In the book "The Shooting Scripts", Russell T Davies claims that he had originally set out to write this episode from Adam's perspective, watching the adventure unfolding from his point of view (exactly as Rose did in "Rose") and seeing both the Doctor and Rose as enigmatic, frightening characters. He even gave this outline a working title: "Adam". Another working title for this story was "The Companion Who Couldn't". According to Davies, the concept of "The Long Game" was originally written in the early 1980s and submitted to the "Doctor Who" production office. Whether it was ever read by the production team of the time is unclear, as Davies received a rejection from the BBC Script Unit, who advised him to write more realistic television about "a man and his mortgage" instead. Davies reworked the story for the new series.