TOURNAMENT MASTERPOST

propaganda under the cut

This was a fascinating one to revisit. I remembered hugely enjoying it, and of course it has a very strong reputation. On rewatching, I think that's wholly deserved.

My thoughts:

The otherwise remarkable level of historical accuracy is only dampened by Barbara's bizarre belief that if she can stop the practice of human sacrifice, then maybe Hernán Cortés will decide altruistically against genocide.

I wish someone had cut that idea - Barbara wanting to stop the practice of human sacrifice because it's wrong would surely have worked on its own?

The costumes are gorgeous.

Jacqueline Hill carries the whole thing and shines. I love it when companions get to have and use their expertise.

Every fight scene is about 50% longer than it should be.

Where did Ian get those moves anyway? I guess we just have to assume he learned a lot in his National Service.

“Written by John Lucarotti”

*double take*

What? He can’t possibly still be alive-

“The Lost Stories”

Treasure Island: Part Two (1.2, BBC, 1977)

"Tell me, Captain, does what you've said mean you fear a mutiny?"

"That's putting words into my mouth. If I believed that, I'd not be justified in putting to sea."

"Ah."

"I think things are not going right and I'm asking you to take precautions or let me resign. That's all."

"I'll stake my wig you meant to say more than that when you came in."

"You're smart, Doctor, I meant to be discharged. I never thought Mr. Trelawney would hear a word."

"Nor would I! I would've seen you to the deuce had Livesey not been here - but I have heard you, and I will do what you want, but I think the worse of you for it!"

The Aztecs Makes An Appearance in Last Night's Call the Midwife #DoctorWho

The First Doctor 1964 adventure, The Aztecs enjoyed a surprise screening last night on hit BBC drama, Call The Midwife.

Now in its eighth series, the episode included a brief scene in which Judy Parfitt’s Sister Monica Joan watching as Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) gets embroiled in the politics of 15th Century Mexico.

Though Sister Monica’s peers were less than impressed, she exclaims:

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t listened to this audio drama yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Between 1967 and 1978, the BBC would routinely delete archive programmes due to lack of space. As a result, quite a few of the early Doctor Who episodes and serials were sadly lost, but the audio tapes do still remain and it’s this that we’re going to be looking at today. Marco Polo, written by John Lucarotti.

The TARDIS lands in the Himalayas during the 13th century where the Doctor and co encounter Italian explorer Marco Polo, played by Mark Eden. Fascinated by the Doctor’s ‘caravan’, as he calls it, he confiscates it from the Doctor in order to present it as a gift to the mighty Kublai Khan in the hopes that he’ll be released from the Emperor’s service and be allowed to return to Venice and be reunited with his family. The Doctor, naturally, takes exception to this idea, but whilst the TARDIS crew try desperately to appeal to Polo’s conscience, the war lord Teganna makes plans to steal the ship for himself.

In some ways being able to experience this story only through the audio is a blessing in disguise. The characters travel from the Himalayan mountains all the way to Peking over the course of the story and it’s hard to see how a small budget BBC children’s tv show made in 1964 could possibly have realised this grand vision Lucarotti had written. With help from narration provided by William Russell, your imagination is left to run wild as you see in your mind’s eye the Doctor and his companions crossing the Gobi desert, climb mountains, explore the cave of five hundred eyes and marvel at the decadence of Kublai Khan’s palace. The audio tapes allow Marco Polo to be more epic and grand than I suspect the actual televisual screening was. The other advantage of having only the audio tapes surviving is that it makes it easier to blank out the egregious whitewashing. Nearly every single Asian character, from Teganna to Kublai Khan himself, is played by a white guy speaking in over the top ‘ha so’ accents. I think the only Asian character that’s actually played by an Asian actor is Ping Cho, played by Burma born actor Zienia Merton. Yes we can chalk it up to it being a ‘product of the time’ all we want. Racism is still racism no matter what era it’s in.

So lets put aside the unfortunate racism and focus on the title character. Mark Eden does a really good job as Marco Polo. While you’re frustrated at the situation he’s placed the TARDIS team in, you never find yourself hating him. His motivations are entirely without malice and he does try to support the Doctor and co as best he can. It also helps that John Lucarotti knew a lot about Marco Polo as his previous writing credit was an eighteen part radio serial called The Three Journeys Of Marco Polo. It’s his historical knowledge that adds weight and dimension to both the character and the story.

