#cathica

I just rewatched the Long Game, I must have been 11 or 12 when I first saw it, and I was so happy to see Cathica and Suki! For some reason this episode impacted me a lot, it was the one I had in mind when I restarted my NuWho run

Plot Summary

Having picked up Adam Mitchell as a new companion in the previous episode, the Doctor and Rose travel to the year 200,000 to show him the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. However, once they arrive, they realize that not all is as it should be and there is very little great and bountiful about humans in this time. Instead of great prosperity and interaction with other species, humanity is inundated with mass media and fast food. The Doctor knows how history was supposed to go, but this certainly was not it. Something has gone wrong.

They discover that a group of banks have installed a creature, the Jagrafess, to run the broadcast satellite and thereby run humanity. By controlling which news stories break when, the Jagrafess can guide economies and elections, all to the profit of the banks. The Doctor and Rose go to stop this creature, but are impeded by the work of Adam. Adam had gone off on his own and began harvesting information, intending to bring it back to his own time for his own personal benefit. In doing so, Adam had alerted the Jagrafess’s caretaker of the Doctor’s true identity as a Time Lord and the uniqueness of his TARDIS. The character of the day, Cathica, steps in to set things right, saving the Doctor and Rose and humanity at the same time.

After saying goodbye to Cathica, the episode closes with the Doctor and Rose dropping Adam off back at his home in his proper time: his bad behavior evicted him from the TARDIS. The Doctor and Rose enter the TARDIS again for another journey, just the two of them. (A full summary of this episode may be found in the TARDIS data core.)

Story Structure

a Travelling with Adam   b Introduction to Cathica and Suki     c The Editor investigates       d Food court         e Cathica broadcasts the news           f Adam is impressed at the technology; the Doctor calls it “wrong”             g Elevator needs a key               h Suki meets the Editor and the Jagrafess                 i Adam researches history of the microprocessor                   j The Doctor asks Cathica why a journalist doesn’t ask questions                     k Adam loses access and goes to the medical floor                       l Cathica nervously watches the Doctor hack into the mainframe                         m The Editor orders a background check on the Doctor and Rose                           n Cathica wants to go; the Doctor praises Rose for her questions                         m’ The Editor’s check comes back with nothing                       l’ The Doctor shows the plumbing and Cathica begins to ask questions                     k’ Adam in post-op                   j’ Cathica abandons the Doctor and Rose                 i’ Adam throws up, but doesn’t               h’ The Doctor and Rose meet the Editor and the Jagrafess             g’ Cathica hacks into the elevator           f’ Adam’s broadcast puts the Doctor and Rose at risk         e’ Cathica’s broadcast brings down the news       d’ Chaos in the food court     c’ The Editor dies by Suki’s hand   b’ Saying goodbye to Cathica a’ Leaving Adam behind

h/h’: a Suki enters Floor 500   b Suki knows something’s wrong     c Suki runs into dead bodies       d The Editor points to the Jagrafess a’ The Doctor and Rose enter Floor 500   b’ The Doctor tells Rose she should go downstairs     c’ The Doctor says that Suki is dead       d’ The Editor points to the Jagrafess

Minor Themes and Motifs

Humanology: The Importance of Asking Questions

This theme appears in most every aspect of the story. The people of the year 200,000 are characterized as people who accept what they are told and do not ask questions about odd details. In fact, as badly as Adam otherwise fares in this episode, even he is praised by the Doctor for asking why there are no aliens on a satellite of an empire that comprises a million species. The brief description Cathica gives of the news stories reveals that they report on civil unrest as much as they report on the Face of Boe’s progeny. This characterizes mass media as being less than informational but sensational in nature. The image we are given is not too far off from Fahrenheit 451: “Big Brother is not watching you. Big Brother is you, watching.”

Of course, the story begins developing the theme explicitly once it parallels Cathica and Rose (j-j’), and the importance of this theme is emphasized by its placement at the center of the chiasm. The Doctor praises Rose for asking questions while asking a pointed question to Cathica: why the journalist does not do the same. Cathica personifies the unthinking masses in her accepting what she is told, and in j’, she represents the worst of them, for not only does she not ask questions, but when someone else does, she leaves them and the situation. Cathica of course redeems herself as well, and in doing so, she shows that the masses can be reformed, they can start thinking for themselves again, but her initial reluctance to do so shows that this is a difficult thing for a person to start doing.

That itself is a minor theme within a minor theme: what humans can do versus what we actually do, what we can be versus what we are. We are told at the beginning of the episode of the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire, how prosperous and wide-reaching it is. The bulk of the episode, however, shows humanity practically enslaved. How opposite these two states of being are, and how remarkable for this episode to suggest that the one thing that determines whether humans are great or mediocre is curiosity. The irony—in the episode, but in reality as well—is that curiosity is something that is absolutely innate to human nature, but it is easy for this trait to be dulled over time. The setting of a mass media newscast underscores all of this, for journalism—in reality—ought to be where curiosity is most exercised and valued, but instead, our 24-hour news channels are some of the worst offenders in presenting banality.

