The Wall of Lies

"Oh rubbish, child"

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.

The Singing Sands

"We should be up there."

Susan says wistfully looking towards the stars from outside Polo's tent on the Gobi desert in a touching scene with Ping-Cho. Another high quality episode of thoughtful dialogue and imaginative plotting. The tension comes from knowing that Tegana is about to sabotage the expedition together with the oncoming storm, the 'Singing Sands' of the title, which is cleverly explained and realised, culminating in Ian's real voice calling for Susan. The approaching sandstorm is preminiscent of the 'Robots of Death' thirteen years later. Very clever, and very educational. As was 'Shah-K-Mate' - the King [the Shah] is dead [Mate as in Matador - killer]. The Doctor is strangely absent in this episode, sleeping a lot and generally being rude according to Polo and Susan. Barbara intuitively interprets this as feeling powerless at having his TARDIS taken off him by a 'primative'. He'll bounce back like a rubber ball, full of ideas, she thinks and I was reminded of David Tennant's Doctor.

A great cliffhanger as Tegana stands astride the oasis, gourd in hand, 'Here's water, Marco Polo. Come for it!'



An erroneous caption at the end shows 'Next episode - The Cave of Five Hundred Eyes'

But really, we know it's

Next Episode: Five Hundred Eyes

I can't wait.

The Roof of the World

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