The Long Game

I'm not a person who watches particularly masses of television, and as such I hadn't sampled any of Russel T Davies' work until the new adventures of Doctor Who graced our screens. As such, I was quite intrigued by the veritable waterfalls of liquid gold that drenched his reputation in the excited and egaer run-up to the 26th March. I pondered whether Davies was genuinely as talented as the magazines, websites and newspapers so enthusiastically proclaimed, or if this was only a generous dollop of varnish as a component of pre-series hype. Having watched four of the Davies-penned episodes now (Rose; Aliens of London; World War III; The Long Game), I regret to conclude that the latter is the case. All of the adventures that Russel has written are hit-and-mostly-miss: if you'd excuse the contorted metaphor, there are occasional great peaks of brilliance and ingenuity in the topography of the episode's integrity, yet these great vantage points look out over an uninspiring landscape of humdrum, monotonous level plains and a few plummeting abyssal crevasses of simply dreadful ineptitude that set you squirming.

"The Long Game" is unfortunately no exception to this model. To its credit, there are excellent production values manifest in this episode. The sets are marvellously designed and convincingly constructed - Level 139 is bustling and thriving, but equally cloying and oppressive, just like a real congested centre of humanity, and the icy, harsh, sharp-edged domain of Level 500 is very professionally made: there's not even the slightest suggestion of the wobbly cardboard that undermined the drama in so many of Eccleston's predecessors' adventures. The CGI is also impressive, with the viscous slime-sheathed alien looking genuinely organic and the image of dawn in space construed of genuine gold (even if it was hideously clichйd). I particularly enjoyed Adam's subplot - he acts extremely well, conveying the incredulity and incomprehension of the most pronounced culture shock that someone can ever be subjected to perfectly, and Davies does tie his bumbling misadventure into the main plot effectively. The summary expulsion of Adam from the TARDIS (is one single adventure the shortest tenure for any Companion?) I think is also a good way for detailing the character of the Doctor: like when he was proclaiming victory over his chained nemesis in "Dalek", Eccleston's incarnation of the Doctor has a savage undercurrent. Adam's error in trying to send back data to the past (silly boy - has he never watched "Back to the Future"?), whilst severe, is understandable - he is a virgin time traveller unaccustomed to such things after all. Yet the Doctor sees fit to use this one mistake as an excuse to terminate his berth on the TARDIS and also to consign him to a life sentence of insignificance and obscurity thanks to the encumbering albatross of his cranial implant, when as a genius he's supposed to be a person who's going to make his mark in the world. Meting out this fate takes vindictiveness to a whole new level!

I would have liked Adam to have stayed on longer, but who knows - he might return someday. If Mickey the Idiot can investigate a comprehensive profile of the Doctor, it shouldn't pose much trouble for Adam the Genius.

But despite the limited and individual positive sections I mentioned in the second paragraph, the overarching theme of the episode is riven with so many holes that Davies was probably eating a sandwich with Swiss cheese on it whilst writing. It's difficult to appreciate Suki being a "freedom fighter" when she has a handbag around her shoulder whilst pointing guns... and if she's been killed, how is she supposed to be able to latch onto the Editor's foot to prevent his escape? It may be justice, but it's frankly illogical. Furthermore, the way the crisis is resolved - the journalist just STANDING THERE and listening to the long exposition before toddling off to make everything better was painful to watch. Also, if Adam has only been abaord the TARDIS for a short while how does he know "everything the Doctor knows"? The resolution of the main plot was also far too neat and sanguine - everything accelerating back to normal? When you destroy the controller the result is invariably anarchy and chaos. The Doctor acting as some great revelationary angel - breezing in, making grand society-convulsing seismic changes to humanity, and zipping back out in the blink of an eye - is corny beyond belief.

I know that this is only a nitpick, but since when did Yale manufacture a line of TARDIS keys?

So, altogether, I have to conclude that this episode is an average one. It has its moments, and when those moments arrive they are marvellous. Yet they're only transitory, and are painted against a tedious backdrop. The trailer for "Father's Day" looked mightily impressive - but it's a cause for worry when the seconds-long snippets for a forthcoming episode provoke your interest more than the preceding complete one...