Doctor Who Retrospective #6 of 10 “The Long Game”

This is one of those episodes of the new Doctor Who that had everything going for it. A great guest cast including Tamsin Grieg, Anna Maxwell-Martin and Simon Pegg, the dynamic of having a new companion on board (although almost everyone viewing knew that Bruno Langley�s Adam was not going to be travelling onboard the TARDIS for too long) and two leads who by this time were settling in to their roles with gusto. Where then, many fans will ask, did it all go wrong?

That�s an interesting point of contention. It was at about the time that The Long Game was originally broadcast that I remember reading in certain internet forums that the gloss of the �new� was starting to wear off for some of the more high-maintenance and more vocal Whovians out there, for whom a new sport of �RTD-bashing� was being born. Russell T Davies�s writing has been widely touted as amongst the best that new British talent had to offer. He is one of the first generation of writers who grew up predominantly in front of the box rather than involved in the older mediums of film, play and the published word. So, he has focussed his talent on creating stories for the small screen and his CV is testament to his success in his chosen field.

While the vocal minority of a few disgruntled fans was having little impact on the commercial and critical renaissance that the show was enjoying, it is perhaps worth thinking about the criticisms being levelled at the show�s Exec Producer, Chief Writer and all-round Doctor Who evangelist. It seemed to me that their focus was (perhaps, still is) split between the recurring focus on “domestic” issues in RTD’s stories and a certain lack of depth in the plots. I could probably argue the pros and cons of the argument ad infinitum but in summary, I have to disagree. The domestic side of the stories is a deliberate attempt to keep the series grounded and broadly appealing rather than going off on a purely sci-fi storyline as we see in Farscape, Stargate and other such niche shows. Meanwhile the plots are deliberately devoid of exposition and are lighthearted in nature, so I don’t think that overly cerebral plots are what this new Who is all about.

This episode was noteworthy as being the first of the �double-bankers� (followed by series two�s Love & Monsters, the forthcoming Blink in series three and Torchwood�s Random Shoes) where production was shared with another episode and was thus designed to have less screentime for the main protagonists. It may have been this that put some people off The Long Game but for me it was initially an interesting diversion away from the main story that could have been entitled �How Not To Be a Companion�. To be honest I did finish watching originally and felt a little bit empty. However, hindsight is a wonderful thing and the conclusion to Series One picked up on many of the themes raised here, especially the Satellite 5 location and the �dark forces� manipulating the Earth�s history. Therefore, watching it again for this retrospective series I found a lot more to get my teeth into and enjoy. An episode, like a fine wine, that is maturing.

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Tags: Anna-Maxwell-Martin, Bruno-Langley, Doctor Who, RTD, Russell-T-Davies, Simon-Pegg, Tamsin-Grieg, The-Long-Game