Marco Polo
The TARDIS lands in the Himalayas in 1289, and promptly breaks down, stranding the Doctor, Ian, Susan and Barbara. Fortunately for them, a caravan is passing through and they are able to secure shelter. Ian and Barbara are impressed to learn that their new benefactor is none other than Marco Polo himself, on his latest passage to Cathay from Venice. But they are less enthused when Marco reveals that he intends to take the Doctor’s “flying caravan” to Peking as a gift for Kublai Khan, who will hopefully be impressed enough to continue to grant Marco safe passage. The Doctor and his companions continue traveling with Marco and his own suspicious companion, the Mongol warlord Tegana. Susan befriends a young girl named Ping-Cho, who is being transported to meet her future husband in an arranged marriage. The Doctor doesn’t give up hope that he will have an opportunity to recover the TARDIS, but he may have to travel with Marco for months to sieze it.
written by John Lucarotti
directed by Waris Hussein and John Crockett
music by Tristram CaryGuest Cast: Mark Eden (Marco Polo), Derren Nesbitt (Tegana), Zienia Merton (Ping-Cho), Leslie Bates (the man at Lop), Jimmy Gardner (Chenchu), Charles Wade (Malik), Philip Voss (Acomat), Philip Crest (Bandit), Paul Carson (Ling-Tau), Gabor Baraker (Wang-Lo), Tutte Lemkow (Kuiju), Peter Lawrence (Vizier), Martin Miller (Kublai Khan), Basil Tang (Foreman), Claire Davenport (Empress), O. Ikeda (Yeng)
Broadcast from February 22 through April 4, 1964
Notes: Guest star Zienia Merton would later become a semi-regular cast member on the 1970s ITV science fiction series Space: 1999, as Moonbase Alpha crewmember Sandra Benes. The master tapes of this episode were destroyed by the BBC in the early 1970’s, and no video copies exist, though it has been released as a narrated, audio-only story on CD.
LogBook entry & review by Earl Green