First there's the point on which I finished: the thorny subject of education. Particularly thorny for early Doctor Who, in fact, because it meant that the show was pulled in two directions. Since - as a family drama - the show was aimed partly at children, Head of Drama Sydney Newman considered that the BBC's educational remit applied. The show should entertain but also inform, and this was why the two teachers were included (and why Ian was originally going to be a scientist). It was also part of his reason for disliking the inclusion of "bug-eyed monsters" such as Daleks. Producer Verity Lambert and script editor David Whitaker were more concerned with the day-to-day running and making sure the show survived; and what was the most popular inclusion to date?
Marco Polo is, perhaps, the best example of Newman's Who. It was the last script to be commissioned before the public saw a Dalek, and the first to take that educational remit seriously (as The Tribe of Gum so thoroughly failed to do). So far it's been packed full of information, not just on the historical setting but also on such diverse subjects as chess, assassins, condensation and quartz. I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable in a broad range of subjects because of both opportunity and interest, but I learned something new - the origin of the term 'checkmate'. Mostly it's been worked into the narrative well, though the explanation of condensation is a little heavy-handed. I'll comment on further inclusions as I go, if they are particularly well- or poorly-done.
Moving swiftly on, this is the episode that - so far - works best without visuals, so it's appropriate to tackle the other half of audio-visual survival:
Missing from the Archives, Part 3: Narrated Soundtracks
Back in 1964 we didn't have video recorders, let alone PVRs, Sky+, DVD-Rs and all the other paraphernalia that clutter our living rooms and make it so easy to reschedule TV viewing today. It may sound like I'm gearing up for a Monty Python "when I were a lad" moment, but it really does make a difference. In a sense, all TV was "event TV" in those days. By way of comparison, last Saturday we got in later than planned and then I had to cook. I knew I wouldn't be finished in time for Doctor Who, but it didn't matter. We ate at the table (something we only did on Sundays and for guests When I Were A Lad, because it meant reorganising the living room to get the table out); got the washing up done so we could all relax; then went and watched it about 8:15. Sorted.
Anyway, if you wanted to experience an episode of Who again after broadcast back then, the weapon of choice was a tape recorder. Not even a cassette recorder - they had only just been introduced, and hadn't taken off yet - but a reel-to-reel recorder. At one stage we had at least five in our house thanks to the inveterate hoarding instinct of my dad, who "rescued" damaged ones that had been chucked out at the hospital where my parents worked. Occasionally he even managed to get them going again, but I don't think that was the important thing to him; he kept them all.
Anyway (again), many people recorded the show, usually by pointing a microphone at the telly. Although this generally gave poor quality results it was good enough for home use; and, when interest in recovering missing episodes grew, the existence of multiple off-air recordings allowed the BBC's unofficial Restoration Team (including composer Mark Ayres) to "remaster" the audio and produce acceptable versions. Hooray!
Except... well, sometimes you need a little more to understand what's going on. These episodes weren't designed for audio only, after all. Imagine listening to the fight scene between Kal and Za in The Firemaker - you'd have no chance of working out what was going on. So the BBC got some of the actors to record linking narration. In this case, William Russell.
Russell is the oldest actor to do this. His voice shows his age, but like David Attenborough's it has matured well and he's a pleasure to listen to. An oddity (but one I didn't notice at first) is that he opens the narration with "Marco Polo by John Lucarotti" and then, following the recap, announces "Episode Three: Five Hundred Eyes". Which is how we think of it now, of course, but back then it was just "Five Hundred Eyes by John Lucarotti". A minor point, but perhaps worth raising.
This is a particularly slow episode, but fun. I can't imagine modern Who stopping the action for three minutes while one of the characters tells a story, yet here it works. The music helps; I noticed it this time and last. It's used sparingly but effectively, capturing the mood well.
This entry's getting long again, but I've just time to mention one more oddity: we get to see the inside of the TARDIS in the middle of a story! This is a first (unless you count the initial flight from 1963 London), and made stranger by the way the inside is so closely connected to the outside. Close enough to create the condensation mentioned earlier.
You try and tell the young people of today that; they won't believe you.
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 7th March 1964
Viewers: 9.4 million
Chart Position: 34
Appreciation Index: 62
Rating:
6/10.
Next Time:
The Wall of Lies.
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