The Doctor, Rose and Adam find themselves on Satellite 5 in the year 200,000, when Earth is meant to be at the forefront of a mighty galactic empire. But something has gone wrong: humanity's development has stalled, and the Doctor suspects that it has something to do with the media transmissions which bombard the populace, all emanating from Satellite 5. The answer lies on the mysterious Floor 500, abode of the sinister Editor. But while the Doctor and Rose investigate, Adam decides to take full advantage of the opportunity to immerse himself in the knowledge and technology of the distant future.

Russell T Davies had been a Doctor Who fan since his childhood. As a teenager, his discovery that most journalism was controlled by a small number of companies fuelled an idea for a Doctor Who story about a space station which manipulated the news. During the Eighties, Davies entered the television industry as a graphic artist. However, he had ambitions to write drama and decided to develop his news media idea as a storyline submission for a four-part Doctor Who adventure. It was rejected by the production team of the day, but the notion stuck with Davies. When he was charged with resurrecting Doctor Who in 2003, it inspired his synopsis of the new season's seventh episode.

In his pitch document of December 8th, Davies established that the narrative would have a purpose beyond resurrecting a thirty-year-old story idea. This was made plain by the proposed title: “The Companion Who Couldn't”. Davies wanted to explore what would happen if the Doctor was joined by somebody who was ill-equipped to travel in the TARDIS, becoming overwhelmed by the environments and perils into which the Time Lord journeyed. This would also help distinguish Rose Tyler as a special presence in the Doctor's life. To this end, Davies introduced a new companion named Adam, who would board the TARDIS at the end of episode six -- Robert Shearman's Dalek -- before demonstrating his unsuitability in the very next story.

Season Twenty-Seven's debut episode, Rose, had been so named because it not only introduced Rose Tyler, but was also told from her perspective. Davies thought that “The Companion Who Couldn't” might likewise be written entirely from Adam's point of view, and so he considered dubbing it “Adam”. By the time he started writing the episode in August 2004, however, the year's first production block was under way, and Davies had had a chance to watch his stars, Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper, in action. Anticipating that viewers would become enchanted with the pair, he decided to make Adam's arc just a component of the adventure, rather than its main thrust. As such, he renamed the episode The Long Game.

During the development of his script, Davies shifted the setting from the year 8922 to 200,000. The middle part of Suki Macrae Cantrell's name was an homage to his colleague, Tom MacRae, who would later write 2006's Rise Of The Cybermen / The Age Of Steel and 2011's The Girl Who Waited. The reference to Bad Wolf TV was added in reference to the story arc Davies was developing for Season Twenty-Seven, which would revolve around the phrase “bad wolf”. Davies originally envisaged The Long Game as a budget-conscious exercise, and he structured some of the sets so that they could not only be employed for several venues in the episode, but could also be reused for the season finale -- ultimately Bad Wolf / The Parting Of The Ways -- which would share the same setting, albeit at a different time. As production neared, however, executive producer Mal Young, who was preparing to leave the BBC, gave his permission for Doctor Who to loosen its purse strings. This meant that extra money could be spent on some elements of the story, such as the computer-animated Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe.

The head “spike” originally involved the entire cranium opening up, rather than just a forehead aperture

It was originally intended that The Long Game would be made as part of Block Three, alongside Dalek and episode eight, Father's Day. However, the additional effects requirements forced the production team to reconsider this plan. The Long Game would now be made on its own as “Block 4A”, with the original Block Four -- episodes nine and ten, The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances -- relabelled “Block 4B”. This meant that The Long Game would be directed by Brian Grant, making his only episode of Doctor Who. Cast as the Editor was Simon Pegg, the acclaimed writer/actor of programmes such as Spaced who had recently starred in the hit horror-comedy film Shaun Of The Dead. Pegg had previously been approached to play Rose's dad in Father's Day, but had been unavailable.

Unlike the other stories of Season Twenty-Seven, The Long Game was made exclusively in the studio -- either at Doctor Who's usual production home of Unit Q2 in Newport, or on sets erected at the old British Telecom building in Cardiff. Work began at Unit Q2 on November 30th, for scenes on the observation deck. The day ended with material on the Floor 139 causeway, which remained Grant's focus until December 3rd. After the weekend, the BT building was the venue for footage in the Floor 500 spike room and Adam's house on December 6th. Cast and crew returned to Unit Q2 on the 7th, for sequences in the lift and on the Floor 500 causeway. The final work at the BT facility took place on December 8th and 9th. Further shots in Adam's house were completed on the 8th, but the two days were otherwise dedicated to action in the Floor 139 spike room.

Simon Pegg had enormous difficulty saying the name of the Editor's boss

The rest of The Long Game was then recorded at Unit Q2. December 10th, 11th and 13th were devoted to the Editor's control room. For these scenes, production designer Edward Thomas had wrapped the Floor 139 set in polythene and covered it in a fake frost to give the impression that it was vacuum-packed. However, when producer Phil Collinson arrived at Unit Q2 on the morning of the 10th, he deemed the dressing to have departed too greatly from Davies' script. Filming was delayed while the set was modified to provide less of a contrast with Floor 139. The monitors displayed stills from various BBC programmes, including old episodes of Doctor Who, such as 1975's The Ark In Space and 1980's The Leisure Hive. Some dialogue was omitted, in which the Editor explained that the manipulation of Satellite 5 was motivated by the threat to the Jagrafessfold breeding grounds posed by the expansion of the Earth Empire.

The remaining material in the control room was completed on December 14th, after which attention turned to Adam's experiences in the medical room. Work on The Long Game then wrapped up on the 15th, which involved shots in the control room, the lift, the Floor 16 causeway, and Adam's house. Several trims were made in post-production, including the elimination of Adam's suggestion that he could find a cure for his father's arthritis in the year 200,000. Both Suki and the Doctor were also meant to be delivered gold key cards by courier, which provided them access to Floor 500. Nicholas Briggs, who had voiced the Nestene Consciousness in Rose and the Dalek in Dalek, recorded material for the Jagrafess. However, it was felt to be too similar to the Nestene, and so dialogue editor Paul McFadden heavily altered it to construct a new sound profile.

• Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #11, 31st August 2005, “Fact File: The Long Game” by Andrew Pixley, Panini Publishing Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Complete History #49, 2017, “Story 162: The Long Game”, edited by John Ainsworth, Hachette Partworks Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Inside Story by Gary Russell (2006), BBC Books.