Marco Polo is several firsts for me during this marathon watch. It's my first Historical, and my first recon. Did I come out of the experience unscathed? Read on.
Marco Polo
Before Watching
Right then – I’m 4 stories in and I’m about to hit two firsts. This
is the first of what have come to be
This is also the earliest story in which some of the individual
episodes are missing – in this case numbers 1 – 7 of a 7 part story. This puts
me firmly in the land of the recon. Now, there is a BBC official condensed
recon which is on the Edge of Destruction DVD. I will admit that I am sorely
tempted to use this one. On reflection, though, I don’t think that this would
allow me to give this story the fairest hearing that I can manage considering
that only the soundtrack and photographs still exist, and so I’ve decided to go
the whole hog, and watch recons of each of the 7 episodes.
I’m not entirely sure what to expect. After all, when I first
started reading the synopses of the old stories when I was a kid I was never
really the least bit interested in the Historicals – which is odd really since
I’ve always loved History. First thoughts are the 7 episodes seems a hell of a
lot, but hey , give it a fair crack of the whip.
After Watching
I can see that my prejudice against the Historicals was pretty
unfair. “Marco Polo” is a highly enjoyable piece of television. I can only
think that if the episodes existed it would be even more enjoyable.
In terms of plot I can see that this is just the sort of thing I
would have enjoyed as a kid. There’s a definite attempt to educate here, but I
never minded that as a kid, and I don’t mind it now. What you have is a story
which, while it delivers up its fair share of, for want of a better term,
Saturday serial thrills and spills, it never descends into melodrama and
cliché.
Now, as we know, the TARDIS lands in the Himalayas at the end of
“The Edge of Destruction”, and it has the misleading cliffhanger with the huge
footprint. The huge footprint is actually that of a man wearing big furry
boots. There you go. The yetis will be along in a few years’ time. Our heroes
have landed on the Plain of Pamir the ‘Roof of the World’ which provides the
title to this first episode. A small point about that too. Is it just me, or
does this story have some of the better, more evocative episode titles? Five
Hundred Eyes and The Wall Of Lies stand out particularly well. Going back to
the story, the TARDIS crew are fortunate to have been found by the caravan of
the eponymous Marco. The travellers can’t simply depart because a circuit is
bust in the TARDIS, and it’s going to take the Doctor days to repair it. Here’s
a point. For all the unreliability of the TARDIS in future series it seems to
have become a lot more robust by the 70s and 80s. Blow on it in this first
series and something serious seems to go wrong.
Marco Polo is played in this story by Mark Eden, and the recon I’ve
been watching has a prologue and epilogue with a (reasonably) present day Mark
Eden, playing Marco, back in his native Venice, writing down his adventures.
It’s a neat idea, which works really well with the structure that writer John
Lucarotti chose for his narrative. Each episode is punctuated by extracts from
Marco’s journal. This is such a simple but clever idea. It shifts the viewers’
focus from the regulars to Marco’s story, and this works well. It’s a shame
that a fine actor like Mark Eden is probably best known for being run over by a
Blackpool tram when he was planning to murder Rita in Corrie.
I like the Marco Polo of this story. He’s obviously a ‘good’ man,
but he’s no plaster saint either, hence his decision to take the TARDIS so that he can give it to Kublai Khan to
earn permission to return to Venice. It’s not without suffering qualms of
conscience that he does so either, all of which adds a little depth to his
character. I’m glad that in the end the nobler side of his nature wins out. I
also think that Derren Nesbitt puts in a terrific turn as Tegana, the villain
of the piece. Tegana is a warlord, accompanying Marco Polo on his journey to
meet up with Kublai Khan. The Great Khan thinks that Tegana will be able to
negotiate a treaty for him, while Tegana plans to assassinate the Khan. In less
sure hands Tegana would be a two dimensional bore, and you’d wonder why
everyone else takes so long to see through his machinations. I was glad that
Tegana got to kill himself in the end, rather than being prosaically hacked
down in his swordfight with Marco at the climax of episode 7.
Well, the plot of the story is driven by the
two main plot elements – the machinations of Tegana, and the crew’s attempt to
get the TARDIS back, but there’s also an interesting sub plot concerning one of
Marco’s travelling companions, the lady Ping Cho. I’ll be honest, from the
stills I didn’t recognize the actress as Zienia Merton, who played Sandra
Benes, one of the main characters in Space 1999. Ping Cho, who, like Susan is
in her 16th year, is being sent to meet and marry the husband who
has been chosen for her, a warlord many years her senior.
The recon I watched seems to have used the
colorization process on the still photographs taken during the production.
Normally I’m against this being done to films and shows that were filmed in
black and white. Still, it does give an idea how of just how good the design
was for this story. Some of the sets – Marco’s tents and some of the city
scenes look especially good. Maybe they wouldn’t have looked quite so
impressive in grainy black and white on television, but hey, I can only judge
by what’s put in front of me.
