The Doctor is notably absent from most of this episode, with just a single line of dialogue. While it wasn't actually a holiday for William Hartnell, it must have given him a bit of relief from the weekly grind. Meanwhile Susan gets to play a major part, and with Ping-Cho as a foil acts like a more normal teenager. Of course, she's still a "peril monkey" (to steal a phrase from Elizabeth Sandifer), but to be fair it was sheer bad luck that the two youngsters got caught in that sandstorm.
Shortly after listening to and watching this I saw the first couple of episodes of the 1976 serial The Seeds of Doom, for the first time since original broadcast. There's a snowstorm in that story - not brilliantly done by modern standards but still quite effective - and it made me wonder how the sandstorm had been achieved in 1964. The reconstruction I was watching added effects to the still shots to make it seem that they were obscured by moving sand; not ideal, but better than nothing. Which brings me on to the reason I can talk about the visuals at all:
Missing from the Archives, Part 2: Telesnaps and Reconstructions
From 1947 to 1969 a man named John Cura took high-speed photos of television broadcasts, which he then sold to the creators of the programs for use in publicity or as a record of their work. As you might imagine this raised some thorny copyright issues, but for many broadcasts they now provide the only visual record in existence. Most of the 108 missing episodes of Doctor Who have telesnaps; many were published in Doctor Who Magazine, and the BBC have used them to publish a number of photonovels on their website.
Different groups of people have combined the soundtracks (recorded off-air by fans) with these telesnaps to produce reconstructions of the lost episodes. Technically this is illegal, but it is tolerated by the BBC provided certain conditions are met. One such group is Loose Cannon, who made the "recon" I am using for these reviews.
Telesnaps for serial D were not available for many years. In 2004 Derek Handley of Loose Cannon obtained copies for six of the episodes from director Waris Hussein following a meeting the previous year, with DWM paying for the usage rights.
This is the third Loose Cannon reconstruction I've seen and they did something a little different with it. There were a number of colour photographs taken during shooting; using these for reference LC have colourised the telesnaps, producing what is in effect the earliest colour story. They usually try to provide some "extras", including an introduction from one of the original actors; and here again they have gone the extra mile (if you'll pardon the pun). As well as a brief introduction, Mark Eden provides a new pre-titles sequence for the first episode, with an older Marco Polo still updating his journal and looking back on events 35 years in the past. This is a nice addition; although the scripted monologue doesn't quite match John Lucarotti's originals it fits well with the feel of the serial - about which, more in a future instalment.
What immediately strikes me is how Hollywood it looks! William Russell, Derren Nesbitt and (particularly) Mark Eden all look as if they've stepped out of an Errol Flynn movie - handsome, clean-cut and brightly dressed. A second glance reveals the bags under Russell's eyes, a sign of the pressure the regular cast was under, but this doesn't detract from the look. It is certainly a lavish production, and I can understand why some consider Marco Polo the greatest loss of the videotape junkings. At some point I would like to see Russell's earlier series, The Adventures of Sir Lancelot, when he was at his action hero height; but that will have to wait, since there's still too much Who for me to spend my money on at present.
What, then, of the plot? In some ways Lucarotti has provided us with an odd sort of setup. The story's structured like a travelogue, but the Doctor and his friends don't actually care where they're going. Unlike the first two serials the Ship is with them the whole time, so the goal isn't to get back there. Rather, they just want a chance to repair it and leave; everything else is just distraction. Still, it's an interesting distraction, with good settings, smart dialogue and enough going on to keep it entertaining. It's only when I sit to write this that I notice how little of what happens is relevant to the Doctor and his friends.
This episode brought home to me how far the series has come. The TARDIS is referred to by name more often, rather than being just "the Ship"; and it has become a home, a safe haven, even for Iananbarbara. They might still want to get back to 1960s London but the TARDIS is now a happy place for them to be, and being shut out has a different significance. It might be a case of Stockholm syndrome but they are now firmly on the Doctor's side.
And as the sun sinks slowly in the West, we wave goodnight to our wanderers in the fourth dimension as they wander instead through the Gobi Desert. Or not, since if we're being geographically accurate it's actually the Taklamakan desert. Except it isn't even that; it's a mixture of Ealing Studios stage 3B and the tiny Lime Grove Studio D. And so, once again, I have fulfilled my blog's educational remit - about which, more next time...
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 29th February 1964
Viewers: 9.4 million
Chart Position: 33
Appreciation Index: 62
Rating:
5/10.
Next Time:
Five Hundred Eyes.
No comments:
Post a Comment