Suki escalates the theme even more, for her character shows that this aspect of humanity—question-asking—is so important that it is worth dying for to kickstart the human race. The masses are content not asking questions, and Adam is content to leave humanity where it is so long as he personally can profit from it, but Suki, Cathica, Rose, and the Doctor put their lives on the line to liberate humanity, and Suki indeed pays that price.

A Better Life

The nature of companions is that they companionate the Doctor. That may well seem self-evident, but it bears mentioning how basic this is to the Doctor’s companions. In other words, companions do not simply travel with the Doctor, the Doctor has to go through great lengths to make them stop it. He had to lie to Rose in Aliens of London so that he could go off alone. That may be the only time it works too, for no matter how much the Doctor protests that he does not want his companion(s) to follow him into a trap, they refuse to adhere to his commands.

Adam, however, invents an excuse to Rose so that he can go off on his own. This action alone tells us everything we need to know about Adam’s potential as a companion. It is understandable that he would do this, however, for this is the behavior he learned from Van Statten: learn what you can from your superiors, betray them when they are no longer useful, and always watch your own back, maintaining your own arsenal if necessary.

That works with Van Statten and other business moguls, but it is not the way of the Doctor; in fact, it is precisely opposite. As discussed before, the Doctor has an influence on his companions. He rubs off on them. We saw this with Rose and Harriet Jones, and we see it in this episode in Cathica. In a universe where no one asks questions, one journalist begins to do just that, but not just any journalist, but the one who came in contact with the Doctor.

Adam only confirms our suspicions about his companion-potential when he tries to strike it rich quick. Unlike every other main character in this story, Adam does nothing to help out humanity. Again, Adam is content to leave humanity enslaved while he makes a large fortune, and in making such a choice, he sets himself in the ranks of the bankers who installed the Jagrafess in the first place. Humanity suffers, but they profit. This makes perfect business sense, but it is not the way of the Doctor.

This episode opens with Adam struggling to cope with space/time travel, and the Doctor tells him he needs to open his mind. In a sense, the episode is about Adam’s inability to open his mind to a new paradigm. He had the best opportunity possible—travelling with the Doctor—but he wasted it. Instead of opening his mind to the Doctor’s life, he opened his head to new technology, and his price for not heeding the Doctor’s words to open his mind (a), he will live with his Type II chip forever (a’). His Vomit-O-Matic is also a permanent reminder of his inability to adjust to the Doctor’s life.

Over the span of four episodes, Doctor Who has shown that the way the world does politics will not save the world or even change the world (Aliens of London), it has shown twice that a military approach will not save or change the world (Aliens of London and Dalek), and it has now shown twice that business will not save or change the world either (Dalek and The Long Game). This judges business as being self-interested to such an extent that it will sell out the universe for the profit of a few individual—and for a story written in 2005, that message is as painful as it was prophetic. Blaming business for the world’s problems is nothing new, however, but this episode’s answer is. For that, we turn to the major theme.

Major Theme: Exploring for the Good of Others

As much as curiosity is praised (or, conversely, as much as apathy is denounced), the story is quick to make sure that not just any curiosity is praiseworthy. Both Adam and Cathica display curiosity in this episode, but Adam only uses his discoveries for his own benefit whereas Cathica saves others’ lives. Asking questions is not enough. As important as curiosity is to human nature, this episode pleads that we would see sympathy as being even more central still.

Impressive Ordinariness

This episode displays the theme of impressive ordinariness in a new way as far as the series is concerned. Not only can unimportant individuals be impressive, but unimportant information can be impressive as well. While Adam goes around looking up vital information about technology, the Doctor goes around looking up information on plumbing. As Cathica states bewilderedly, “This is ridiculous. You’ve got access to the computer’s core. You could look at the archive, the news, the stock exchange, and you're looking at pipes?” For the Doctor, what is most important is not what information you have, but how you use it.

Humble Ingenuity

Despite Adam’s self-acclaimed genius (Dalek), the Doctor tells him he will have to spend the rest of his life in obscurity, “a very quiet life…be average, unseen.” Adam failed to open his mind to the Doctor’s way of doing things, and he will have the rest of his life to discover that way on his own, and this is precisely the only option available to him. Adam can either live a life of humble ingenuity, or he can strive to exceed his bounds, which will be his doom. This is perhaps a metaphor for the entire show: following the Doctor’s way is a blessed life, but following our own inclinations lead us to our doom, both individually and as a species.

More important is how the two themes of impressive ordinariness and humble ingenuity come together. In emphasizing the two themes, the episode proclaims both that any information, no matter how small, can be used for the benefit of others and also that we humans are at our best when we are curious and clever, but in a way that makes us desire more information (for information’s sake, not profit’s). These twin themes encourage the viewer to apply the Doctor’s life to their own no matter what their vocation is. Are you a physician? Then serve people in what you have trained for. Are you a fry cook? Then serve people in what you have been trained for. For the Doctor, there are no small jobs, but the self-centered person is a small person indeed.