I think that what I liked about this story so
much was that even though I knew what had to happen in the end – the travelers
would get the TARDIS back and leave, Tegana would not kill Kublai Khan, and
Marco would also (after the end of the story) get permission to go home with the Khan’s
blessing – I never really knew what was going to happen next. Take episode two
– the Singing Sands. This becomes a pure adventure serial episode, with Susan
and Ping Cho almost perishing in a sandstorm, and the villainous Tegana
slashing the water gourds and blaming it on bandits. He then poses as hero,
riding off to the oasis, then dramatically drinking his fill, emptying the
gourd symbolically onto the ground, and waiting, secure in the knowledge that
Marco’s caravan will perish before they reach the oasis. Yet in episode three,
after the caravan is saved by the condensation from the walls of the TARDIS,
Tegana talks his way out of trouble when they reach the oasis, and next thing
we know they are all in the next city, and we settle down to listen to Ping Cho
telling us a story about Hulegu and The Hashashins. It shouldn’t really work,
and yet it does, brilliantly. What this story doesn’t have is a sense of the
headlong rush towards the climax, and I think it’s all the better for it. In a
close parallel with Marco’s journey itself, this story is going to take as long
as it takes to meander its way to the end, and isn’t going to be rushed. In
many ways I think a story such as this really played to the BBC’s strengths at
the time. Much of this reminded me of the old BBC classic serials which used to
be broadcast at teatime on Sundays. These were adaptations of classic novels,
many from the 19th century which had the benefits of a) being great
stories – and b) being free to adapt, copyright having expired. The Beeb were
old hands at this sort of thing, and there’s a real sure-footedness about
everything you can see and hear of this story. I get the impression that this story
is exactly the kind of thing Sydney Newman had in mind when he and others were
thrashing out the concept of the series in the first place.
Essentially the Doctor and companions in this
story are in the roles of being eyewitnesses to rather than participants in
History. While each of the companions has some plot driving to do, you can
argue with some conviction that none of them can actually do anything much that
influences the way that events turn out. It’s very noticeable that it is Marco
who gets to defeat Tegana in the final sword fight, and not Ian. Ian and
Barbara continue much as they have in the first three stories, and it’s nice to
see the Doctor’s mischievous side come out in the scenes with Kublai Khan,
although the grumpy git is all present and correct in the earlier episodes.
Even Susan gets a couple of nice scenes. Lucarotti pulls the same trick as
Terry Nation did in The Daleks, where it looks like they will be making an
escape a couple of episodes earlier than they actually do. This time it’s Susan
who prevents it, by going AWOL to say a proper farewell to Ping Cho who has
made their escape possible.
There’s some clever scripting here which plays
games with our expectations too. In episode 6 there’s a lovely scene with the
Doctor telling the Grand Vizier that he will not kowtow to Kublai Khan when he
appears. The Grand Vizier almost expires with apoplexy and going through all
the titles of the Great Khan, and stressing great and fearsome he is. Then when
he does appear he is a little, arthritic old man who is just as rickety,
crochety and mercurial as the first Doctor is himself, and the pair of them
bond over their mutual complaints about the ailments of old age. Lovely stuff,
and just the sort of thing which gives texture and depth, which is there in all the very best examples
of classic Doctor Who.
As regards the denouement, well, there’s some
interesting leg work which goes on in the last half of the last episode to tie
things up. Helpfully Ping Cho’s aged fiancé passes away on the eve of their
wedding, taking a concoction of quicksilver and mercury in search of an elixir
of youth. That’s another example of just how clever the scripting is. He could
have died anyway, but dying while drinking an elixir of youth is a lovely
little irony. Offered the chance to
return home to Samarkand, or stay in the capital at Kublai’s court Ping Cho
chooses the latter, which is the best of all possible worlds for her. There’s
another example of Lucarotti’s attention to the script in this episode. Having
created the bond between The Doctor and Kublai Khan, he has the Doctor playing
backgammon against Kublai Khan with the TARDIS as the stakes. He takes care to
establish that the Doctor has been thrashing Kublai up to this point – having
won the annual income of Burma, although missing out on the fondue set and the
cuddly toy. The easy way out would have
been to let the Doctor win the TARDIS back. Losing, though, allows Marco the
chance to ultimately come down on the side of doing the right thing, even when
it is not the easy thing, and when he is personally going to lose by doing it. After
Tegana has revealed his true colours, and is foiled in his assassination
attempt on Kublai Khan by Marco, and Marco gives the Doctor the key to the
TARDIS and bids the travelers make their escape, even old Kublai is good enough
to concede that if he had not done so, then the Doctor would eventually have
won it back at backgammon.
Maybe, just maybe the story wouldn’t have
impressed me quite so much if the episodes still existed, and it all looked a
bit cheaper than it does in the photos. But I doubt it. For a seven parter,
this beat “The Daleks” all ways till Tuesday. The great irony of course is that
“The Daleks” was what made the series, and was the pointer to the future
direction the show would be taking.
What
Have We Learned?
The TARDIS has a terrible condensation problem.
Bearing in mind the tendency or malfunction it
has, it’s not impossible that some of its components came from MFI.
It is impossible to build a TARDIS from
components and materials available on Earth during the 13th century.
The Doctor is a great backgammon player apart
from in the games where it actually matters.
It’s not just Susan who can get them all into
trouble by wandering off – Barbara is a dab hand as well.
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