It seemed unavoidable that “The Long Game” would mark the end of a long week’s comedown after the exceptionally brilliant “Dalek.” Had “The Long Game” been up to the standard of any of the first five episodes, it would STILL have been a comedown after “Dalek”, but sadly it didn’t keep up the high standards set by the new series at all.

I don’t want to focus on the negative, but the space station just looked like the same set as Platform One, re-hashed. Of course, being “Doctor Who” that’s forgivable but I’ve come to expect more from this brilliant new series. The monster with the unpronounceable name – feeble. The realisation was dire. The plot – NOT the character story, the science-fiction story – abysmal. Moreover, I don’t know whether it was just my reception or not but in the opening scenes the dialogue was virtually inaudible over the score (I’m not slagging the score off… it was especially brilliant last week… it was just too loud this week!)

I had to look hard for things I liked about “The Long Game,” for some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about “Paradise Towers” afterwards. Must be the elevator! The whole episode had that awful studio-bound money-saving “filler story” feeling to it. It really was that bad!

I liked the premise of a companion that couldn’t cut it – it hadn’t really been done before. To actually have Adam as a threat was a stroke of genius. Even the reality TV / propaganda angle was interesting; the problem was that the plot didn’t grab me at all – it just wasn’t very good.

As for the character story, the sub-plot as it were, that I felt was well done, if a little rushed. It took Adam far too little time to decide that he was no match for the Doctor in Rose’s eyes; though I can see why it was put in so early because Adam needed to take off on his own for the purposes of the main plot. I liked the closing scene where the Doctor frog-marched Adam into the TARDIS on Satellite Five then straight back out into his living room in 2012. The last scene with Adam’s Mother clicking his fingers was the episode’s highlight for me, at least in comedic terms.

The only thing good about the episode at all, really, was Simon Pegg as the Editor. He portrayed the character with a cold humour which suited him very well; it’s a shame Russell T. Davies couldn’t concoct a better story for him to star in.

I’m very sorry that this review is so negative – I’m a huge fan of the series and I’m so happy we have it back it’s just that I didn’t enjoy the episode. I think the first six episodes have been excellent and I’m a huge fan of Russell T. Davies’ work, and while I can see the potential of this episode it just came off as cheap and throwaway, second-class. Borders closed to aliens? Another space station? Talk about a money-saving show! The Psychic paper… even the Face of Boe, nearly five million years younger, popped up again!

One MAJOR criticism. Thirteen episodes. Eleven likely set on Earth, two in orbit of Earth!!!! I hope I’m wrong and the final two-parter takes us off to an alien world somewhere, just for a change!

I’ve always thought some “Doctor Who” stories were poor. “Paradise Towers,” “Creature From The Pit,” “Frontios”… the list goes on. You have to take the rough with the smooth I’m afraid; nothing’s perfect. To end on something positive, though, the trailer and the plot summary for next week’s episode looks absolutely brilliant. I for one can’t wait!

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...

As an overseer and idea man- "editor in chief", if you will- Russell T. Davies has been a godsend for Doctor Who. But as a screenwriter, his work's seemed a bit flat, with The End of the World being the only one of his stories to date that comes anywhere near "classic" status. The Long Game continues this streak of mediocrity, although much like Rose and the Slitheen two-parter, there are fantastic elements that convince you the second coming of, say, The Caves of Androzani is right around the corner.

One of Davies stated goals for Who is that he wants to give the series a true emotional centre, something it's lacked for a good long while. Curiously enough, The Long Game is perhaps the least emotionally involving episode this season. Intellectually, I appreciated and admired Davies' biting commentary on the current stagnant state of Western civilization, but there was nothing in the episode that really made me want to rush out and change the world. It was only at the end that I really *felt* anything- namely, admiration for Cathica's selfless acts and pride at the Doctor's assault on Adam's selfishness. The rest of the time, I was distracted by the episode's similiarities to The End of the World- everything from the Doctor explaining the state of affairs on future Earth to a new companion while overlooking the planet from an observation window on a space station to the superphone call back home to the villain exploding due to excessive heat right down to the cameo by the Face of Boe reminded me of that far superior episode. RTD would've been wise to explicitly link the two episodes, similiar to The Ark in Space and Revenge of the Cybermen, perhaps with The Long Game taking place on Platform One in its infancy. It probably wouldn't've made the similiarities any less glaring, but it would, perhaps, make them more excusable.

