Marco Polo

The Roof of the World

It's such a shame Marco Polo no longer exists. The Discontinuity Guide calls it "too loose and unstructured to be the all-conquering classic of repute," but for me that is one of the very reasons to love it. The long, rambling nature of the story, following our regulars with Marco and co. over such a long period of time, is wonderful. Whilst I would never wish that existing stories had been lost instead of some of the still missing stories, I do find it quite sad that Marco Polo has gone, and yet the Keys of Marinus and the Sensorites are still in existence. Having said that, I do actually quite like the narrated soundtrack format. As a fan of audio drama (well, Big Finish, anyway), I do quite like immersing myself in those soundtracks. I do like reconstructions as well, but the soundtrack is my preferred form of experiencing the missing stories. 

 

Appropriately, I should mention Tristram Cary first. It's a shame we didn't get more of Cary on Doctor Who. His scores are all terrific (with the possible exception of the Mutants), but this is his best. It works so perfectly for the story and is a delight to listen to for the entirety of the three hours. We can't see the story, but it sounds terrific. I know some people say it's hard to judge missing stories properly, but I think it isn't that hard as long as you know your own tastes to assess how much you'd like them. I don't think it's all that different to judging audio drama. The task is made even easier when you have bits of stories to see. Sadly, there's absolutely sod all of Marco Polo to see, but it is directed by Waris Hussein, so it's very unlikely it looked awful. Not that I particularly care what things look like anyway... The story and acting are what I care about, otherwise I'd be watching Star Trek (just kidding, any Star Trek fans who may be reading!)

Anyway, to move on to the Marco Polo review! They're at the roof of the world (as Ian and Susan repeat a number of times), and so the Doctor is out of breath (and Barbara runs out of hers quite fast). I thought that was quite a nice bit of realism. It seems obvious, but it is one of those things that could be easy to forget in the whole production process. Oh look, Marco Polo comes along and tells them they're on the roof of the world. Very clever of Ian and Susan after all that babbling about that being where they were over and over at the beginning. 

 

The Doctor is all over the place emotionally in this episode. The way he says, "I don't like this place!" is in the tone of a 6 year old being dragged round the National Gallery. Then from that sulk he then has the brilliant line, "for an emissary of peace he has rather bloodthirsty habits, hasn't he!" about Tegana. Then he gets Ian's name ridiculously wrong. "Charlton," indeed. That's by far the worst one. But anyway, he then tops it off by having an insane fit of laughter at the end when he finds out Marco's plan. "I haven't got the faintest idea," is his plan to get the TARDIS back.

There's another point I hadn't thought about before. I know the TARDIS has always had various problems throughout the 48 years of Doctor Who, but I hadn't taken in just how rickety it is right at the start. In the Daleks it doesn't work because one small part is (very easily) removed. There are no spares for this extremely vital part! In the Edge of Destruction a switch gets stuck, which nearly causes the whole ship to explode. And now here in Marco Polo, for no reason that is explained, the lights and heating have failed and there's no water, turning the ship into what would have been a death trap if Marco Polo hadn't conveniently chanced upon them in exactly the right place and time in this absolutely gigantic part of the world.

Marco Polo and Tegana are very well constructed characters already. I think Tegana does stray a little too much towards the clichéd villain at times, but maybe I'm being too harsh. I love the accent Derren Nesbitt puts on, anyway. I think Marco Polo's diary scenes are a great addition. Again, those bits are so unlike anything ever seen again in Doctor Who that they really are terrific, and they do a good job at advancing the story. I love how Marco uses the Mongols as an excuse to not let the Doctor into the TARDIS by saying they believe the Doctor is harmless outside it. 