The entire premise of Marco Polo explores what the Doctor was afraid of way back in the very first episode of An Unearthly Child. What happens if humans discover the secrets of the TARDIS? When Marco hears about the abilities of the TARDIS, his first thought is to seize it and use it to buy his freedom, reasoning that the Doctor can just build another one. The war lord Teganna, who has been secretly planning to assassinate Kublai Khan, also takes interest in the TARDIS and tries to find multiple ways of disposing of the caravan in order to obtain the TARDIS’ power. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the Doctor in a position of weakness of course, but it is the first time we’ve seen him completely at the mercy of the human race. Utterly helpless in the face of their desires and greed. 

The Doctor is arguably the most engaging part of this whole story. His attempts to steal back the TARDIS and the pit he digs for himself as a result is thoroughly engrossing. William Hartnell is simply a joy to listen to, not just because of the stubbornness and determination, but also his wittiness and naughtiness. The scene where he and Kublai Khan play backgammon together, giggling like tall small children, was just utterly adorable.

Another part of the story I really liked was Susan’s relationship with Ping Cho. Not only is it really sweet and well written for the most part, Ping Cho’s situation also gives us an insight into the culture of the time. Ping Cho is to be married to an elderly man as part of political agreement. The TARDIS crew and Susan in particular are horrified by this and make their objections known throughout, causing a further rift between them and Marco Polo. (It’s tragic to think that over 50 years later, Steven Moffat would try to make light of the First Doctor’s ‘sexism’ when in reality both the character and the show were in fact very critical of sexism and have done more to explore feminist themes than Moffat ever has). As the serial goes on, we see Ping Cho start to become more defiant and independent thanks to Susan’s influence and it’s a really good character arc.

Marco Polo proves that you don’t need aliens to make a Doctor Who episode good. Just placing these characters in a historical setting and seeing how they respond to the customs and ethics of the era is enough to really make things interesting. However it’s not perfect and I do have a few problems. The first being the length. This serial did not need to be seven episodes long. While things start off really well, the story does drag its feet as it goes on. Apparently Lucarotti was having difficulty writing the serial’s fourth episode in particular and so consulted Marco Polo’s journal excerpts for inspiration. I think snipping a couple of episodes would have benefitted the story greatly and given it much tighter pacing. As it stands we see a lot of repetition of scenes, such as the Doctor getting caught trying to get back into the TARDIS and Marco Polo punishing him and his companions for lying, as well as some convoluted excuses to pad the story out further. There’s one moment where the TARDIS crew could have escaped, but then Susan had to go back to say goodbye to Ping Cho.

Another issue I have is with Tegana. At first he’s quite an intimidating figure and provides a genuine threat, but as each of his schemes to kill Marco Polo’s caravan and steal the TARDIS fails, the threat diminishes. He becomes less like a scary war lord and more like the Mongol version of Dick Dastardly trying to stop the pigeon. Again, cutting a couple of episodes out would have helped this. Scenes like him abandoning Marco in the desert and dumping the oasis’ water supply whilst taunting the caravan is genuinely tense. It’s just his constant failure that undermines him and makes him look really pathetic and ineffectual by the end.

Finally there’s the last episode. I don’t know what happened exactly. It seemed like everyone was in a rush to end the story and move on. The Doctor wagering the TARDIS in a backgammon game with Kublai Khan should have been the prime focus. It would have made for a great climax as well as a very Doctorly solution to the problem. Instead the backgammon game gets pushed to the side rather quickly. Ian gets framed by Tegana only for that to fall apart when Tegana stupidly tries to kill Kublai Khan in broad daylight where everyone can see him before committing suicide, Ping Cho’s husband to be dies of old age, so we never get to see her utilise her newfound independence and everyone rushes back to the TARDIS and has it away on their toes before Marco Polo can even process the fact that he’s been miraculously freed from Khan’s service. It all just feels so rushed and lacks little impact, failing to provide effective closure to this long journey the characters have endured.