Time Stream #4 - Marco Polo

         The first reconstructed episode of this rewatch project has arrived! “Marco Polo” is the earliest missing story, and a lengthy one at that. Seven episodes, none of which survive, are represented only now by telesnap photos and the soundtrack. Luckily, this has been enough to make a reconstruction of this lost gem of a story. There is a condensed reconstruction on the DVD boxset “The Beginning,” but shrinking a 7 part story to a 30 minute run time doesn’t do justice to a lot of the subtleties of this story.  Fortunately I do have a full length recon and watched that in addition to the “official” one as preparation for this entry.

            This is also the first story that, going into it, I had no real experience of or strong memory of watching previously. I had watched the full reconstruction several years ago, but had not ever seen the BBC official recon, so I felt as if I was going into this story incredibly fresh and with no real pre-conceived notions.  Conventional “fan wisdom” calls this one a lost classic and even with only a reconstruction available, it is easy to see why. As only the fourth story in, this is Doctor Who’s earliest attempt at an epic story and it succeeds on so many levels.  The story is a gripping one, with the TARDIS needing repairs after landing on Earth and the crew becoming the guests/companions/prisoners of Marco Polo and his entourage on their way to Kublai Khan’s palace. Mark Eden’s Marco Polo is a complex character, swerving over the course of the story from a historically romanticized portrayal to frankly, kind of a jerk. His decision to simply take the TARDIS is key to the plot but I think it could have been done in such a way without making Marco incredibly unlikable. The antagonist of the story, Tegana, descends into mustache twirling villainy as the story progresses, but his initial assessment of the TARDIS crew as demons informs most of his decisions and portrayal. It’s a sharp character and his evil plans against the Khan feel somewhat tacked on – the complexity of Tegana gives way to a predictable episode of villainy, but his final end is still somewhat shocking. This also points out a failing of the official reconstruction: motivations of most of the characters are cut to the point of not existing and the story suffers for it.

            Some other observations from “Marco Polo”:

• Following on from the softening of relations in “Edge of Destruction” the Doctor acquiesces to Barbara when she tries to calm him down. Barbara also gets to show off her history background, whilst Ian gets to break out the science with his explanation of condensation.
• Susan is kind of a dilemma for me in this story.  She taps into her “unearthliness” when explaining her homesickness to Ping Cho, but wow she makes some bad decisions throughout this story. It’s not as strong a performance as Carole Ann Ford had in “Edge of Destruction”.
• Yes, it was 1963/64 when this was produced and aired. Yes, times and social mores have changed. But the character of Wang Lo, in a story that by and large did well by its Asian characters, is *ridiculously* offensive. Seriously. Mickey-Rooney-in-Breakfast-at-Tiffany’s level offensive.
• Tutte Lemkow’s eyepatch wearing Kuiju has a pet monkey and reminded me of Raiders of the Lost Ark every time he appeared on screen.
• At one point, my wife walked in the room and stared at the screen. “It’s just… pictures,” she said. Take note, Doctor Who fans, reconstructions are not for everyone.

“Marco Polo” has definitely gone up in my estimation. It is a terrible shame that we have no moving footage available. Waris Hussein’s direction is something I’d like to see. The production values are evident even in stills, the script is well done and complex enough to support a seven part adventure, and the incidental music is unobtrusive but evocative. Watching this makes me think it’s time for another story set in the Orient with Peter Capaldi’s Doctor. There is an untapped amount of source material and I think modern Who could do it justice. Seek this one out if you can, but only use the official reconstruction as a last resort.  There is so much more to the story than an abridged recon can offer.

NEXT EPISODE: The Keys of Marinus

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