Marco Polo

For those of you finding the first three stories rather a long read, you'll be pleased to know that from this review on most of them are much shorter and to the point

Story Title: Marco Polo
Episode Count: 7 Series: 1 Story No: 4
Doctor: 1st Companions: Ian, Barbara, Susan
Date(s) Watched: Sunday 30th November 2008 (Episodes 1 & 2), Saturday 6th December 2008 (Episodes 3 & 4), Sunday 7th December (Episodes 5-7)

Ah, Marco Polo, a story often talked about as one of the greats and that it’s criminal that it’s missing. IMO however, I wasn’t too fussed. I’m sorry, I just couldn’t get into this one at all & it took me quite a while to watch all seven episodes. However I think this may be more to do with that the story was a full on recon with no motion at all. Don’t get me wrong I think Loose Canon did a superb job & I have enjoyed all of their other efforts, but this story is one that unfortunately, for me, relies on some sort of live action.

First off I will list the positives, all of the cast were superb throughout, I could not fault one of them, especially Derren Nesbit as Tegana & of course Mark Eden as Polo himself. Susan also isn’t that annoying in this, which is a bonus. The sets (from the stills) look very impressive indeed as did the costumes. The colour itself added a nice touch to the story also, making the sets & costumes stand out well. The music is also well played throughout the story & fits in with the locations perfectly.

However the story itself, well, could have been 2-3 episodes shorter, sorry, I know that that is sacrilege round these parts but I didn’t half find this story a lot of bother, Team Tardis try to get into the Tardis, Tegana catches them, Marco tells them off, they then end up back in his enclosure & then they try to escape again, which got boring to me by episode 4. At times the story does pick up with the odd fight scene or the part where Susan & Ping Cho go missing in the sandstorm but all in all it was just too long, which is a shame because judging by the tele snaps the sets looked superb. The last episode is the best part however where the story raps up nicely and we get a nice little reaction & speech from Marco Polo as the Tardis departs, just a shame they didn’t get to it sooner.

Overall Rating: 2.5/5 – Nice sets, costumes & acting, however it plods along too slowly, the last episode makes up for the slowness of it but unfortunately it doesn’t pull up the rating enough I’m afraid.