Given the speculation over the media's effect on the election campaign, 'The Long Game''s subject of media manipulation is pretty topical. It's been done before, though (notably by another long-lived franchise in 'Tomorrow Never Dies'), and I didn't feel this treatment brought much insight. Little about the newsgathering technology made much sense (why process the news in a human brain rather than a computer? what are the subsidiary people for? why bother with an external datastream?). As the secret of Level 500 is revealed to the viewer early on, the episode lacked tension, and the CGI Exercise, whoops the Guaranteed-Easy-To-Kill* Alien of the Week, had a refreshingly bland World Domination motivation. (*It's beginning to remind me of that infamous 'Blake's 7' episode 'Sand'.)

Like the main plot, the B-plot toyed with an interesting idea -- the ethics of time travel -- without exploring it in enough depth. Bruno Langley as the teen genius Adam acquired in 'Dalek' never had much oomph, and I'm not particularly sad to see the back of him.

After the heavy investment in the relationship between Rose & the Doctor in previous episodes, I was disappointed that there was no fallout from the events of 'Dalek'. Indeed, neither had much to do here, beyond holding hands in the lift.

All in all, 'The Long Game' had a distinct lack of sparkle. The sets felt very 70s DW, and not in a good way: I wondered if they'd spent all their budget on twelve episodes, and had to squeeze this one in on the tea money. The satellite setting in a far-future Earth empire was over-reminiscent of 'The End of the World', which only highlighted 'The Long Game''s relative poverty.

We're more than halfway through the new season now, and some worrying glitches are emerging. I commented earlier on the upbeat pacing, cutting straight to the action & avoiding all those exposition scenes on the Tardis. The downside is that I'm beginning to miss the grounding effect of the Tardis interior -- like the Liberator flightdeck or the Buffy library it's central to the show, even if scenes there tend to be workaday. The focus on Earth in all the episodes so far is rational given the foregrounding of Rose, yet I'm beginning to doubt the assertion that the new Tardis can travel in space as well as time.

Last week's 'Dalek' set a high standard, and 'The Long Game' just didn't deliver.

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!

It was always going to be tough following an episode like ‘Dalek’ but it would appear RTD didn’t really try and instead recycled a rejected script from series 24.

The Tardis materializes in the distant future, on a space station orbiting the Earth at the height of its Fourth Empire. The series is once again let down by dull, lifeless sets, unimaginative costume design and in the year 200,000 we can still be expecting to eat fast food courtesy of ‘kronck’ burgers. If it had been set in the year 2020 I would have struggled to accept this as the future but 200,000, please…

The story and plot are paper thin, a scary monster attaches itself to the ceiling of a satellite (why the ceiling? – less CGI – saves the purse strings) but don’t worry, turn the heating up and he’ll explode. The End.

The one redeeming factor with this episode has to be Simon Pegg, who despite some seriously dodgy dialogue manages to pull off one of the best performances of the series, so far.

A few people seem upset/shocked with the sudden removal of Adam from the Tardis but I think they’re missing the big picture here. Adam has been returned to Earth with a computer in his head for a very good reason and I expect him to return in series two with a very large axe to grind with the Doctor.

I have enjoyed the series so far but have to agree with the general opinion that the stronger stories are those not written by RTD. He has definitely got the length right, 45 minute self contained stories seem to be the way forward. Imagine having to sit through another three episodes of ‘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...

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.

I wasn't going to submit a review of this epieosde. Earlier today I read through the first few reviews that had been submitted, and was shocked to see so many people coming out to say "oh! Russel T. Davies is a good chap really." I was apalled!

I've seen for a few weeks now a simple problem with the new series, and simply put it's Davies' scripts. The two non-Davies scripts so far, Unquiet Dead and Dalek have been hailed all round as the finest two episodes so far. Please please Davies and BBC take the hint.

So what's wrong with Russel T. Davies' scripts anyway? (and what does the T stand for? Is that like the T. in James T. Kirk??) The problem is a simple lack of any depth or substance. The Unquiet Dead and Dalek both have something in common that no other episode so far has. This is that they took a simple premise and didn't try and either over-complicate it, or do too much with it.

Davies' scripts have so far translated almost as cartoons, parodies of what an episode should be. It's like Little Britain Sci-Fi sometimes.

I didn't really enjoy this episode simply as he was trying to so much with it that there was no depth. I would like him to have completely dropped the Adam story. If you were going to include a parable about "why it's wrong to change history", then I think that'll come about in the next story, and is indeed the entire basis for it.

We didn't find out anything about why the journalists were apparently so unwilling to ask questions. We didn't delve at all into the character of the Editor. Pegg was magnificent. Eccleston and Piper are playing off each-other so well now, that they'll be completing each other's sentences in a couple of weeks.