In the plus column, Adam has gone from a character with potential to a fascinating possible new enemy for the Doctor. While I did enjoy Bruno Langley's performances as Adam and wished he'd stayed on a bit longer as a proper companion, I'm glad that he wasn't killed off and that he has an interesting new status quo- the companion gone bad with (potential) access to all the information in the world. Also, Anna Maxwell-Martin was very, very easy on the eyes and lovably perky. In some ways, she reminded me of Jewel Staite from Firefly/Serenity, and it's a shame her character was killed off so quickly. And while Davies aforementioned attack on the rot that's set into American and British culture may not have been terribly subtle, it was brave, and certainly thought-provoking (I hasten to add that I don't think Blair and Bush are controlled by an enormous phallic ceiling-hanger from outer space, but hey- anything's possible!).

Rusell T. Davies deserves all the accolades in the world for getting the BBC to bring back Doctor Who, and honestly, I hope he sticks around for a few years to guide the show. But for season two, I sincerely hope he cuts back on his writing duties. His scripts have been serviceable, but rarely above, and I'm beginning to see a "sameness" creep into them. A wider range of writers would very much help the series stay fresh and diverse.

First of all let me say to one of the other reviewers Paul Clarke, mate you should put your name down to produce the series, because I agree with you 100%. RTD is ruining Dr Who to the point where I think overtime the series will lose ratings in the same fashion that Star Trek Enterprise did, because the stories are shallow, lacking depth, and lacking that sense of realism.

I am really disappointed in how the new series is going, I thought that RTD being a loyal fan of the series would have stayed true to the original, but he has done exactly the opposite. I love Rose, she is played brilliantly by Billie Piper, and the Doctor is ok but I do feel that he is very violent at times, makes quick judgements, and abuses people who don't know as much as him. This is probably why I loved Dalek so much, because the Doctor finally found his equal, the Dalek.

There was only one thing I liked about the Long Game, and that was Simon Pegg, he was absolutely brilliant, and he would have made and awesome Master! Speaking of which if they could find a way to bring back the Master that would be brilliant, if not then the Valeyard or the Rani would be great. As I mentioned before there just aren't anough ties with the original series. But this story was so shallow, you learn nothing useful about anything, the stories do just seem to concentrate on the relationship between the Doctor and Rose, which I have to say is actually quite sickening. The way he grabs her hand every time he runs off to solve the next part of the mystery.

This story is just so fake, and pathetic I don't know where to start, the only epsidoes I have loved, and I mean really loved are The Unquiet Dead, and Dalek, both of which are the only non RTD stories so far this season. Why can't he pick years which are a little more realistic 'the year 5 billion, the year 200 000', pick something a little more believable. I remember watching an interview with RTD saying that the old way of having two parters and four parters just doesn't suit the new series, but I beg to differ, even the non RTD stories lack some depth and would be brilliant if they were made into two parters, that's what Dr Who is all about, being left in suspense until next weeks episode.

I spose I should get back to the story. This story like the other RTD stories are very manufactured, and it seems that all RTD's writings including this one just seem to be mainly focused on the Dr's and Rose's relationship, whereas the other non RTD episodes developed their relationship with the story. Adam, to me, just seemed like a waste of space in this episode, RTD kind of made him like the other boyfriend, and the Dr was like the jealous boyfriend.

Sorry Russell, but if you continue going the way you are with the new series you are going to have to find yourself a new job, because writing, your writing, is pathetic, and the only reason why people are watching the new series is because Dr Who has a new generation of fans out there aswell as many old fans like myself who have been so anxious to see a new series. Dr Who is the best concept of any sci fi I have ever seen and with every episode you are writing you are destroying a legend. You are turning the Doctor into everything he is not. The RTD episode seem more like fantasy than science fiction, and this time war keeps being mentioned as if it is an excuse to get rid of all the old characters from the original series, I do hope that we one day get to see this time war , and get it reslved finally. What I think would work well with the new series would be a season long story much like what Enterprise did with the Xindi, and perhaps have it deal with the time war when we see the 8th Dr in the middle of the time war, and have the 9th or 10th Doctor there somewhere aswell.

