Series 1 Episode 22: The Velvet Web

Serial: The Keys of Marinus
Episode: 2 (The Velvet Web)
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Barbara, Ian, and Susan

Writer: Terry Nation
Director: John Gorrie
Producer: Verity Lambert
Original Air Date: 18/04/1964

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH (and other stories)

In which hemlines are high, baddies are boogly-eyed, Marxist subtext abounds, and everyone is hypnotised but Barbara...who then inadvertently plunges an entire civilisation into utter screaming chaos.

BUT LET US WASTE NO MORE TIME SHILLY-SHALLYING for Babs is missing presumed mauled and Ian is getting antsy. The Doctor reckons she’s probably behind this triangulated wall, so of course Ian immediately springs into action; the Doctor tells Ian not to be precipitous; Ian forces the doors open anyway.

Ian sets his Mood Organ to 'OMG WHERE'S BARBARA!?'

Then HOLY RETINAS BATMAN there’s a blinding flash of light and the three of them find themselves in some sort of Greco-Roman leisure palace. Ian can hardly believe his eyes, for there on a chaise-longue resplendent in a Greco-Roman Dress of Floaty Loveliness is none other than Bae; I’m going to say he’s probably dreamed about this sort of thing. Susan runs over and hugs her, and Babs explains that falling through space freaked her out a bit so she tried to tear the travel dial of her wrist, hence the blood on it.

Colour set feat. Weeping Angel containment units

Ian instantly enters into the spirit of the Very Weird Situation and he and Babs start roleplaying or something. Babs seems to have no problem ordering the extras about, and tells them to get some food for her friends. The Doctor pronounces the place ‘sensuous and decadent, but rather pleasant’. Which sounds like something you’d find written on Mary Poppins’s magical tape-measure. Then he finds a pomegranate. DON’T EAT IT, DOCTOR! HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD OF PERSEPHONE?

Susan enjoys her teachers' weird power play flirting; the Doctor not so much.

The rest of the food arrives, and Ian is justifiably wary:

BARBARA: What's the matter, don't you like it?
IAN: No, I've just realised nobody's shown me the menu. [. . .] See, I don't know the price yet.
BARBARA: But we're guests here!
IAN: Oh, you've met the host, have you?

You can tell this is Terry Nation, actually, because Ian’s characterisation here is similar to the way he was written in The Daleks: cynical, slightly to the left, and unwilling to take advantage of the altruism of strangers. The Doctor, meanwhile, gives zero fucks and continues to be enthusiastic to the point of zeal about food.

Enter a man in a very long cloak; Ian reckons ‘this is where we pay the bill’; Babs tells him to wind his neck in. And HOLY HEMLINES BATMAN the man’s tunic is short to the point of indecency.

Man in the High Tassles

He’s also brought some exposition with him, after Babs responds to being asked whether there’s anything she wants by requesting KNOWLEDGE. Bullet-point time again:

• This place is the city of Morphoton.
• Its people are perhaps the most contented in the universe.
• Nothing the people desire is denied them.

So then of course Susan – Susan the homesick spacechild, Susan the wanderer, Susan who wants to know all the mysteries of the stars, Susan who has just found herself in the city equivalent of the Mirror of Erised – ASKS THE NICE MAN FOR A DRESS.

FUCKSAKE, TERRY. FIRST BARBARA GETS THE ROMANTIC GIFT OF DRESSMAKING FABRIC FROM HER THAL WOULD-BE LOVER ON SKARO AND NOW SUSAN GETS A SILK GOWN AS THE THING SHE DESIRES MOST.

The Doctor is sternly mortified at Susan’s presumption, but the Man in the High Tassles tells him it’s no bother. Then this happens:

MAN: And you? Have you no wish, no great desire?
DOCTOR: Well er, yes, perhaps, but er... I'm afraid it's not quite as easy as giving Susan a dress out of that.
SUSAN: What is it grandfather?

Yes, grandfather, what is it? A brain? A heart? A home? The nerve? A working time machine perhaps?

DOCTOR: Well perhaps, um, if I had to choose, a well-equipped laboratory with every conceivable instrument. Yes, yes!
MAN: It will be arranged.

Hmm. Well, I suppose a dream laboratory is pretty good.

