Doctor Who 004 Marco Polo February 22 1964 to April 4 1964.
Written by John Lucarotti, directed by Waris Hussein (1-3, 5-7) and John Crockett (4), produced by Verity Lambert and Martin Pinfield.
William Hartnell is the Doctor, Carole Ann Ford is Susan Forman, Jacqueline Hill is Barbara Wright and William Russell is Ian Chesterton.
I listened to the 7 part story on audio CD and followed that with the condensed version that was included on the DVD for the 3rd story The Edge Of Destruction. The condensed version is only about 31 mins and it uses stills taken during the broadcast recording to try to give the viewer an idea what the show looked like.
All of the 97 lost episodes have audio versions and they are on CD in 5 sets. The quality is good considering that the source was most likely from a fan who audio taped the episode when it was first broadcast.
The Doctor, Susan, Barbara and Ian find themselves high in the mountains when the Tardis finally stops after having trouble in the last two episodes. They are immediately threatened by some Mongols. Lucky for them they are saved by Marco Polo.
Mark Eden plays Marco Polo and Derren Nesbitt plays the Mongol warlord Tegana. Tegana thinks the Doctor is some sort of Wizard, a carriage with no wheels, it must be magic. He wants to kill the Tardis crew but Marco stops him. He brings the Tardis and crew along in his caravan. Marco gets it in his head to confiscate the magical flying carriage and use it as a gift for the Great Kublai Kahn. Marco hopes to gain favor and be allowed to return to Vienna after being away for 17 years. Against the Doctor's wishes he takes the key.
Most of the episodes are taken up with the Doctor trying to get back into the Tardis to fix a broken part. The Mongols think it's a bad idea to allow the Doctor back into his carriage and Marco goes along with that. It's quickly revealed that Tegana has revenge on his mind. He wants to kill the Kahn and take over. He does what he can to sabotage the caravan but eventually fails in his plan.
The Doctor meets Kublai Kahn and they become pals. Marco and the Tardis gang defeat the evil Tegana and save the Kahn's life. The Kahn allows Marco to travel to Vienna. The Doctor has repaired the Tardis and they depart.
Mostly a fun story, a bit too much repeated capture and escape. That was a complaint I had when I watched the series for the first time. It dawdled along rather slowly at times. Still, it's early doors and the show is still figuring out how to best tell these stories.
The CD set has a bonus disc with interviews of the cast. There's about 40 minutes worth of material that was fairly decent. I liked listening to the interviews and commentaries on the episodes when I first watched the series. There's wealth of interesting material there but it does eat up the hours. I started to run the extras at 1.5 speed to help shorten the time past.
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