Right, off we go. This is my second attempt at this episode as the first time I couldn't take it in at all. I think because it's the only one without any specific telesnaps, so the reconstructions on YouTube are just guessed at using production photographs.
But, I have a plan dear reader. Normally I watch an episode right through and then gather my words of wisdom for you. Tonight, however, we'll do it as we go along shall we? I will pause along the way to make sense of things and, in the spirit of lost images, illustrate this post with random stills from my bucket of Polo snaps.
Here's the first one now.
I also have the novelisation to help me. And a glass of beer. God help us all, let's start!
"Ah yes, I forgot, you're a magician aren't you?"
I do find Tegana quite captivating although he's the most dreadful shit-stirrer, here trying to influence Polo against the friendship between Susan and Ping-Cho and then dropping the Doctor right in it:
"Does a magician need a key to open a door?"
Well, yes he does at the moment; we're a long way from the Tenth Doctor's finger snapping control over the TARDIS lock.
"Now my caravan seethes with suspicion."
Well whose fault is that then Marco Polo? The map he draws is a lovely idea as a device for following their progress, although the unfamiliar place names make it a little confusing. We've just got to the beginning of the Great Wall of Cathay. This story apparently takes place over some thirty days. I wonder what they'd make of '42'?
Here's another rather lovely picture:
The friendship between Ping-Cho and Susan is delightful and very astute on behalf of the writer and producers. Even an alien teenager must find being couped up with two of her teachers and her Grandfather a bit stifling! It reminds me of the friendships that Ace would later strike up with people of her own age in much later stories.
But, oh bum, Tegana has overheard them talking about the second TARDIS key.
Off we go again. Several more days of travelling are described. I found myself wondering what exactly the TARDIS crew found to talk about, who they talked to.... The novelty of being in 1289 must wear off quite quickly.
Tegana is plotting in the town, and we the audience become ahead of our travellers as his plans are revealed. Lovely caricatures are drawn - Polo will die in his bed like an old woman, but the Doctor, the magician, must have a stake through his heart!
"You need more than a key to enter my ship, you need knowledge."
With this the Doctor stalls Polo who must have been tempted to look inside. Or perhaps there really is more to the TARDIS lock.
"You poor pathetic stupid savage."
Best line of the episode. The Doctor, the lovely old scared, all this is new to me, Time Lordy Doctor, has had enough. This is reminiscent of his attitude to Ian and Barbara and later the cavemen in the first story. He's already mellowing, shielding them from his alienness, but in moments of stress like this it comes out.
Polo puts all of his eggs in one tent and there's a lovely twist when they try to escape and find the guard already dead. Tegana's plan is coming to fruition and they're all in terrible danger!
This is the only episode of this story to be directed by John Angus Basil Crockett (wonderful name) and the absence of any footage makes it hard to know if there were any significant differences in style to Waris Hussein's episodes.
Anyway, one more gratuitous photograph:
and we're on to the next instalment.
Next episode: Rider From Shang-Tu.
