Marco Polo - 9/10

Why does this have to be one of the missing stories? I loved everything up until they get to Kublai Khan. It's still good, just not quite as strong after that.

Positives

Everyone firing on all cylinders: Our four main characters all get lots to do, this is probably Susan's best episode with her relationship with Ping-Cho being the heart of the story.

Dangerous journey: I love when a TARDIS crew is stranded and the word itself is a danger from sandstorms to fear of dying of thirst.

Character Dynamics: The Characters relationships with each other are so strong here. Marco Polo and The Doctor especially have some amazing back and fourth.

Negatives

Conclusions: Both the endings to Ping-Cho's forced marriage and the team getting the TARDIS back feel rushed to me, it's a shame as the overall journey is so fun.

Unlike any other televised Story, this is the one I read before I listened and “watched” the Telesnaps Recon. (A lot of my Story Beats remain the same as my previous Review on the televised Marco Polo Episodes, so if you read that one, just skip to the Part about the Target Novel itself!)

I must say, as a huge pure historical enjoyer, this one just works. It definitely helped to have read the Target to know the Storybeats. There is a lot to love here, going by the Pictures, we still have from it, the Costumes were just excellent. I liked the Friendship Susan had, and she certainly gets a lot more to do than she had in the previous two Serials. Unlike a Serial like the Massacre, I think this one would benefit from some nice Visuals, be it a recovery from the Episodes itself (Please.) or just a wonderful Animation (which is unlikely as of now, but you can dream).

Admittedly at times some Story can be quite frustrating, like the whole stubborn Marco Bit, where he refuses to give the Doctor his Key again, while fun for a while, it gets a bit tiring. Same with the Fact that most of the Crew doesn’t show any mistrust about Tegana.

Overall, a splendid proper outing for a full pure historical serial. One of my favorites of Season 1.

Does the Target Novel work?

As for the Story in Target Version: I really adore this Target Novelization, as I said, I experience this Story first via this book. And really, as long as we don't have a way to properly see some Visuals, I think this may very well stay my preferred Way of revisiting this Story. With the Return of the Original Writer, you get a pretty accurate Version of the Original Stories with some little new added Bonuses in there. Really, if you don't enjoy longer Recons or struggle with them, I highly recommend reaching out for this one.

I'm not going to review the overall story here; but instead where I think the novel differs from the TV version of the story (as far as we can tell). I enjoyed that version a lot; but I think the novel overall falls short.

The improvements are that it does a very good job at making this adventure feel a lot larger - the narrative gives timescales; and things like giving bigger description of distances and even the meals that the travellers eat helps to add to the scale of this story (even if I wonder how authentic they'd be to that period of China). The story already stands out on TV for being this big adventure across Asia without the TARDIS being available; the context of it clearly lasting several months I think adds to the scenes where the TARDIS crew try to escape. The scenes with the Doctor and Kublai in the book also feel more sensible than those in the TV because of the fact that they had more time.

However there are a couple of areas where I think this story falls short. The characterisation of the Doctor feels off - it almost feels like Lucarotti is writing for a much more modern version of the Doctor than an early First Doctor so certain elements (like him being so keen to help out Marco at points; or even his not accepting the key back in the final chapter because he lost the Backgammon game) feel very weird for the context of the story. Indeed it also hurts Ian's role in the story - as the Doctor takes a large portion of his role in the novelisation and that feels like a negative. The ending also comes across less well - rather than Tegana committing suicide because his regicide attempt was foiled, he's instead killed by Ling-Tau who plays a much greater role in the novel becoming Ping Cho's fiancé by the end; and rather than a hurried escape its a more formal thing which I think doesn't make as much sense.

Overall though I think this is a decent read - although the negatives detract from this a lot more than the positives add.

This story is most impressive for its large scale. As someone used to modern who, the length of this is pretty special in its own right. The characters of Marco and Ping-Cho are likeable and the journey is varied enough to stay interesting. The locations were sometimes a bit too much to keep track of, but most were distinct. It also dawdles a bit here and there, with several escape attempts and a few too many “Give me key? No!” conversations for my liking. Also, Tegana felt aimless at times. His villainy should’ve been obvious for ages, so why do we keep pretending like there’s nothing going on? Same goes for Marco’s regret for stealing the Tardis. They spent ages together, and suddenly on the last few pages, he gets a feeling of remorse. That could’ve been set up way earlier, especially since we have characters that can never reach their home, which is the exact situation Marco finds himself in. Ping-Cho’s marriage plot was also a bit waved away and slightly unsatisfying. She didn’t want to marry someone she didn’t love, so instead she…. Married someone she met 2/3 times. I like the way the old man died though. That was funny to me.

Okay, onto the stuff I actually really liked. Barbara got to flex her history muscle for arguably the first time in the show. It was very clear she knows her stuff. The Susan and Ping-cho combination was also solid and allowed for character building. Clearly portraying Susan as adventurous and optimistic. Which is something that adds to the (otherwise relatively grumpy) group dynamic. Ian got his heroic moments, but I wish Barbara’s knowledge was a bit more used at the end near the palace. The doctor shows his intelligence with the games of chess and backgammon, which is the first time he has really shown how smart he actually might be. The scale, as mentioned before, is also a really good selling point, and quite ambitious! Even if some of it is filled with an irritating sense of frustration between the parties.