 

Super opening. There is still enough time to build a small bit of mystery at the start, and yet Marco and Tegana are given a lot of time in this episode, and the regulars once again are separated from the TARDIS. So, six episodes of them trying to get it back from a handful of people from the 13th century? Surely that can't work? 10/10

The Singing Sands

The Singing Sands is an interesting episode, as quite simply all it involves is Tegana's plan to deprive Marco Polo's group of water, and a sandstorm. It is much better than that sounds, although (if I remember correctly) it is the weakest episode of the story. I do like how William Hartnell's holiday this week is covered by the Doctor having a sulk, rather than being unconscious. It's much more fun. According the the Television Companion it wasn't a holiday, but surely it must have been? He had one line in the 25 minutes. Speaking of which, he has two weeks off in the next story, too. I know we do have Doctor-light stories in the new series, but Hartnell misses 75 minutes in the first five stories, which is just unimaginable by today's standards, even taking into account the show being less centred around the Doctor in those days.

I hate to criticise John Lucarotti, the writer of three of the absolute best stories in 48 years of the show, but Susan's dialogue with Ping-Cho is pretty horrific. I can only hope those bits were more down to David Whitaker. I know she's meant to be the one who doesn't quite fit in, but her exclamation of, "oh, crazy!" as she sees the moon is bad enough before making it even worse by explaining to Ping-Cho, "it means I dig it, you know? Like it". I think I liked her more when she was shrieking. Speaking of which, Susan and Ping-Cho (very impressively/stupidly) decide to follow Tegana off into the desert in the middle of the night, and get caught in the sandstorm, so we do get to hear Susan's screams, after all. The singing sands sound terrific. I wonder how that was realised on the screen. The bit where the sandstorm calms and Susan and Ping-Cho look up to see Tegana standing over them sounds like a very creepy moment.

I probably missed it, but what was the point of the poison Tegana acquired? I'd assumed the first time it was to, you know, poison the water supply, but he just drained all the water gourds. What was the poison for? And why is Ian so desperate not to go back to Lop? In the end he's right, but he didn't know Tegana had planned all this. Marco specifically states that the water will last 3 or 4 days if they go to extreme rationing, and the oasis is 5 or 6 days away at full speed march, day and night. I know he wants to avoid Lop because of the bandits, but it still sounds a bit of a suicide mission. It's rather lucky Marco decided to let the Doctor back in the TARDIS, really. I like how Tegana has now hogged two cliffhangers to himself. "Here's water Marco Polo. Come for it!"

From what I remember of Marco Polo, this episode is the weakest, not that that is much of a criticism. It is a good episode in that it does make plainly clear just how dangerous an environment the desert really is, in the number of different ways it can kill you. It is in full-on education mode through much of these early parts, but the charm and atmosphere is terrific, the guest actors are superb, and Tristram Cary again must be commended. 9/10.

Five Hundred Eyes

Marco's naivety about Tegana is quite endearing, really. "Whatever happened to Tegana? Is he lost?" Marco asks. To be fair, when they do catch up with him, Tegana's excuse is plausible, if nothing else. He says that bandits were at the oasis and he had to hide from them. Barbara (who else?) sees through this right away, pointing out that no fire had been lit, even though the night had been cold, but this is far too early in the narrative for Marco to distrust Tegana, so he waves off this sensible point.

The condensation get-out is very cleverly done, actually. It is obviously there as part of the educational aspect of the show, but it's worked into the story well, and they don't linger on the point too long, either. It's dealt with fairly rapidly, a hasty (and fairly poor) explanation from Ian, and before you know it they've reached the oasis. 

The second educational part of this episode is a bit more clunky. Everybody essentially stops what they're doing to watch Ping-Cho tell a story about the Hashashins. It's still great, it's just not really woven into the story very well. Ian shows off just how terrible at explaining things he is by telling Susan that Hashashins are used in English today, don't ya know? It does seem that Ian was a teacher of the patronising variety.

I like the character of Ping-Cho. She's a good foil for Susan, and helps throughout to make Susan marginally less irritating. I'd rather Ping-Cho was a companion, frankly. Though she obviously doesn't get the attention Marco Polo and Tegana do, she's still a vital cog in making this such a good story. Though Marco Polo does feature a vast array of terrific characters, she's one of the few in it all the way through, and therefore needed to be a strong character. Sadly, she doesn't manage to prevent possibly the worst (read: most annoying) Susan shriek attack so far at the cliffhanger to this episode. 

