Doctor: Christopher Eccleston (Ninth Doctor)
Companions: Billie Piper (Rose Tyler)
Bruno Langley (Adam Mitchell)
Others
Colin Prockter – Head Chef
Christine Adams – Cathica
Anna Maxwell-Martin – Suki
Simon Pegg – The Editor
Tamsin Greig – Nurse
Judy Holt – Adam's mother
Production
Directed by Brian Grant
Written by Russell T Davies
Script editor Elwen Rowlands
Produced by Phil Collinson
Executive producer(s) Russell T Davies
Julie Gardner
Mal Young
Incidental music composer Murray Gold
Production code 1.7
Series Series 1
Length 44 minutes
Originally broadcast 7 May 2005
The Doctor, Rose, and Adam arrive on Floor 139 of Satellite 5, a space station orbiting Earth in the year 200,000. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to get Adam and Rose some credits to buy food while he looks around the station. The Doctor meets a woman named Cathica, a reporter who tells him that the station is a giant broadcast tower transmitting news across Earth. They are led to a room where she sits down in a chair located in the center of a round table. The reporters are connected to the computer via a special port installed directly into the brain. The Doctor believes there is a malevolent purpose to the station that is holding back human development. He learns from Cathica that a select few are invited to Floor 500, which is believed to be the highest promotion that can be earned on the station.
The Doctor, with Rose, hacks into the computer systems of the station and is detected by the Editor. The Editor allows the Doctor and Rose to travel to Floor 500, with Cathica following soon after. On Floor 500 the Doctor and Rose find the Editor directing control over the station through a number of dead humans. On the ceiling resides the Editor-in-Chief, the Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe, to whom the Editor answers. The Doctor learns that the Jagrafess has controlled the humans aboard Satellite 5 to control the lives of the people on the planet below, by manipulating the news.
Meanwhile, Adam discovers that he can gain access to information about Earth's future. He has an information port installed in his brain and uses Rose's phone to call his answering machine at home and transfer data to it. The port also allows the Jagrafess into Adam's mind. The Jagrafess discovers the true nature of the Doctor and makes plans to kill him. The Doctor, aware of Cathica's presence outside the room, loudly comments on how altering the environmental systems will likely kill the Jagrafess. Cathica takes the hint and reverses the cooling system, causing Floor 500 to overheat and killing the Jagrafess and the Editor. As the humans on board the station and on Earth come to wake from the stupor they've been in, the Doctor congratulates Cathica and gives her hope for the future. The Doctor discovers Adam's duplicity and takes him to his home on Earth. The Doctor destroys the answering machine with the data from the future on it and tells Adam he is no longer welcome in the TARDIS. Adam tries to plead with the Doctor and Rose, saying that they can't just leave him to walk around with a port to his brain for the rest of his life, but the Doctor tells him that if he just leads a quiet life, it probably won't be discovered. But as soon as the Doctor and Rose leave, Adam's mother returns home and, by pure accident and much to her shock, activates his brain port.
The Long Game