The new series just lacks depth and realism, and this episode is very representative of that, no wonder the yanks haven't bought the rights, they like sci fi that they can believe, and this is just rubbish.

RTD stick to Queer as Folk.

In my book, the true mark of a great TV series is how good or bad it’s “normal” episodes are. By that I mean an episode that doesn’t have some big event or special status that will grab attention by itself. It can be argued that “The Long Game” is the first episode of the new series that hasn’t got an inbuilt hook like that, and that’s why I was more delighted than usual to find myself enjoying it so much.

In fact, the only thing I can say I didn’t care for much (apart from the odd lick of Murray Gold music, which in general was a bit better this week) was the look and design of Floor 139. We never seemed to get a proper wide shot of it, and I suspect it’s because they knew it wasn’t looking too good. This has the smell of an episode which had to save money after some other ones had blown their budgets, and where this seemed most obvious was on Floor 139, where it’s all tight shots and all humans and really nothing much more than a shabby looking shopping mall food court.

The other floors, while still done economically, came across rather better, especially Floor 500 with all that frost and populated by real dead and living dead people, all with their own sheen of frost. That looked genuinely creepy… like a lesson was learned from “The Tomb of the Cybermen,” where it wasn’t so much that the tombs were full of Cybermen that was creepy but that little extra touch of there being frost on the Cyber Controller’s head (which he doesn’t notice or care about) when he wakes up. That helped to stress his inhumanity, and it does the same job here with the zombies that the Editor oversees.

Ah yes, the Editor. His frosty hair and eyebrows help to compliment a very solid performance by guest star Simon Pegg. He hit exactly the right note between a man who is in charge of everything and knows it and yet hasn’t seemed to let that go too far to his head as he isn’t ranting and raving, nor is he so full of himself that he can’t admit the possibility of his own error. An example of this is after the bit where he’s discovered and dealt with Suki the anarchist and only then spots the Doctor getting up to no good, when he keeps questioning his computer about how the Doctor and Rose can be “no one.” Though he keeps doubting what he’s being told, never once does Pegg do that standard clichй villain thing of getting angry with the people that are giving him these answers… he just keeps asking questions in a manner that suggests he’s not closed his mind to the possibility that what he’s being told can be true after all. In fact, he tells us later on that it’s fascinating not to know something for once.

In fact, I liked the whole set-up in general… Satellite Five and its vertical structure (even if we did see this same sort of thing as recently as episode 2, complete with heating problems)… its function as the news distribution center for the entire Earth empire… the way the news gets packaged by “journalists” who don’t actually do any field reporting but rather just compile and pass along what others tell them (very like how most news agencies do it nowadays… just look at how many Google news entries on a given day are word-for-word the same story as each other)… the casual attitude people have to getting brain implants to get them ahead in their job… how they’re so driven to get a promotion that they put up with never leaving the floor they’re on in the satellite, etc. It felt like a bit of a cross between a good “Farscape” standalone episode and the point behind “Max Headroom” (the media satire), only without so many main characters to juggle (and thus a clearer, cleaner story).

Ah yes, the main characters, temporarily increased to three for this week’s episode. I’ll start with number three, Adam, who becomes the first “companion” that the Doctor throws out of the TARDIS because he wanted to throw him out. Actually, I consider him to be more of Rose’s companion than the Doctor’s, since it was her who wanted him along in the first place and who gets to show off where they’ve landed (with the Doctor’s help) and pass along her cell phone and her TARDIS key to Adam. And this may lead into something in the ongoing story arc which I quite like, where if you stop and think about this, it’s as though the Doctor is here looking to see if Rose can function as himself, i.e. correctly selecting and training in a companion of her own. She seems to get it wrong with Adam since he lets his greed for knowledge get the better of him and winds up betraying the Doctor and Rose as a result, but Rose does seem to get this at the end, for although she tries to blunt the sharper edge of the Doctor’s tongue as he takes Adam home at the end, she joins in the joke of snapping her fingers to open up Adam’s implant, and doesn’t object to the idea of leaving him at home on Earth. Anyway, it’s my guess that with the Time Lords all gone, the Doctor may be looking at the idea of slowly building a new organization of people to take their place, and Rose might be his first recruit. Anyway, Adam was a false start at this, but someone Rose can learn from in who not to look for in future travelling companions.