 

Ah, unwilling adventuress Barbara quickly sneaks off in pursuit of a Warlord by herself, and what do you know? She gets herself in serious trouble. It is quite the contrast for an episode that was educating us about condensation and Hashashins to suddenly have Barbara bound hand and foot, with her potential assassins playing dice to see who gets to kill her.

Five Hundred Eyes felt relatively fast-paced, but not much actually happens. They get water, arrive at another Way-station, and Barbara gets captured. It's both entertaining and educational, fun and violent, but like with the Singing Sands, it does feel like a bit of a filler episode. Terrific filler, yes, but filler nonetheless. 9/10.

The Wall of Lies

Marco Polo is extremely angry throughout this episode. The tension is really getting to him. First he snaps at the Doctor, Susan and Ping-Cho for running off to the cave in search of Barbara, and then he spends the rest of the episode shouting at various members of the TARDIS team. Tegana skilfully persuades Marco into believing our heroes are against him. The Doctor hates him, and is their leader, therefore they're enemies. He separates Susan and Ping-Cho, and firstly stops calling the regulars his friends, and then later in the episode starts calling them, "the prisoners". It's quite good that it's a gradual descent from not being entirely sure whose side to take to being completely on Tegana's side as Tegana rats on the Doctor for running off to the TARDIS. 

The thing is, through all this, Marco is still portrayed as being extremely reasonable. He feels guilty about taking the TARDIS and he feels responsible for the safety of the regulars, in spite of Tegana's efforts to tell him that they'd stab him in the back the first chance they got. His explanation of why he has to believe Tegana over them is pretty flawless: "I'm a servant of Kublai Khan, bringing him a special emissary from Noghai for peace talks. You're a bunch of mysterious strangers from a far off land". It would be far, far more dangerous for Marco to side with our heroes against Tegana. That's why I like the way he gets so angry about Ping-Cho's story about how Tegana lied in the caves about never having been there before. He's right. That evidence is far too flimsy for him to risk everything. The characterisation is spot on, and it's superb. Of course, the Doctor calling him a "poor, pathetic savage" doesn't really help matters.

I'm unsure at this point just how superstitious Tegana is. He goes on about the spirits in the cave, but is that to try and scare everybody off, or because he genuinely believes in them? I would have said the former, but later on when he's talking to Acomat, he states how the Doctor is a magician, and why would he say that if he didn't believe it? The Doctor really is trying to annoy everybody, here, isn't he? He laughs his head off at Tegana for telling them to be wary of the evil spirits.

I really like this episode. The tension has suddenly rocketed, and the pace the story is travelling at is very good now. It's enthralling stuff as Marco loses confidence in our heroes and makes them prisoners, and they plot to escape. I've no idea what it looks like, but the Bamboo Forest sounds terrific, at least. We do get another mention of how easily the TARDIS key can destroy the lock if not used properly, which is exciting. And we also get a terrific cliffhanger. I think this is actually my second favourite cliffhanger in Doctor Who so far, after The Daleks: The Ambush. The tension has been shooting up, the regulars make a plan to escape in the dead of the night and Ian sneaks out to incapacitate the guard, and finds him already dead. I love it. 10/10.

Rider from Shang-Tu

A lot of the episodes in this story divide quite neatly into two halves. Here there's the events in the Forest, fighting off the bandits, followed by the events in Cheng-Ting, revolving around the bungled escape attempt. In spite of his rudeness to Marco and Tegana, the Doctor has in this story generally been "good". But here he suggests running off to the TARDIS and leaving Marco to the mercy of the bandits, which is fairly callous, and quickly rejected by Ian. Having said that, he does offer Marco a place in the TARDIS to escape from the bandits. Considering how he can't steer the ship, that's quite the thing to offer to somebody he can't stop insulting. "If you think that Polo, you're a bigger fool than even I think you are," the Doctor says as Tegana warns Marco that the Doctor simply wants to abduct him.

