Written by John Lucarotti | Directed by John Crockett | Produced by Verity Lambert | Original air date 03/14/64
Ian and Marco Polo head to the cave when he's told the group is there. Tegana shows up, and the Doctor shows him Barbara's handkerchief to prove she'd been there - Tegana asks him if he found it "in the passageway," which will be important later, though none of the characters remark on it yet. Tegana urges everyone to leave because the caves are haunted, but when the Doctor tells him that's rubbish, he says, "That's right, you're a magician," and the Doctor laughs. It's hard not to take his laugh as a knowing chuckle to himself about how he is indeed more than he appears...
Ian and Marco Polo have appeared, and the Doctor explains what's going on while Tegana begs the gods not to strike them all down. Ian believes Susan's claim about the eyes on the wall moving when he says he thinks there's a room on the other side. He and Polo figure out how to open it, and when they do, a mongrol moves to kill Barbara, but Polo strikes him down before he is able to. Barbara's gag is removed, and she, weeping, is brought back to the city safely with everyone else.
Polo tells Tegana that he won't let the travelers go because he feels responsibility for their safety since he's stealing the TARDIS. Tegana is still trying to play the TARDIS group against Polo by telling him that they'll do anything to get their ship back and are only playing nice because they have to. Ian and Barbara enter, and Barbara tells them all why she went to the cave - to follow Tegana. He denies this claim and leaves. Polo, angry at the accusations flying around, makes Ping Cho and Susan sleep in different tents because Tegana had convinced him that the TARDIS crew is poisoning Ping Cho against him. Tegana, eavesdropping outside, smiles at this.
Some time passes as they move closer to the Great Wall. The Doctor explains that he's almost done fixing the TARDIS - just another night should do it, and then they can all leave. He's worried, though, that Ping Cho knows about the second TARDIS key. Susan and Ping Cho finally get a chance to hang out, and Ping Cho explains that she knows the Doctor is fixing the TARDIS because she'd seen him enter it with his second key. Tegana overhears this outside.
Ping Cho realizes that Tegana had implied he had been in the cave before tonight when he asked the Doctor if he had found the handkerchief "in the passageway," which he could only have known about had he been there before, since they hadn't yet opened the passage when he said that. Polo doesn't buy it, though, and gets angry at Ping Cho for throwing around such severe accusations. I understand why Polo wants more evidence than what Ping Cho presents, but surely he should at least start being suspicious of Tegana by now? He doesn't seem to be at all.
Tegana's next plan is to signal to the mongols outside the city to attack the next night. When discussing how to kill Polo, he suggests he "die like an old woman in bed," and laughs to himself, the evil bastard. The only way he can figure to kill the Doctor is with a stake through the heart (this takes place long before vampires were invented, so where did that tradition come from? I'd guess that it's an old traditional way for killing any kind supernatural being that was later used as a way to kill a vampire, an idea which then stuck in popular consciousness as applying mostly towards vampires. Or Lucarotti forgot vampires didn't exist during the time this story is set).
The Doctor sneaks into the TARDIS to finish his repairs, but is seen by Tegana. He fetches Polo (amusingly, the actor playing Tegana fluffs it a bit by saying "The old magician is in his sh... caravan," clearly having heard the TARDIS referred to as the ship in the script), who Ian is trying to convince that Tegana is the enemy, and they all see the Doctor exit the TARDIS (not before we get a few scenes of the Doctor happily humming to himself as he does his repairs, which I found cute).
Polo is incensed at the Doctor. He demands the second key to the TARDIS and the Doctor refuses, even when threatened with force. "I'll let you wreck it first!" he says. Tegena grabs him, takes the key, and hands it to Polo. Polo decrees that the ship is his, they are his prisoners, and they are not to go inside it on penalty of death. The Doctor replies "You poor, pathetic, stupid savage!" Tegana laughs at the Doctor's boldness as the Doctor and his group are taken away. The first Doctor is prone to looking down upon people he meets on his travels as "savages," and it makes me sad. I think fans handwave this away as him just being unenlightened due to how little he's traveled thus far, but it always just strikes me as a little bigoted and unfair.
In their new tent, under guard, they attempt to come up with a plan, during which Ian breaks a plate in anger. They decide to capture Polo and use him as a hostage to get into the ship. Ian uses a piece of the broken plate to cut his way out of the back of the tent. He discovers the guard outside is already dead, and we cut to credits.
My problem with these episodes is pacing. I don't want to be too uptight about it since television production was so young at the time (these were basically taped stage plays, for the most part, after all), but it is a major problem in "Marco Polo." I know people love this story but in 25 minutes, very little happens - the Doctor fixes his TARDIS but his key is taken away from him, Polo thinks Tegana is on his side, and the Doctor and his friends aren't believed and get locked up. The pacing is absolutely glacial, and there's only so many times I can watch Tegana and the TARDIS crew being played off each other before I get sick of it. It's well acted, mind you, and I think John Lucarotti is a good writer, but stretching this story over seven episodes just doesn't work. There's just not enough plot here in the middle. It's hard to blame Lucarotti for it, of course - I'm sure he didn't propose a seven-part story in his original outline. The episodes will get better near the end, thankfully, though, and I'm looking forward to it.
"Doctor Who" puns so far: 2 | Tomorrow: "Rider from Shang-Tu"
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