By Jessica Holmes
Welcome back, everyone. Get comfy, because this is our first proper historical episode. This means that I’m about to go off on about a dozen different tangents before we’re done.
(I'd like to note that I was having some difficulty with my television set whilst watching this episode, so if I seem to have missed anything, that's why, and I apologise in advance.)
I must admit that I didn't know much about the historical Marco Polo going in, so I've gone along with my notes to the library and examined the facts in order to compare them to the episode, and see if there are any slip-ups. Other than obviously no time travellers in a phone box turning up halfway in.
THE ROOF OF THE WORLD
In which the companions find themselves in the Himalayas, but soon discover they are not alone. Are they about to fall victim to the terrible Yeti? No, it's the Mongols! And who should be with them but Marco Polo himself.
With the TARDIS in need of repairs, Marco invites the companions to travel with him to Shang-Tu, where he plans to meet with the great Kublai Khan himself. Also accompanying him are Ping-Cho, a young lady of around Susan's age who is on her way to be married (!), and Tegana, a Mongol warlord.
Ping-Cho, as far as I can tell, is not a real historical figure; however Marco Polo did once escort a wedding party from China to Persia, so this could perhaps have been the inspiration for her character. Tegana isn’t real, either, though Marco Polo probably would have travelled with Mongols of high status like Tegana many times, being something of a favourite of the court.
We get our first dose of educational entertainment when not long into the episode, Barbara, being the history teacher, explains to Susan who Marco Polo is.
For anybody unaware, Marco Polo was one of the earliest European travellers to document his travels across Asia. In his lifetime, and for a good long time afterwards, many doubted the veracity of his claims, but we now know that much of what he wrote was indeed accurate. He spent many years at the court of the leader of the Mongols, Kublai Khan, grandson of the legendary Genghis Khan. Did you know that Genghis Khan simply means 'great leader'? That's how highly the Mongols thought of him, that even today we don't refer to him by his true name (which, for those curious, was Temujin).
Basically, Kublai Khan had a hell of a legacy to live up to. Genghis Khan may have carved out the empire, but going by the records, Kublai made it truly great. Fabulously rich, high education rates, freedom of religion. If you ignore the truly biblical death rate, the Mongol Empire was rather amazing. Still, a lot of people died to make it happen.
And their yurts look very cosy, too.
Not a minute later, Ian steps in to fulfil his role as a science teacher, when he explains to Marco Polo why the water is boiling at a lower temperature than it should: because they are at high altitude and the air pressure is low. Indeed, the low air pressure is also causing the Doctor to suffer from altitude sickness. He doesn’t go into the mechanics of why, but that’s perhaps beyond the scope of the show.
While certainly educational, and fulfilling the stated goal of Doctor Who as a programme, these little bits of educational exposition do feel a bit jarring and clunky, as if the show suddenly remembers it’s supposed to be edifying.
Travelling with Marco soon proves to be a bad idea when he informs the time travellers of his true intentions. He's going to present their TARDIS as a gift to the Khan in hopes that the Khan will see fit to release him from his service.
Oh, and to make matters worse, Tegana is planning to poison everyone and take the TARDIS for himself.
At this point it would be remiss of me not to bring up the casting of this serial. I have to say…I'm disappointed.
I am disappointed that more people of Chinese or Mongolian heritage were not cast in speaking roles. I know that casting actors of one ethnicity and putting them in heavy makeup to look like another ethnicity is pretty much par for the course in the current film and television industries. It’s not even unusual for the BBC. Just tune in during Saturday evening primetime and you’ll see what I mean.
I had hoped that Doctor Who might make more of an effort to cast authentically, but alas, most of the Asian characters in this serial are portrayed by actors of no Asian heritage. After all, isn’t speculative fiction supposed to go against the status quo, not uphold it? It’s a real missed opportunity.
Three and a half out of five.
THE SINGING SANDS
In this honestly pretty dull episode, the caravan winds its way across the Gobi desert, the Doctor spends the entire time sulking, the girls get lost in a sandstorm while tailing Tegana, who for some reason changes his mind about his plan. Rather than poisoning the water gourds, like he said he was going to do, he just slashes them open and hopes everyone will die of thirst.
Why?
I don't really know.
Two and a half out of five.
FIVE HUNDRED EYES
The caravan makes it to Tun-Huang and the plot starts getting interesting again.
We get a little bit of linguistic history, which is a bit of history I am fond of because I'm that sort of a person. Never end up alone with me at a party. When I start talking, I don't stop. You've probably read enough of my articles by now to have gathered that.
Anyway, it's in the telling of the tale of the hashshashin, though quite heavily mythologised. The hashshashin were an Islamic sect present from the eleventh to thirteenth centuries in what is today Iran, roughly speaking. They were known for fighting their enemies in a most unconventional way: with espionage, assassinations and psychological warfare. Oh, and for smoking a drug called hashish, which is a resin derived from the cannabis plant. Everyone who can spot the potential etymological link please raise your hands.
