User Reviews

The Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan land on the roof of the world, the year is 1299. The TARDIS is damaged, and it's cold.

A fine first episode, which sees the TARDIS crew come face to face with Marco Polo. It's a great start, which sets the scene, introduces the characters, and places them all in peril.

Such a shame it remains lost, one of the few historicals, when you see the stills and publicity shots it looks fantastic, the costumes care excellent. With Fury from the Deep getting an animation, I wonder if this will receive the same treatment, it deserves to be animated. 8/10

Prior to watching the Loose Cannon reconstruction of "Marco Polo" I had only read scriptwriter John Lucarotti's Target novelization of his own story. One thing is clear after seeing this reconstruction and that is that the novelization is a criminal treatment of this gorgeously detailed, lush epic of a historical story. Where the televised story features wonderful characterization, entertaining dialogue, and richly detailed settings the novelization basically cuts it down to the plot alone, which is frankly quite unremarkable and ordinary.

What makes Marco Polo such a special story is the exemplary performances from just about everyone involved, the wonderful script and especially, as the Loose Cannon reconstruction thankfully captures in colourful photographs, the extraordinary detail that went into the wonderful sets and costumes. If ever discovered at any point "Marco Polo" may very well be the best-looking Doctor Who story of the 60's, and it is my current pick even though it is lost currently. The story was directed by the wonderful Warris Hussein so it would have undoubtedly been quite excellent on a visual level. What a shame. This is probably the missing story most deserving of being found. Even though I like some of the missing Troughton adventures a little better than this one, one doesn't feel that as much is lost with those straightforward adventures as with this one.

Loose Cannon have really done a superb job with the reconstruction, using either color or colorized photographs which emphasize the excellence of the production. The acting from the guest stars, particularly Mark Eden, is as good as the acting from the regulars.

"Marco Polo" is a wonderful historical story and remains excellent all the way through and just exemplary in spots.

Episode 1: 9/10, Episode 2: 8/10, Episode 3: 8/10, Episode 4: 8/10, Episode 5: 8/10, Episode 6: 9/10, Episode 7: 9/10.

Average: 8.43/10

Review for all 7 episodes:

Marco Polo is a story which covers The Roof of the World and the following six episodes. The adventures take place in the late 1200s in Cathay (ancient China) with Venetian explorer Marco Polo journeying to meet Kublai Khan the Mongol ruler. Polo confiscates the TARDIS and our heroes have an ongoing battle to convince Polo to return it whilst villains try to secure its powers for their own ambitions. The whole story was sadly lost when the BBC wiped the tapes. However the audio survives and along with numerous still photographs from the production a reconstruction is available. There is a full reconstruction with all the audio and stills for all 7 episodes so this is what you need to see, not the 30 minute massively reduced version!

It is a real measure of the quality of this story that even this reconstruction is incredibly interesting and enjoyable. I was totally engrossed despite the lack of moving pictures! The audio preserves the excellent performances of the actors and the brilliant script and story by John Lucarotti.

Marco Polo is an exciting, clever, sometimes amusing and always interesting adventure. The still photographs also leave proof of the superb sets and costumes which make this a high quality production all round.

My Ratings: Episodes 1 and 7 - 9.5/10, Episodes 2, 4 and 6 - 9/10, Episodes 3 and 5 - 8.5/10

Overall - 9/10.