A reminder - I began this in 1998. I didn't even have a permanent internet connection and even if I had had one, there would not have been the vast array of resources and reconstructions that exist today. So I had to rely on Target novelisations, The Television Companion and past issues of Doctor Who Magazine.
With that in mind, let's see what I had to say about "Marco Polo" in early 1999.
Quick reminder of the links:
For previous posts, you can scroll around this site, or go to my Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/ExcitingGuide) which will link only to those parts of my blog devoted to the Exciting Guide. Quick link to the intro here: http://chapwithwings.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/watching-every-tv-adventure-of-doctor.html
Story Four
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Story Code
D
Title
Marco
Polo
Anyone claiming this should
be called Journey To Cathay is just being picky now.
“Friends” Title
The
One With The Mongols
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Episode Titles
The
Roof Of The World
The
Singing Sands
Five
Hundred Eyes
The
Wall Of Lies
Rider
From Shang-Tu
Mighty
Kublai Khan
Assassin
At Peking
Current availability
Not
even slightly available. The first
casualty.
Sources
Doctor Who Magazine Archive, Issue 240. Certain
elements have also been taken from John Lucarotti’s novelisation, Marco Polo. I have noted these elements wherever used, as
it is difficult to ascertain which bits come from the series as shown on TV,
and which bits were made up on the spot.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date
1289
A.D.
As
specified. DWM suggests it takes place between mid-April and September 1st.
Genre
Historical
Plot synopsis
1. The Doctor discovers that a burnt-out
circuit has disabled the TARDIS’ heating, lighting and water supply, and
repairs will take days. The travellers
promptly run into Mongol warriors, and are saved from summary execution by a
European man called Marco Polo: they
have clearly landed on Earth in the past.
Polo’s companions include Mongol warlord Tegana, on a peace mission from
Noghai to the court of Kublai Khan, and Ping-Cho, a young girl on her way to
marry a 75-year-old man. The travellers join
the caravan in his journey across the Gobi desert, but Polo confiscates the key
to the Doctor’s “flying caravan”, intending it as a present to Khan in exchange
for freedom from service. Meanwhile,
Tegana collects poison for the water supplies from an associate, and they plot
to steal “the thing of magic that will bring the mighty Kublai Khan to his
knees.”
2. Days later, Susan and Ping-Cho follow
Tegana out of suspicion, but there is a sandstorm, and they eventually have to
be escorted back to camp by Tegana himself.
The next night, the warlord cuts open the water gourds, which Polo
blames on bandits. En route to an oasis
six days away, the remaining water runs out.
The Doctor collapses, and is allowed into the TARDIS with Susan. Tegana rides on to the oasis, but has no
intention of returning.
3. The party is saved by condensation
forming inside the TARDIS. They reach
the oasis, where Tegana claims to have been hiding from bandits. They continue to Tun-Huang. Polo reclaims the TARDIS key, but the Doctor
is completing a copy. As Ping-Cho tells
a story, Tegana slips away to meet his Mongol cohorts, Acomat and Malik - their
forces are waiting at Karakorum. Barbara
follows him, and is captured. During the
ensuing search, the Doctor, Susan and Ping-Cho visit the Cave of Five Hundred
Eyes, and Susan screams as she sees one pair of eyes move.
4. Others arrive, and a secret room is
revealed, containing Barbara and her Mongol captor, who is swiftly dealt with
by Polo. Tegana denies his own part in
the affair. The journey continues along
the Great Wall of Cathay. Tegana
arranges an ambush with Acomat, and helps Polo catch the Doctor working in the
TARDIS: the second key is taken. Ian tries to steal it back, but finds the man
guarding them has been stabbed.
5. Ian warns Polo, and the ambush is a
failure - Tegana kills Acomat himself to prevent betrayal. The caravan continues, and a courier,
Ling-Tau, summons Polo to the Khan without delay. Preparations are made at Cheng-Ting to leave
on horseback, but Ping-Cho steals the TARDIS keys, and the travellers try to
make good their escape. Unfortunately,
Tegana has been planning to steal the Ship, and he grabs Susan as she
approaches it.
6. Polo once again arrives and confiscates
the keys. The horseback ride
begins. The following night, Ping-Cho
runs away to escape her marriage, and Ian goes after her, discovering along the
way that the TARDIS has been stolen (by one of Tegana’s associates). Polo sends Tegana after Ian and Ping-Cho, and
himself reaches the Khan’s palace with the remaining travellers in tow, and the
elderly Khan befriends the Doctor.
Tegana catches up with Ian and Ping-Cho, and advances with his sword
drawn.