I like how calm Marco is in the crisis. He finds out that our regulars were trying to escape again, but puts that aside for the moment whilst they face the far greater crisis of the bandit attack, even allowing Susan to calm down Ping-Cho (which is a bit of a joke, really). The calm, frank chat Marco and Ian have in the face of danger is terrific, with both of them trying to emphasise how important the TARDIS is to them. I love Marco's line, "if you're half as aggressive with this sword as you are with your tongue, Doctor, we can't lose". The Doctor's response that, "we're not going to get very far with this overblown bread-knife" is also rather amusing. I wonder what the battle actually looked like. How many bandits there were, and how well staged the fight was, especially as the Doctor took part in it! It doesn't really matter either way, as the most important things about the fight are Ian teaching us that bamboo makes a loud noise when set on fire, and Tegana ruthlessly killing Acomat. In the aftermath, Marco relaxes his restrictions on our regulars slightly. Though they're still prisoners, they're sort of friends again, and Marco even snaps at Tegana, as doubt begins to creep into his mind.

Ping-Cho luckily sees Marco hide the keys, and promises not to tell anyone where they are, so, good girl that she is, she doesn't, she just takes them. You wouldn't get brilliance like that from Susan, who, by the way, had a nice big shriek during the fight earlier, whilst "calming down" Ping-Cho. I love the bit between Susan and Ping-Cho whilst they watch the fish, talking about whether either of them would ever see their home again, Susan talking about how hers can't be reached from Venice! Ping-Cho's home may as well be that far away, considering she'll never see it again (as far as she knows right now, anyway).

This again is another near flawless episode, from the action in the forest, the comedy provided by Wang-Lo and the Doctor, and the superb characterisation all-round (even with Susan). There's some more good educational bits describing the efficient system of messengers the Mongol Empire used. The only slight misstep is Susan conveniently forgetting to say goodbye to Ping-Cho and having to go back. That doesn't really strike me as being especially plausible within the plot, and is simply a way of preventing our heroes from escaping. It's not a big flaw, but it's the only one I could find in this terrific episode. 10/10.

Mighty Kublai Khan

Tegana has been so careful to suck up to Marco throughout this story that it's quite jarring that he suddenly tries to kill the Doctor at the start of this episode. Perhaps he thought that this further escape attempt would be enough for Marco to be happy to see them die? Ian gets some ground back with Marco by lying to protect Ping-Cho. I like how Marco lets that drop until Ian tells him that the TARDIS can travel in time, and then calmly asks Ian where he got the key he claims he stole. However noble Ian's reasons for lying (and Marco clearly thinks Ian was right to try and protect Ping-Cho), it still proves that he does lie, and frankly, it would be absurd for Marco to believe something like that. It's another moment where a lesser writer may have Marco accept this wild story he's being told, but Lucarotti keeps the characters real. I love how just before that scene, Barbara forces Ian to talk to Marco again. He protests, but Barbara calls out, "Marco, Ian wants to talk to you...oh, I'm feeling tired, I'd better rush off to bed". 

I would say Ping-Cho goes completely mad by running off, but actually it is a good way of highlighting her utter desperation to escape her fate. She is so horrified by her prospects that she's prepared to take what is essentially a suicide mission by trying to get back home, which is made worse as she just hands her money over to Kuiju like a complete numpty. It's lucky Ian decided to go back to her, as even Wang-Lo goes a bit mental at her as he realises who she is. It's almost quite scary.

It's good that Kublai Khan doesn't make an appearance until so late in the piece. As much fun as he is, I think more than the thirty minutes or so we have of him would spoil the story. It is a truly superb entrance he has. Six episodes of build-up, and he's a doddery old fool. But in spite of that, and in spite of all the fun he has with the Doctor ("I don't think I could get on another horse," the Doctor protests. "Then walk!" shouts the Khan), it is made perfectly clear that he is an extremely dangerous man. In a way he's an early version of Queenie from Blackadder II. Completely silly, but will have you killed at the drop of a hat. One line that should be pointed out is the Doctor's that old age "must be borne with dignity". One can't help thinking the world would be a happier place if more people took that to heart.

