Marco Polo (Doctor Who) Totally Explained

Everything about Marco Polo Doctor Who totally explained

Marco Polo is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in 7 weekly parts from February 22 to April 4, 1964. Although audio tracks and still photographs of the story exist, none of the footage of this serial has survived. This is the first "pure historical" Doctor Who story, in that there are no science fictional elements other than the fact that the Doctor and his companions have travelled to the past.

Plot

Synopsis

The TARDIS crew lands in the Himalayas in 1289, their ship badly damaged, and are picked up by Marco Polo's caravan on its way along the fabled Silk Road to see the Emperor Kublai Khan. The story concerns the Doctor and his companions' attempts to thwart the machinations of Tegana, who attempts to sabotage the caravan along its travels through the Pamir Plateau and across the treacherous Gobi Desert, and ultimately to assassinate Kublai Khan in Peking, at the height of its imperial power. The Doctor and his companions also attempt to regain the TARDIS, which Marco Polo has taken to give to Kublai Khan in effort to regain the Emperor's good graces. They are finally able to thwart Tegana, and, in doing so, regain the Emperor's respect for Marco Polo, who allows them to depart.

Continuity

The Doctor is mostly absent from the whole of episode two The Singing Sands with only a few lines. When the character properly returns in episode three, Hartnell's portrayal of the Doctor shows less cantankerousness and more empathy. While occasionally dictatorial and selfish, the Doctor is no longer spiteful or bitter; neither would he contemplate murder in response to threatening situations, as he'd done in An Unearthly Child and The Edge of Destruction.

Historical episodes

Historical episodes such as Marco Polo, that feature no science fiction elements beyond the basic premise of the show, were relatively common for the first few seasons of Doctor Who. Marco Polo is notable for featuring many educational elements, both historical and scientific, as was originally part of the show's remit. The next historical adventure arrived later in the first season with The Aztecs, and such stories continued to be regularly featured until 1967, when the purely historical format would be discontinued after The Highlanders. The format enjoyed a brief revival in 1982 with Black Orchid, and in novel form with 1995's Sanctuary, and in the Big Finish audio series of Doctor Who, has made a resurgence, with a conscious decision being made to have each Doctor have at least one purely historical episode. Examples include The Marian Conspiracy, Other Lives, The Fires of Vulcan, and The Council of Nicaea. However, this format hasn't been repeated in any televised form.

Production

The seven episodes of the serial have individual titles. They are, respectively, "The Roof of the World", "The Singing Sands", "Five Hundred Eyes", "The Wall of Lies", "Rider from Shang-Tu", "Mighty Kublai Khan" and "Assassin at Peking".

Casting

Actors shortlisted for the role of Marco Polo included Clement Freud, Richard Hearne and Ernie Wise.

Actors Mark Eden, Derren Nesbitt, and Martin Miller were later cast in The Prisoner episode It's Your Funeral.

Veteran Bollywood actress Zohra Sehgal appeared in several episodes, in an uncredited role as an attendant. She later appeared in episode two 'The Knight Of Jaffa' of The Crusade.

Missing episodes

Appart from the first few seconds of the first episode, This is one of only three stories, along with "Mission to the Unknown" and The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve, of which not a frame of footage survives. (See Doctor Who missing episodes.) "Telesnaps" (images of the show during transmission, photographed from a television set) of episodes 1-3 and 5-7 do exist, and are in the possession of the director, Waris Hussein. The audio soundtrack also still exists, having been recorded "off air" during the original television transmissions.

Commercial releases

In 2002, Loose Cannon Productions, a group of fans who have produced several reconstructions of missing Doctor Who serials using still photos, clips, and surviving audio recordings, released a specially "colourised" reconstructed version of this serial, using the large number of colour photographs taken during the production. Mark Eden, who played Marco Polo, recorded an introduction for this release, including a brief segment where he reprised his role from the serial. Unlike most Doctor Who reconstructions, this project made no use of the existing telesnaps, as they hadn't yet been made available during the making of the project.
In 2003, a three-CD set of the audio soundtrack was released, as part of Doctor Who's 40th anniversary. This CD set is unique in containing a map of Cathay (China) as represented during the period of the Doctor's visit to China, and also explaining historical inaccuracies. Further, the first disc in the set contains data as well as audio; the data includes MP3 files of the soundtracks without additional narration (which is provided on the CDs by William Russell, filling in details when action was mostly visual), PDF files of the narration scripts, and computer wallpaper versions of the aforementioned map of Cathay.
The 2006 DVD box set, The Beginning, includes a condensed, 30-minute form of this story as an extra on The Edge of Destruction. This version of the story, compiled by Derek Handley, consists of telesnaps set to an edited audio track.

In print

A novelisation of this serial, written by John Lucarotti, was published by Target Books in December 1984.

Further Information

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