The Long Game

Bog-standard. Uninspired. Treading water before the next big 'special episode'. I can't tell you how much I was dreading having to write a luke-warm review for this story.

Happy chance, then, that it turns out to be fantastic.

Lacking what advertisers call the 'unique selling factor' of all previous episodes ('the one with the Dalek', 'the one where the world ends', 'the one with the ghosts', 'the one where a spaceship hits Big Ben', even just 'the first one'), The Long Game is harder to pin down, and arguably all the better for it. A satire of Fox News? An adventure story? A nostalgic reworking of classic Dr Who? No, better: it's all these things. Adapted in part from one of Russell T Davies's rejected submissions from the 1980s (now THAT's how to get even with an editor), it's gloriously traditional while keeping all the trademark features of the New Who, and best of all absolutely stamps on the opinion festering around fandom that Russell T's scripts are the weakest of the series.

While overdoses of comedy in his previous efforts left room for only lightweight, superficial plots, here the whole script is full of dense, multifunctional scenes, and there's not a wasted beat among them. The result is an undeniably classy, well-paced piece that - even more than The Unquiet Dead - definitely proves the 45 minute format can support a complete story. Perhaps this is due in part to an often overlooked limitation of the new series, where the one-companion setup, and Rose's defiantly equal status with the Doctor, tends towards a more linear narrative. With the addition of Dalek's Adam to the crew, an opportunity at last arises to split up the regulars, and as a result not only he but two guest characters are provided with suitably fleshy subplots and character arcs, in addition to the exciting story happening around them.

Arguably this happens somewhat at the expense of the Doctor and Rose, but happily Billie Piper and Christopher Eccleston do an excellent job of handling their relatively thin part in the action. The duo squeeze every drop out of their limited screen time, milking an excellent script for all its worth to inform their fun, charming and still sometimes unexpected relationship. Chris in particular copes magnificently with an unprecedented quantity of exposition, although as if to compensate he has some absolutely cracking dialogue, including in the pre-credits sequence one of the funniest lines in the series. The guest stars are similarly impressive, with star turns from Christine Adams and Anna Maxwell Martin, and Bruno Langley returning to bring the character arc begun in Dalek to a satisfying conclusion. Simon Pegg - comedy genius behind (and in front of) Spaced and Shaun of the Dead - is less impressive as the Editor, although this is more a problem of casting than performance. The part was written to play against expectations, the villain chatty and affable rather than moustache-twirling and "I have you now!", but with Pegg in the role this was already what the audience was expecting, so that the intended reversal goes unnoticed.

Still, viewers have by now come to expect a high standard of special effects from the series, and in this regard the episode really delivers. While the design feels a little off in places - the decor and inhabitants of AD 200000 aren't very different from those of 2000; the Spike Room is rather uninteresting for such a significant location, and the observation deck a bit too similar to that of The End of the World's Platform One - the realisation is solid throughout, and occasionally tremendous. This is enhanced through impressive use of CGI, subtly adding matte effects to increase the impact of the studio sets as well as combining seamlessly with live action to create important plot-elements. Only the set-piece villain is a little simplistic, its lack of gripping limbs or tentacles making it more of a hemorrhoid with teeth than the lurking horror earlier shots promise, but with corpses and head-holes aplenty there's already more than enough gore to go round.

Overall, The Long Game is one of those stories that will have people complaining that it's complex enough to have been a two-parter, but its joy is precisely that it feels like one already. Pacey without being rushed; funny without being silly; complex without being confusing - and perfect Dr Who without being 'special'. If only all bog standard episodes could be this good... Then the series really WOULD be in it for the long game.