7. Ling-Tau arrives, and Tegana causes his
intended victims to be arrested for stealing the TARDIS. They all travel to the palace, where Tegana
turns the Khan against Polo. Ping-Cho
hears that her intended husband has died after drinking a youth elixir, and the
Doctor gambles with the Khan, and loses the TARDIS in a game of backgammon. The time-travellers uncover Tegana’s plan to
assassinate the Khan and allow Noghai’s forces to attack. Polo protects his ruler, and defeats Tegana
in a swordfight. The warlord commits
suicide, and the travellers are allowed to leave in the TARDIS.
Pitch
A
trek across the world with all the epic qualities of The English Patient and lots of escape attempts.
The Money Shot
Obviously,
this is extremely difficult to name, having not seen a single shot. From reading the summary, though, Tegana’s
betrayal at the oasis stands out.
“Here’s water, Marco Polo. Come
for it!” (Episode 2)
The Doctor and his kind
•
The Doctor is adept at backgammon.
•
Susan claims that she and the Doctor have had “many homes in many places” and
have been travelling for “a long time.”
•
She also claims to be sixteen years old, like Ping-Cho. Surely this cannot be accurate? How long can they have been travelling? Was she a child when they left their home
planet? Are we talking sixteen Earth
years or not?
The TARDIS log
•
A single circuit appears to control (or at least influence) heating, lighting
and water in the TARDIS. A bit of an
eggs and basket situation, surely?
•
The novel unsubtly refers to the above circuit as an “omni-electrometer.” One can only presume that the Big Red
Self-Destruct Button is working fine.
•
Whatever the answer to the mystery of the Ship’s dimensions, they do not
prevent the formation of condensation inside it.
•
The Doctor is able to make a copy of the TARDIS key. Susan’s comments in The Daleks about its complexity are, however, held up by his
possibly over-dramatic warning to Polo that if he puts the key in the lock he
will destroy the Ship.
•
Condensation forms in the TARDIS when the hot air cools during the night. So why aren’t the walls dripping with water
when the Ship’s hanging around in mid-space?
It’s rather cold there as well.
Maybe the TARDIS forcefield, or whatever, is one of today's faulty
items.
Past Journeys
•
Susan’s claim to have had “many homes in many places” presumably suggests that
she and her grandfather were travelling for a long time before holing up in
1963.
The history of Earth
•
The journeys of Venetian explorer Marco Polo, and his links to the court of
Kublai Khan are a well-established historical event: my Junior
Pears Encyclopaedia claims he journeyed through China (or Cathay), India
and other parts of Asia from 1271-94, and Barbara (a history teacher, remember)
is familiar with his story.
•
The history books fail to note that one of Polo’s journeys was infiltrated by a
Mongol warlord called Tegana, whose plan to kill Kublai Khan was foiled by a
group of time-travellers who owned a flying caravan.
Alien Worlds
•
According to the novelisation, Susan alludes to “the metal seas of Venus.”
Script Heaven
•
Susan “One day, we’ll know all the secrets of the skies, and we’ll stop our
wanderings.”
•
Polo “On my travels to Cathay, Ian, I have come to believe many things I’d
previously doubted. For instance, when I
was a boy in Venice they told me that in Cathay there was a stone that
burned. I did not believe, but there is such a stone - I have seen it...And
if stone burns, why not a caravan that flies?
Birds fly; I have even seen fish that fly. You are asking me to believe that your
caravan can defy the passage of the sun?
Move not merely from one place to another, but from today into tomorrow,
today to yesterday? No Ian, that I
cannot believe.”
The Doctor’s Achievement
•
If it were not for the Doctor and his crew, it is arguable that Kublai Khan
would have died at the hands of Tegana, Noghai would have become Emperor of
Cathay, and the history of the East might have been quite different to how we
now know it.
Things I learned from Doctor Who
•
The origin of the word “assassin”
•
The facts about condensation
•
Rarefied air causes water to boil at a lower temperature
Body Count
Difficult
to tell without being able to watch the episodes. From the plot summary and the novelisation,
we know of the Mongol in the Cave of Five Hundred Eyes, two sentries, the
Khan’s personal secretary and Acomat (all slain by Tegana), Tegana himself and,
I suppose, Ping-Cho’s fiancé. But there
are also presumably numerous Mongols in the ambush, and maybe some more in the
final episode. At a rough guess:
8.
Screams / Twists Ankle
•
Oh, I’ve Been Captured Tally: 1.
There’s a perfect one of these in episode three, with Barbara as the
hapless victim.
Don’t move! Or the girl gets it!
Barbara
and Susan are both grabbed by Mongols during this story, but I have no evidence
to suggest that any variation of the above immortal line was uttered.
Checkov’s Plot Device
Not
at all. The baddy is killed with a
sword. Very simple.