More brilliance from Lucarotti. The travellers finally arrive in Shang-Tu, meet Kublai Khan, and find that Noghai has moved to Karakorum, potentially ready for attack. Ian rushes back to Cheng-Ting to find Ping-Cho, and conveniently finds that Kuiju has taken the TARDIS along the quiet route to Karakorum. Ian overpowers Kuiju just as Tegana arrives, drawing his sword at Ian and quietly saying, "come, come". It's a dangerous cliffhanger. Not a classic, but an exciting one, which, like this whole episode, sets things up nicely for the final part. 9/10.

Assassin at Peking

It's quite sweet that we skip to them all being at Peking and the Doctor and Kublai Khan having played lots of games of backgammon already, calling each other, "old friend". There's not really much of a sense of hurtling towards a conclusion, but they are fun scenes nonetheless. Particularly the Empress coming in and warning the Khan not to bet, and him being so worried about her reaction when she finds out what he's lost. Then the Khan agrees to give the TARDIS back if the Doctor wins this next game. I like that, toying a little with the audience, but not letting the Doctor off that easily. The Doctor's reaction at losing is great, too, laughing like mad (again).

Marco's desperation in this episode is well played as well. His whole plan is coming absolutely crashing down around him as the Khan gets angry at him for wanting to offer the TARDIS for a return to Venice, and for not telling him about the repeated escape attempts. His guilt over taking the TARDIS is also really starting to haunt him. I particularly like the exchange when he says, "I underestimated you" to Tegana, who responds, "no, you overestimated yourself".

The Khan really takes to Ping-Cho, and admires her honesty, which is a nice touch. The Empress is crying her crocodile tears at the death of the old man Ping-Cho was to marry ("he drank the elixir of eternal youth and expired"), whilst Ping-Cho admirably says she's sad the man is dead, but actually couldn't really care less. It's so sweet of her to say about our heroes, "they are my friends, as they shall always be". That beats any of the overblown shmaltz of the new series, in my view. Like me, the Khan positively coos over her.

The Doctor helpfully says to his companions, "I always knew Tegana was a two-faced villain". Gee, thanks for that, Doctor. Barbara has known this and been telling you that since the bloody Singing Sands, which is months ago in the timeline of the story! 

The ending to this story is interesting. Our heroes are completely sidelined whilst Polo and Tegana fight. It's a bit like the fight between Za and Kal back in An Unearthly Child. Luckily in both fights the "goodie" won, but if they hadn't, we'd have been in trouble. I don't mind the Doctor and friends being so peripheral at the end, but I do think it's a good thing that that became less frequent as the series moves on. It is all a bit of a rush at the end. There's the swordfight, then Tegana kills himself, Marco gives the Doctor the TARDIS key and they rush off to the TARDIS all in a matter of seconds. It does seem a slightly clumsy way to end such a long story, but unlike with the Daleks, it does just about work. There is just time found for Marco and our heroes to become friends ago, and for Susan to say goodbye to Ping-Cho.

It's an interesting last episode. It certainly gets a lot done, and moves very quickly to do so. I think it works well, though. The Khan's anger at Marco is a nice reminder of Marco's warning in the previous episode about how you mustn't cross him. It's nice to see this story doesn't lead into the next, too, which means that our travellers can have a nice, well-earned rest between stories. It's not quite the perfect ending, but it's very close. 9.5/10.

Conclusion

I love Marco Polo. After listening to it, I watched the thirty minute reconstruction on the Edge of Destruction DVD. Though it's okay, it does demonstrate extremely well how big and sprawling the story really is. It simply cannot be told in such a short length of time. The size of the story is terrific. There aren't many Doctor Who stories that take place over a number of months. It's all so well written, with educational sections interwoven cleverly into the story, with guest characters who are characterised sensibly and intelligently. Each week presents a different danger, and another obstacle for the regulars. It is an absolute joy to experience. Everybody involved is in absolute top form, to the point where I'm not sure Hartnell fluffs at all. After three stories exploring the format of the show to varying degrees of success, it really blasts into form here. And yet, we're now about to go from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Average Rating: 9.5/10

Old Rating: 9/10

New Rating: 10/10