The first Radio Times Dr Who cover. Hurrah!
And the now customary half-page article to introduce each new story.
"I wonder what the strangers reaction will be... when I tell them what I propose to do."
This may well have been John Lucarotti's diary entry the night before he showed his script to the Dr Who production team. What an utter delight this episode is! It's beautifully written and, above all after the last two episodes, elegantly plotted. It seems to have been the thing in the early days that something would go wrong with the ship that would prevent the travellers leaving straight away and making them take part in the adventure - the fluid link, the fast return switch and now another broken electronic circuit that will take the Doctor 'days to build a new one'. Yet Lucarotti seamlessly builds in other plot elements that will compel the crew to stay in what will become the norm for the series i.e. that curiosity or circumstances will prevent their leaving as opposed to mechanical failure. I suppose this is already there in 'The Dead Planet'. The Doctor's curiosity is enough to warrant an adventure, so much so that he sabotages the ship. Here, Lucarotti adds the suspicion of the Mongols and both Marco Polo's dream of returning to Venice and Teganna's lust for power as plot devices to prevent our quartet from entering the TARDIS.
I love this episode, and I'm watching a reconstruction. It's well written, it flows, it's believable; it's another journey. The credible journey. For Marco Polo's life was one of travel and so it is entirely appropriate that a Dr Who story involving him includes journeying. It's pure inspiration to call the TARDIS the Doctor's caravan and to make it the prize for just about everyone in the story, including our travellers. There are many echoes of the first episode in this one, perhaps because it has the same director, but possibly because John Lucarotti stuck to his brief. There is another reference to the TARDIS not being on wheels and Ian and Barbara return completely plausibly to teaching. Barbara tells Susan (an alien) of Marco Polo and Ian explains to Mister Marco (who is from the 13th century) about the thin atmosphere affecting the boiling point of water. This is exactly the subtlety and craft that the series set out to achieve I feel sure.
What do you need for a journey? Yep, a map and how lovely is that moving map of Cathay and Marco's narration over it? I'm struck that this story has a tiny number of sets - the TARDIS on the Pamir, the mountainside, Polo's tent, and the way station at Lop - and yet when we arrive at Lop (see, I'm doing it now) it feels like a completely different place with a different style and different costumes.
A great cliffhanger and a great sense of a journey in this episode. Like us, it feels that Doctor Who has arrived.
Next episode: The Singing Sands