So, Ping-Cho regales the group with the tale of a wicked lord named Aladdin who lived in the mountains and gave his men a powerful drug which made them feel rather marvellous, and all they had to do for him in return was go out and kill people for him.
This is not exactly how it went but it's a very interesting group with an intricate history. Also I can't find out who this Aladdin is, or who he's meant to be.
Following the not-entirely-accurate history lesson (you should probably pick up a book on the Assassins, more formally known as the Nizari Ismailis; they were an fascinating bunch), Barbara tails him to the eponymous cave of five hundred eyes, where she gets caught, and also the budget suddenly runs out, for this ‘cave’ looks an awful lot like it’s made of plywood.
Tegana, on the hunt for the budget.
The girls are quick to notice Barbara's absence however, and rush to tell the Doctor, who, having had a marked change for the better in terms of personality following his brief absence, immediately sets out with them to find her. Could it be that the Doctor is learning to care about…other PEOPLE?
I think I might faint.
Three and a half out of five.
THE WALL OF LIES
Marco learns what the others have been up to, and rushes to the cave. He is the one to save Barbara's life, but he's cross at her for putting herself in that position, and at the others for sneaking off without telling him. What's more, he doesn't believe that the girls were following Tegana at all, for Tegana denies having ever been to the cave before.
Tegana is has long been poisoning Marco's mind against our companions, and it seems to be taking root when he orders that the girls be separated. I really enjoyed the relationship between the girls. It feels very natural, and it's lovely to see Susan having a friend her own age. These girls are from different times and cultures entirely, but they get along like two peas in a pod.
The caravan pushes ever onward, and in the city of Sin-Ju (A city which I can’t seem to find out anything about. The name doesn’t come up anywhere that I can find.), Ping-Cho tries to prove to Marco that Tegana lied about having been to the cave before the group rescued Barbara, when he asked earlier about a passageway. It's important to note that this passageway is in fact a secret passageway, which is of course about ten times cooler than any other passageway.
Marco scoffs at her evidence and gets rather cross with her, trusting Tegana over her, even though Tegana might as well walk around with I AM UP TO NO GOOD tattooed on his forehead.
Speaking of Tegana, he's now plotting, yet again, to kill all the travellers. This guy is so rubbish at plotting it's unbelievable. I could have killed all these people five times over by the time we got to this point.
Don't believe me? Let’s go through them right now.
- Back in the desert, I could have poisoned the water gourds. You know. Like Tegana said he was going to do and then didn’t.
- I could have slashed the gourds open and taken the last entirely for myself, and ridden off to the oasis, there to relax and sip water while the others die. After all, this plan almost worked, only they managed to drink a bit of condensation from the TARDIS. That wouldn’t have been enough if they didn’t have that last water gourd.
- Assuming I didn't poison the water, I could have poisoned any of the meals. Then again, everyone does eat the same thing. Also then again, I could just go without one meal. Better hungry than dead, right?
- Tegana has a sword. A very sharp sword. Wait until everyone is asleep, tiptoe about, kill them one by one. Nobody gets a chance to fight back. Simple.
- The capture of Barbara was the ideal opportunity to bait the others into an ambush.
In conclusion, Tegana is absolutely rubbish at murder plots, and nobody should have me as a travelling companion. Especially not if you’re prone to snoring.
What he is good at, however, is getting Marco to turn against the Doctor and his companions, who become prisoners rather than guests.
Not that that’s going to stop Ian cutting his way out of captivity. With plates!
I was mildly disappointed when it turned out he meant literally cutting his way out of the tent with shards of ceramic, as opposed to taking on the guards armed with a set of fine china. But shock, horror, as Ian goes to subdue the guard, it turns out that someone's beaten him to it!
I'm not saying it was Tegana…
But it was definitely Tegana.
And if he can't manage to kill them next time, I'll just be embarrassed on his behalf.
CONCLUSION
So, that was the first half (ish) of Marco Polo! We’ve travelled a long, long way over these last few episodes.
One thing I do have to commend about this serial is its ambition. It's clear this is where most of the cost-cutting on previous episodes went, with far more detailed sets and some wonderful costumes. I also enjoyed our foray into real history, with real people, and I am really looking forward to meeting Kublai Khan. The Mongol Empire was a real marvel, and I am excited to see more of it.
[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]
Aladdin? Well, the Old Man of the Mountain, who gave Saladin and the Crusaders so much trouble, was named Rashid ad-Din Sinan. I guess one could focus on the "ad-Din" part and get confused. It is part of the Arabic form of Aladdin (and Saladin, too).
So the Assassins are connected to the Nizari. They're the group led by the Aga Khan, who skied for Iran at the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck last month, and whose father was Aly Khan, who was Pakistan's UN ambassador until he died a few years ago and was also briefly married to Rita Hayworth. It's a long way from drug-smoking killers to jet-setting playboys.