Irrelevant Escape Attempts
The
travellers attempt to sneak into the TARDIS, but thanks to Tegana’s
intervention, Polo catches them and confiscates the key. (Episode 4)
The
travellers attempt to sneak into the TARDIS, but thanks to Tegana’s
intervention, Polo catches them and confiscates the key. (Episode 5/6)
Whoops
•
Marco Polo was almost certainly not in this geographical location in 1289, meaning
that writer John Lucarotti and Barbara are both wrong. Charitably, of course, Lucarotti has just
chosen to present a “fictionalised” account in a historical setting. Nothing wrong with that.
Notes
•
The events of An Unearthly Child took
place over two days, those of The Daleks
over three or four, and those of The Edge
Of Destruction a matter of hours. Marco Polo takes an estimated four to
five months, marking a considerable change of pace for the programme.
•
Another departure for the series is the use of linking narration (by Mark Eden
in character as Marco Polo) over film of a parchment map showing the journey as
it progresses.
•
It’s worth reprinting the following claim from DWM:
“The
Ping-Cho sub-plot was based on Marco Polo’s escorting of the seventeen year-old
Princess Kokachin to wed Arghan, the Ilkhan of Persia. Arghan was the grand-nephew of the Khan, and
it had been his wife’s dying request that a girl from her own Mongol tribe
should take her place - the message reaching the Khan in 1288. The bridal party had left for Persia in 1289,
only to be turned back by war amongst the Tartars. After Polo’s return from the Indies, he and
his family were allowed to leave the Khan’s service and escort Kokachin’s
party, departing in 1292. On arrival in
Persia, Kokachin was to find her elderly fiancé had died - as did Ping-Cho in
the serial.” Other elements of the
serial were apparently based on Marco Polo’s memoirs, The Description Of The World.
•
The Doctor hardly appears in The Singing
Sands. This is largely due to ill
health on William Hartnell’s part.
•
Since An Unearthly Child, the issue
of leadership seems to have been resolved.
Marco and Tegana, according to the novelisation, both accept without
question that the Doctor “commands” his party.
•
Susan’s comments suggest they have visited Venus before. The Doctor’s comments about tailors in
Han-Chow and coffins in Lu-Chow show more than a passing familiarity with
ancient Cathay: can they have been here
before? (These snippets of dialogue are
taken from the novelisation)
•
According to the novelisation, the Doctor leaves Kublai Khan with “the key to
the world” - a duplicate TARDIS key.
Queries
•
Just how old is Susan? Come to that, how
old is the Doctor?
•
The TARDIS crew know exactly where and when they have just been - Peking,
1289. Does this mean the Doctor can now
steer the Ship correctly, as he stated many episodes ago, and take Barbara and
Ian back home? Does he even want to?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On-screen Credits
Taken from DWM.
CAST
Dr.
Who - William Hartnell, Ian Chesterton - William Russell, Barbara Wright -
Jacqueline Hill, Susan Foreman - Carole Ann Ford, Marco Polo - Mark Eden,
Tegana - Derren Nesbitt, Ping-Cho - Zienia Merton, Man At Lop - Leslie Bates
(1), Chenchu - Jimmy Gardner (3-4), Malik - Charles Wade (3), Acomat - Philip
Voss (3-4), Mongol Bandit - Michael Guest (5), Ling-Tau - Paul Carson (5,7),
Wang-Lo - Gabor Baraker (5-6), Kuiju - Tutte Lemkow (5-7), Vizier - Peter
Lawrence (6-7), Kublai Khan - Martin Miller (6-7), Office Foreman - Basil Tang
(6), Empress - Claire Davenport (7).
CREW
Written
by John Lucarotti. Title Music by Ron
Grainer with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Incidental Music by Tristram Cary.
Sword Fight arranged by Derek Ware (7).
Costume Supervised by Daphne Dare (7).
Make-up Supervised by Ann Ferriggi (7).
Story Editor - David Whitaker.
Designer - Barry Newbury. Associate
Producer - Mervyn Pinfield. Producer -
Verity Lambert. Directed by Waris
Hussein (1-3,5-7); John Crockett (4).
Familiar Faces
Mark
Eden was later to become a regular in Coronation
Street.
You may also recognise Zienia Merton from Space: 1999.
Review
The
plot summary makes this seven-episode epic look like a real drag: a whole story full of people travelling from
one bit of desert to another, Tegana snarling and plotting every other minute,
and endless attempts to get the TARDIS key back. Its reputation, however, leaves the mouth
watering, because everyone seems to think this is, to quote John Peel, “one of
the true classics of television” (taken from The Television Companion). I
suspect the story’s saving graces are in production values, dialogue and
direction, exactly the aspects robbed from us by the loss of the episodes. So, I shall reserve judgement.
Rating
6 / 10
