The Long Game

The Doctor, Rose and Adam travel forward in time to the year 200,000 and land aboard Satellite 5, a space station orbiting Earth during what should be the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire, but the Doctor immediately recognizes that the activity aboard the station is not consistent with future history. The Doctor investigates the station and meets with journalists Cathica and Suki who work on Satellite 5, using his psychic paper to pose as a member of management. They tell the Doctor that Satellite 5 is a 600-channel news satellite broadcasting to the Empire, and that they hope to be promoted someday to "Floor 500", the management floor. Rose and Adam investigate food stalls near where the TARDIS landed. Adam is overwhelmed with the strangeness of the situation, so Rose lets him borrow her "superphone" to call his family in the past; but he only gets their answering machine. Adam pockets the "superphone". The Doctor and his companions are observed by the Editor, a human in a dark, icy room, watching their actions through security cameras.
The Doctor reunites with Rose and Adam, and they are invited to watch a 'broadcasting' session with Cathica and other journalists. Cathica uses a port in the centre of her forehead to process information directly into her brain, which is then transferred to chips in the other journalists' head, who then broadcast it to their appropriate stations. While Adam is amazed at the technology, the Doctor notes that humans should have surpassed it by now. However, the Editor has detected that Suki is an unauthorized intruder in the "newsroom", and announces to all that she has been promoted and should come to Floor 500. Suki says her goodbyes, as those that go to Floor 500 never come back, and departs; when she arrives, she finds Floor 500 to be cold and populated by shriveled corpses. She encounters the Editor, who exposes her as a member of the Freedom Foundation, an anarchist underground group. Suki holds the Editor at gunpoint, telling him she knows that the news reported from Satellite 5 is manipulated, and demands to know who controls the station. The Editor points her to the "Editor-in-Chief", who, unseen, descends upon the screaming Suki.
Adam excuses himself to recover his thoughts in an observation lounge, where he uses the station's computer to gain information that he relays back in time to his answering machine via the "superphone". However, the computer limits his access, and directs him to 'floor 16', the station's medical facility. He there learns that he can get a port similar to Cathica's which will link him directly to the archives, but he hesitates.
Meanwhile the Doctor and Rose try to get more information from Cathica. Cathica gives vague answers, but the Doctor deduces that something is holding the human race back, both in attitude and technology, for the last 91 years - ever since Satellite 5 started broadcasting. The Doctor hacks into the station computers and notes that a lot of heat is being vented from the top floors into the lower ones. The Editor is aware of the Doctor's actions, and allows him to gain the password to come to Floor 500. Rose and the Doctor try to convince Cathica to join them, but she wants nothing to do with it.
On floor 500, Rose and the Doctor encounter the Editor, as well as Suki's dead body and those of several others being used as slaves to the computer systems. The Editor explains that through Satellite 5, they have been able to change the Empire into a place where humans are allowed to live, using manipulated news to install fear into the human race as to keep them in a closed society. These actions have been controlled by a consortium of banks, and the "Editor-in-Chief", the Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe ("Max" for short), who hangs above their heads. The Doctor notices that Cathica has had a change of heart and decided to follow them to Floor 500 as she listens in unobserved on the conversation outside the room; for her benefit, the Doctor verbally notes that the Jagrafess' metabolism generates a lot of heat, and thus the station itself is its life support system, venting the heat into the lower floors below.
Adam has the port implanted, and, after recovery, goes to the newsroom and opens his port; he calls his answering machine with the "superphone", and initiates a link with the computer. The Editor is alerted to this, and is able to learn of the TARDIS and that the Doctor is a Time Lord from Adam's mind, and now aims to get the secret of time travel from the Doctor so that he can rewrite history to prevent humans from even developing. Cathica, hearing this, goes to the newsroom on Floor 500 and uses her link to sever Adam's connection and to reverse the flow of the environmental systems, sending heat to Floor 500, causing the Jagrafess to overheat. The Doctor and Rose escape while the Editor tries to sever Cathica's connection but cannot; he then tries to escape as well but is held by Suki's corpse, and ends up caught in the explosion of the Jagrafess.
The Doctor congratulates Cathica, but is furious with Adam. The Doctor takes Adam home in the Tardis, destroys the answering machine and banishes Adam from the TARDIS, noting that Adam will have to live a quiet life so no-one discovers the port in his forehead. As the Doctor and Rose leave, Adam's mother comes home, and commenting on how time flies, snaps her fingers, causing Adam's forehead port to open, and causing his mother to stare in horror.