As Doctor Who is a BBC
show from the 1960s, it is not a surprise that it has several chunks of the
1960s era missing from the BBC Archives.
What is extremely lucky is that unlike other shows Doctor Who was
recorded by fans on reel to reel audio tapes so we have complete soundtracks of
all the missing episodes. The BBC also
had John Cura take telesnaps of the series on broadcast so we can reconstruct
the episodes by taking those pictures and matching them up with the audio track
and any surviving clips to make something closer to the original story. They are much closer to other series which
don’t even have the audio tapes available to listen to. Doctor Who is also lucky in that its first
two seasons only have a total of eleven missing episodes combined with seven of
them being the completely missing serial Marco
Polo which we will be looking at today.
Marco Polo has no surviving
clips sadly, but many on set color photographs were taken and along with the
recently discovered telesnaps we are able to see what this story would have
most likely been like.
The first thing that
strikes you about Marco Polo is just
how stunning the sets are for a Doctor Who budget as they are these intricate
backgrounds portraying Ancient China.
There are some sets however that do fall flat, especially in “Five
Hundred Eyes” and “The Wall of Lies” with the cave of five hundred eyes set. The story was directed by Waris Hussein for
all parts except “The Wall of Lies” which was directed by John Crockett and
looking at An Unearthly Child, the
other story directed by Hussein, as a guide, the direction for Marco Polo combined with the brilliant
sets would have made the story one of the best looking of the first season of Doctor
Who. This alone makes it a shame that
the story is lost as the direction would have played second fiddle to the plot
of the story. The plot picks up at the
end of The Edge of Destruction where
the TARDIS is in the Himalayans where Marco Polo is travelling to Kublai Khan’s
court with Ping-Cho, a Chinese girl who is to be married to an eighty year old,
and Warlord Tegana, a Mongol envoy from another warlord. The story follows along with Polo’s caravan
as he takes the TARDIS in his possession as a gift to the Khan and we really
get a series of small adventures before the fifth episode “Rider from Shang-Tu”
where we lead into Kublai Khan’s court where the story ends in triumph. The first four episodes see an adventure
searching for water, an adventure in the cave of five hundred eyes and several
altercations between the TARDIS crew and Polo as they wish to leave once the
Doctor has completed a circuit. The plot
may be great, but as a seven part story it does get a little slower in “The
Wall of Lies” and “Rider from Shang-Tu” which are two episodes full of story
loops with the Doctor and company being captured and released. “The Singing Sands” and the beginning of “Five
Hundred Eyes” can be cut out as well or at least combined into one episode to
tighten up the pace into a nice five part story.
William Hartnell as the
Doctor finally escapes the persona given to him in the first three stories here
as he is allowed to have full reigns as the Doctor. Yes he does get very moody, but wouldn’t you
if a human tried to take away your house?
Hartnell actually gets to start to show off his comedic timing in the
middle of this story which is really good, but other than and rescuing Barbara
in “Five Hundred Eyes” he doesn’t have too much to do in this story. He even only gets one line, a scripted cough
in “The Singing Sands” which is really a disservice as although his personality
is improving the production team are still having him stay as a background player
in events. His best bits in the story
are in “Mighty Kublai Khan” and “Assassin at Peking” where he has this sort of
friendship with the Khan which is hilarious.
They’re like two mischievous schoolboys who are waiting to get into
trouble. It would be like this until The Dalek Invasion of Earth in Season 2
where he is allowed to be in the front of the action for stories to
follow. William Russell as Ian
Chesterton is the real hero of the story however as he is the one going through
a lot of the action in the story. It is
Ian who is constantly in the forefront at finding a way to get the TARDIS back
so he really feels like the protagonist.
Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright is really only in the story for
expositional purposes as a history teacher and it shows. She also gets captured a lot in this story
which is really out of character for her.
Carole Ann Ford as Susan
has a great deal of character development allowed to her here as she gets
paired up with Chinese Ping-Cho played by Vietnamese actress Zienia
Morton. They are the youngest in the
cast so get paired up as they have philosophical debates about love and home
which are great for the most part. The problem
is that Ping-Cho’s entire subplot is about her fear of an arranged marriage
which is just dropped in the middle of “Assassin at Peking” which doesn’t
really do much for her character. Marco
Polo played by Mark Eden is also portrayed extremely well as he is a character
motivated by homesickness. You can’t
help but feel really bad for him as he isn’t allowed to go home until the end
of the story and his desire to get there any way he can is admirable, even if
it makes him do horrible things to the TARDIS crew. The primary villain of the story is Tegana
played by Derren Nesbitt, and he is a very one note character. Nesbitt gives a good performance, but sadly
his explanations and cover-ups to Polo either consist of evil spirits or
bandits which makes it hilarious when bandits actually do show up in “Rider
from Shang-Tu” as he had to be right one of these days. The big shame is that the fight in “Assassin
at Peking” is missing as Tegana commits suicide when he loses the battle.
To summarize, Marco Polo is a really solid story and
an actual shame that it is missing so much material. The acting is great and the plot is the best
of the first four stories, but sadly its reputation has made it extremely hyped
as an 100/100 when really it isn’t worth a perfect score. Some sets stand out as really bad and there
are story loops which bring it down to 82/100.
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