Our two main supporting characters were very likeable as well. Christine Adams as Cathica was note perfect as the hungry-for-promotion corporate gal who nevertheless eventually sees what’s wrong and puts a stop to it. I was especially glad to see that she survived in the end, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she wound up running the place afterwards. Anna Maxwell-Martin was excellent too, and had a sort of Willow/Dark Willow thing going on where she was so sweet and girl-next-door-ish to start with, only to turn into a perfect soldier type later on when she confronts the Editor, and remains so even after death when she ensures he doesn’t get away. It’s just a shame the sound effects people gave her gun such a naff effect.

And finally there was the Jagrafess of Holy Something-Or-Other, the true power behind the throne that was using the media to stunt the Empire’s growth. We never found out why it was doing this, but from the way the Doctor talked about how the technology and the delay in human progress was “wrong,” I wonder if it wasn’t a time traveler itself or was perhaps working for some.. perhaps even the big Bad Wolf we keep hearing namechecked everywhere. Whatever its motives, it looked really rude and nasty (in a good way)… almost as much so as the real Rupert Murdoch. It’s fitting that it generates a whole lot of hot air and explodes when it has to put up with it itself.

And really finally I should mention Brian Grant’s direction, which I thought was marvelous (given what he had to work with set-wise), particularly the POV shots for the Jagrafess, the way he kept moving Simon Pegg in and around his set, and most especially his removal of that filter on the lens that’s been there in every other episode. It’s intended to help enhance the filmizing effect I think, but I much prefer the sharper image we get as a result of it not being there.

All in all then, a very solid adventure that I was a bit surprised to find myself liking so much. Let’s say… 7.5 out of 10.

Any episode following the superb Dalek was going to suffer from comparisons. Even so, The Long Game, was undoubtedly the weakest and most superficial episode of this series so far.

The opening scenes were very reminiscent of The End of The World, deliberately so to compare Rose’s reaction to time travel with Adam’s. But to set the episode in an almost identical setting (Platform One and Satellite Five not being the most original of names) seems to show a lack of imagination, both in the writing and the set design. Wouldn’t it have been better to set this episode on another planet or to show a futuristic version of Earth? Even the music was the same, as Satellite Five burst into life just like the arrival of the aliens on Platform One…

The Doctor and Rose didn’t really have much to do in this episode, concentrating as it did on Adam and the Editor. I understand this was deliberate to lessen the work load for Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper, but it made the episode rather dull. Adam’s plight was interesting in examining the way some people might not take to time travel, something which the original series took for granted. Bruno Langley’s performance was just on the right side of irritating, giving Adam some measure of sympathy. However that sympathy was ruined with an ending that was so smug and annoying, it was obviously going for the cheap laugh. It would have been far more effective from an emotional point of view, to have the Doctor leave Adam behind on Satellite Five as a consequence of his actions, not just return him home to his mum like a naughty little boy.

As for the Editor, I really didn’t buy Simon Pegg’s performance. It wasn’t really sinister enough and he appeared to be playing it for laughs too. The other guest characters didn’t really engage me at all, which is a shame as Russell T Davies has written some superb and very strong female characters in this series. Suki and Cath were rather one-dimensional characters, and although competently played by Christine Adams and Anna Maxwell Martin, they failed to engage any sympathy in the way that Jabe or Harriet Jones did in previous episodes. Tamsin Greig, another excellent actress was rather wasted as the Nurse, and actually managed to convey a clinical sort of menace which sadly wasn’t followed up in any way.

And did the costume designer have a day off? For the year 200 000, the characters looked more like they were from the year 2005 with the Editor’s smart suit and Suki’s flowery blouse. The Jagrafess of whatnot doodah was yet another CGI monster that looked great but did very little; he was simply there to roar, slobber and scare the kids. What was he doing there, why was he trying to suppress the human race? I know Russell said all will be revealed later in the series but that’s not really enough for a casual viewer.

I realise that the series can’t be fantastic every week but we really can’t afford to have dull runaround episodes like this. Not when he and other writers have raised the stakes emotionally and dramatically with episodes such as The End of The World, The Unquiet Dead and Dalek. I simply wasn’t gripped by The Long Game as I was with those episodes, which is a shame as the actual premise behind it was rather interesting. However the episode as a whole was a passable and rather forgettable romp, lightweight and in places, irritating. Sorry!