Adam Mitchell
Adam first appeared in
Dalek, cataloguing extraterrestrial artefacts in an underground bunker in
Utah called the Vault. Van Statten had been collecting these artefacts for years, reverse engineering them to create technologies such as
broadband Internet which he then sold. Adam was also a genius, having successfully
hacked into the
United States Department of Defense computers when he was eight years old, nearly causing, in his own words,
World War III. He was eventually recruited by Van Statten.
Van Statten had one living specimen in his museum, which he termed a "metaltron", but was actually a
Dalek. The Dalek managed to break free and slaughter its way through the base, and Adam found himself running from it along with
Rose, the
Doctor's companion. At the end of the episode, Rose asked the Doctor to take Adam along with them in the
TARDIS as Adam had told her earlier that he had always wanted to see the stars. It was implied that she also found Adam attractive. Despite the Doctor's scepticism about Adam as a potential fellow-traveller, he agreed.
Adam's travels with the Doctor and Rose did not last long. During
The Long Game, taking place in the year 200,000, Adam was overwhelmed by the wealth of information and technology available to him and ultimately gave in to temptation. He had an advanced computer interface port installed in his head (activated by a snap of the fingers) so he could access the future's computer systems, and attempted to transmit information back to
21st century Earth using Rose's modified
mobile phone, dubbed the
"Superphone".
Discovering this breach of his trust, the Doctor returned Adam to his home despite Adam's apologetic pleading, leaving there after destroying the answering machine which had received the information. The Doctor observed that Adam would have to live a quiet life from now on, lest someone discover the implant in his head and dissect him to uncover its secrets. The ease at which this could happen was demonstrated when Adam's mother returned home and snapped her fingers, inadvertently activating the implant. What happened to Adam next is, as yet, unchronicled.
Adam is the only on-screen companion to be actually expelled from the TARDIS crew due to bad behaviour.
On the DVD audio commentary for the episode
Dalek, writer
Rob Shearman reveals that in early drafts, Adam was the son of Henry van Statten.
Much fan speculation surrounded a possible return of Adam at the end of the series, having used the advanced technology to manipulate events, gain the knowledge of time travel and perhaps even rebuild the Daleks after the
Time War. Many even went as far as saying that he was an earlier version of
Davros (the implant in his head eventually becoming Davros's third eye). When the Dalek Emperor appeared in
The Parting of the Ways, however, it was evidently neither Adam nor Davros.
In the week in which
The Long Game was first broadcast, the website "
Who is Doctor Who?" announced that 14 year old Adam Mitchell had won a competition arranged by Van Statten the previous week. Adam's winning essay on "Why I Want To Meet An Alien" focuses on acquiring advanced knowledge from them ("I don't think it's cheating, really. It's just a shortcut"), foreshadowing both his work for Van Statten and his actions in the 2001st century. The
canonicity of the material on the website is unclear.
*
Dalek *
The Long Game*
Adam's essay on "Who Is Doctor Who?"
