Doctor Who: Marco Polo
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| The Doctor: Marco! Susan: Polo! Marco Polo: Will you stop that!!! (If it were done today) |
Now, those of you who aren't Whovians--or serious Whovians--are reading this and scratching your heads. "How does an episodes go missing? Why are you mad at the BBC?"
It's really very simple. Say you've got something valuable, but you don't know how valuable it is... yet. So you put it somewhere where it's stored, but it won't be kept in optimal condition by far. And then you need more space to store other things, so this really valuable thing you're storing? You destroy it. Keep in mind that you don't exactly know how valuable it is yet.
In the scenario above, you're the BBC and old Doctor Who episodes are the "really valuable thing". This happened between 1967 and 1978, and Whovians are still pissed off. 106 episodes are missing. That means twenty-seven serials are either missing completely or missing episodes. Imagine if there were episodes of Star Trek that were missing or destroyed. Now there's hope because some other countries had copies of some of the destroyed footage and there may be some of the original aired episodes stored somewhere for God knows what reason that people haven't found.
Luckily, I found a "reconstructed" copy of Marco Polo. From the looks of it, it's production stills with whatever recorded clips were available with the audio still in tact. However, it may be the audio soundtrack that was released with bits added in for narration. I won't find out until I watch it so...
Tally-ho!
Three and a half hours later...
Well, that was... interesting.
So, this serial is completely different from what I'd expect of Doctor Who because the only aliens in the serial are the Doctor and Susan. It is an entirely historical serial that covers Chinese history, Marco Polo, Kublai Khan, and how to get through a desert without any water. I liked it. I wish I didn't have to watch a reconstruction because the stills of the original episode looked gorgeous. I mean the costumes were beautiful and elaborate without being to gaudy and I would've liked to have seen more of the actor playing Kublai Khan and seen how he acted. I think that would've been fascinating. As it is, I only have colored-in stills and little subtitles that tell me the actions of the actors.
So, the TARDIS lands in the Himalayas and there's this large footprint in the dirt leading you to thing there's a yeti or some creature afoot and that's going to be the story. It isn't. The TARDIS isn't working for some reason, so the crew exit and are quickly captured by Marco Polo, and his caravan which include a Warlord named Tegana who is going to Peking as a diplomat to Kublai Khan and Ping Cho, a girl Susan's age who is going to Peking to marry a powerful diplomat in Kublai Khan's court.
Marco Polo decides to take the TARDIS because it is a "flying caravan" and give it to Kublai Khan as a gift in the hopes he'll be allowed to return home. He takes the TARDIS crew captive as a result to keep them from trying to reclaim the TARDIS. Susan quickly befriends Ping Cho while Tegana works against the TARDIS crew and Marco Polo because he wants to rule China (called Cathay in the serial). They get to Peking where they meet Kublai Khan. Tegana tries to kill Kublai Khan. Because Ian thwarts the assassination attempt, they get their TARDIS back and can go off to parts unknown.
The plot isn't really that complicated. In fact, it's mostly seven episodes of The Doctor, Ian, and Barbara scheming to get the TARDIS back, and Tegana does something that gets in the way. They try to convince Marco that Tegana is bad news. Marco refuses to listen. Rinse and repeat. Sometimes Susan and Ping Cho get in on the scheming other times they're caught up in whatever Tegana is doing.
Though it's a simple plot that is mostly built on communication and trust issues, it is still a very interesting episode because the communication issues are basically grounded in four time travelers trying to convince a world traveler to listen to them while the insulated people of Cathay fight against them and turn them against each other. It's four views of the world at war and trying to bridge the gap between each other respectively.
Again, if the Doctor made more of an effort to be personable, he could've gotten what he wanted from the get-go, but instead he saves being nice for when he meets Kublai Khan and the two bond as old men with aches and pains.
Also, this is the third episode where the Doctor is the weak link physically. In The Daleks, he was the most sensitive to the radiation poisoning. In The Edge of Destruction, he was the one who ended up getting the most injured. Here, he's the most sensitive to "mountain sickness". I guess "superior Time Lord physiology" doesn't show up for a couple of seasons. Oh well!
Next time: The Keys of Marinus. It is six episodes long and it doesn't look like any of the episodes are missing. So thank goodness for that!
So, this serial is completely different from what I'd expect of Doctor Who because the only aliens in the serial are the Doctor and Susan. It is an entirely historical serial that covers Chinese history, Marco Polo, Kublai Khan, and how to get through a desert without any water. I liked it. I wish I didn't have to watch a reconstruction because the stills of the original episode looked gorgeous. I mean the costumes were beautiful and elaborate without being to gaudy and I would've liked to have seen more of the actor playing Kublai Khan and seen how he acted. I think that would've been fascinating. As it is, I only have colored-in stills and little subtitles that tell me the actions of the actors.
So, the TARDIS lands in the Himalayas and there's this large footprint in the dirt leading you to thing there's a yeti or some creature afoot and that's going to be the story. It isn't. The TARDIS isn't working for some reason, so the crew exit and are quickly captured by Marco Polo, and his caravan which include a Warlord named Tegana who is going to Peking as a diplomat to Kublai Khan and Ping Cho, a girl Susan's age who is going to Peking to marry a powerful diplomat in Kublai Khan's court.
Marco Polo decides to take the TARDIS because it is a "flying caravan" and give it to Kublai Khan as a gift in the hopes he'll be allowed to return home. He takes the TARDIS crew captive as a result to keep them from trying to reclaim the TARDIS. Susan quickly befriends Ping Cho while Tegana works against the TARDIS crew and Marco Polo because he wants to rule China (called Cathay in the serial). They get to Peking where they meet Kublai Khan. Tegana tries to kill Kublai Khan. Because Ian thwarts the assassination attempt, they get their TARDIS back and can go off to parts unknown.
The plot isn't really that complicated. In fact, it's mostly seven episodes of The Doctor, Ian, and Barbara scheming to get the TARDIS back, and Tegana does something that gets in the way. They try to convince Marco that Tegana is bad news. Marco refuses to listen. Rinse and repeat. Sometimes Susan and Ping Cho get in on the scheming other times they're caught up in whatever Tegana is doing.
Though it's a simple plot that is mostly built on communication and trust issues, it is still a very interesting episode because the communication issues are basically grounded in four time travelers trying to convince a world traveler to listen to them while the insulated people of Cathay fight against them and turn them against each other. It's four views of the world at war and trying to bridge the gap between each other respectively.
Again, if the Doctor made more of an effort to be personable, he could've gotten what he wanted from the get-go, but instead he saves being nice for when he meets Kublai Khan and the two bond as old men with aches and pains.
Also, this is the third episode where the Doctor is the weak link physically. In The Daleks, he was the most sensitive to the radiation poisoning. In The Edge of Destruction, he was the one who ended up getting the most injured. Here, he's the most sensitive to "mountain sickness". I guess "superior Time Lord physiology" doesn't show up for a couple of seasons. Oh well!
Next time: The Keys of Marinus. It is six episodes long and it doesn't look like any of the episodes are missing. So thank goodness for that!
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