. Looking back, that’s laughable, but
at the time we all felt like anything could happen.
7.
Frozen vomit in a cube. As an added extra to the
surgery Adam has just undergone, nanobots have been inserted into the lining of
his throat to instantly freeze his vomit. So instead of a full-on Exorcist
moment, Adam merely coughs up a small cube of coloured ice whilst Tamsin Grieg
delicately holds out a receptacle for it. That should be compulsory on the NHS,
I say.
8.
Adam’s opening scene sets up his subsequent
failure to cut it as a companion. The scene is deliberately reminiscent of the
one in The End of the World when Rose realises she is on a space station and
looks down on Earth. Although initially disbelieving, she swiftly accepts it
and asks the right sort of questions. When placed in the same situation five
episodes later, Adam simply faints. ‘He’s your boyfriend,’ says the Doctor, not
even sparing him a look. ‘Not anymore,’ replies Rose, not looking down either. It’s
a fantastically clever inversion of the scene in the earlier episode.
9.
Cathica’s is a closed mind. She accepts the
status quo without question. She purports to be a journalist and yet she has no
sense that there is something wrong with Satellite Five. She just blithely goes
about her business, never thinking of anybody else but herself. So when she
meets the Doctor and has her world view fundamentally altered by him, we watch
her grow and become a hero, just like so many that the Doctor influences. We see
his effect on people never more clearly than here; he is a man whose goodness
and bravery inspires others to grow and become more than they ever would have
been. And she saves the day, taking the role of companion that should have been
Adam’s.
10.
Entering the elevator, about to go up to Floor
500, where the walls are made of gold and monsters and danger await, the Doctor
reaches for Rose’s hand. As the elevator door closes, they are holding hands
like lovers. It’s a simple and powerful indication of the Doctor’s
reintegration back into life and companionship. He’s moving on from being alone
and guilty. He’s the one reaching out when before he tried to push her away. It’s
the theme of the season in a moment.
So it is very obvious that The Long Game is a necessary step in the progression of Series One,
but not necessarily a good story in its own right. It does its job well in the
middle of the season and sets up the finale nicely. But the viewers who were
watching for thrills and spills and a decent monster were probably
disappointed. The Long Game is
cleverer than that, but doesn’t linger long in the mind after a viewing. As I
said earlier, chalk this one up as a noble failure.
Next Time: Four to
Doomsday
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