There are two things new about this review. For one there's the fact that we have hit our first missing episode - indeed, our first missing story, since no episodes survive. This is quite frustrating for all the expected reasons, but also because I usually spend some time talking about the direction and I can't do that so much without the visuals. On top of which it's Waris Hussein's second (and final) story so I would have liked to compare the two. Hey ho, if I run short of things to say I'll just talk about why the story's missing instead. We'll see how it goes.
The second new thing is that I've never properly experienced this story before. I'll be reviewing it as I go, making notes on each episode before watching the one that follows. I'm not as ignorant as a viewer from 1964, sadly, but I don't know a lot about it. Again, we'll have to see how this affects things.
The episode opens well, with a TARDIS crew much more relaxed with each other. The Doctor is as grumpy as ever, but this is no longer directed at Ian (whose name he gets wrong again, in what has already become a tradition). William Hartnell makes some other mistakes that are almost certainly genuine fluffs, but nothing that can't be put down to the vagueness of the Doctor. In fact his personality displayed here - as a grumpy, slightly doddering yet brilliant old man who is out of touch with every place he visits but observes more carefully than other people realise - really sums up the Doctor for me. Hartnell may be tired, but he seems like he's enjoying himself anyway. His scene with Ping-Cho shows his softer (but still calculating) side, and when he collapses into fits of giggles at the idea of not knowing what to do I was reminded just how much I like Hartnell's portrayal.
Susan gets some good moments as well. We see her enthusiasm, quickly reined in by both Ian and the Doctor (whose request for help is an obvious excuse to keep her out of harm's way), and her easy friendship with Ping-Cho, which is lightly handled. Iananbarbara don't have so much to do, but the only off-key note is the latter's insistence that the mongols weren't human.
I've mentioned how opening episodes are a good opportunity to present a mystery, but for the first time that isn't done here. There's some discussion about where they've landed, but Ian mentioning that the Himalayas are known as "the Roof of the World" when that's the title of the episode is a bit of a giveaway. I suppose it's possible that some people thought Barbara might have seen a yeti, but it wasn't built up that way. It even seems obvious from the start that Tegana is the shifty one, and not just for racial reasons (although at this period in TV history it would have been possible for such an assumption to have been made). It's more Columbo than Poirot, but I find I don't mind at all.
And actually, this very obviousness sets up the big surprise of the episode. It's not Tegana that causes the travellers problems; it's Marco Polo, who impounds their ship. Our heroes have two sides to contend with, neither of whom has their welfare at heart, though at the moment they only know about Polo. Meanwhile Tegana twirls his moustache and plots...
Missing from the Archives, Part 1: Experiencing the Absent
So, given that (so far as we can tell) this episode doesn't exist any more, how come I've written so much about it? I actually own it in three forms, and tried out two for this review. First I listened to the narrated soundtrack CD. This is how I most often choose to experience missing episodes, but reviewing is a bit different and I wanted something more. I then sought out the Loose Cannon reconstruction and watched that (Other Reconstructions Are Available). I could have read the script, which was provided as an extra with the soundtrack, or listened to the soundtrack without narration. I could have bought the novelisation (by original writer John Lucarotti); with some stories there are also talking book readings of the novelisations, though that's not yet true for Marco Polo.
That's a lot of ways to experience something that "doesn't exist"! None of them are the original, of course; but on the other hand, even to view existing episodes as originally intended is impossible now because we aren't living in the right timeframe. Still, we can at least gain some appreciation of the missing stories - which will become more important in a couple of series' time...
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 22nd February 1964
Viewers: 9.4 million
Chart Position: 33
Appreciation Index: 63
Rating:
6.5/10.
Next Time:
The Singing Sands.
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