Anyway, the leggy dude wishes them all good night, and Susan is dead on her feet; Babs levers her over to bed, speculating that the excitement has probably been too much for her, like she’s a fucking five-year-old. Poor Susan. Bad Terry.

The sun has gone to bed and so must I

But also Good Terry, because now Barbara and Ian are having another Excellent Barbara and Ian Conversation like they did on Skaro:

BARBARA: Well you don't look very happy.
IAN: Me? No no no, not at all. I think it's all marvellous.
BARBARA: Not very convincing. I don't know what you want.
IAN: Perhaps it's my materialistic side. How rich and powerful do you have to be to give things away free?
BARBARA: Oh, now don't spoil it all for me!
IAN: (Laughs.) I didn't mean to do that.
BARBARA: You can't apply Earth standards, you just can't!
IAN: (Quietly.) No. It's certainly very different here. You noticed that man's eyes?
BARBARA: Well, what about them?
IAN: He didn't blink once.

Maybe that's because all the statues are actually Weeping Angels. Wouldn't that be a twist? Ahem. Sorry. Anyway, Ian asks Babs if he's being ridiculous, and though she doesn't exactly pull her punches when she answers in the affirmative and tells him to sleep on it, it's still a bit gorgeous. I love Ian’s little Marxist moments when they crop up, and it’s interesting that Barbara is starting up a debate about whether or not you can apply Earth standards to other planets. They do complement one another very well: Ian doesn’t trust the 1% but also doesn’t trust aliens because they look alien; Babs has no qualms about taking whatever she can get but is entirely willing to put anything that seems a bit off down to cultural differences and accommodate it. Also what is personal space. Also also, Ian appears to have a DH Lawrence phoenix on the back of his jacket, which would explain the UST.

Do or do not. There is no try.

Anyway, they all lie down on their couches, and then HOLY GREEN MAN BATMAN the eyes of the beardy stone face in the wall light up and one of the Vestal Virgins or whoever goes round putting little discs on everyone’s foreheads. Babs is a super light sleeper and sits up, knocking it off her brow, just as the most godawful epilepsy-inducing hullaballoo starts up. She clutches her head in agony as flashing lights and alarms start going off before passing out. Blimey.

You are a wild boar, a wild boar...

The next morning, Susan, the Doctor, and Ian are up and breakfasting like Gods. The Doctor is really digging the glassware. Ian seems perturbed by Barbara’s super-long lie-in, and indeed either our Babs is having a very disturbed sleep or Jacqueline Hill just had to run to get to her position, because she’s breathing way too quickly for a horizontal person. Ian has a mystery sore spot on his forehead; so does the Doctor. Of course we know it’s from the mystery discs but I like to think that even for a split second Ian wondered whether he may have been branded for prostitution in the night.

Anyway, Susan’s dress has arrived and she wants to show Barbara. When our Babs wakes up, however it becomes immediately apparent that all is not well. And it’s so stupidly simply done I feel like applauding. Because now we get to see the room from Barbara’s point of view, and it’s shabby as all fuck. When the Doctor hands her a supposedly exquisite glass full of juice, all we see is ‘a dirty old mug’; she bats it away, and of course everyone thinks she’s a) crazy and b) rude. But then when we see Barbara from the others’ point of view, she’s still in her lovely dress and everything’s still fancy schmancy. Ian being Ian, he tries the old ‘shake the hysteric’ routine and gives Barbara an ineffectual jostling, but to no avail, proving once again how shit the Chesterton Method is.

Being routinely disbelieved is a bitter pill to take

Susan shows Babs her new dress, which we see is indeed ‘dirty rags’, and Ian, who has certainly changed his tune since last night, tries to remind Barbara that the people here have given them everything. ‘They’ve given you nothing’, says Babs, bluntly.

Enter Altos, the Man in the High Tassles, wearing Miss Havisham’s curtains; he immediately knows Babs’s brainwashing has been a failure, and she knows he knows it. He wants to take her to see their physicians; Babs is having precisely none of it and scarpers; Ian wants to go after her (because of course) but Altos tells him he’ll deal with her fit of Lady Cray. Ian, did you learn nothing from the last serial? If you don’t believe what Barbara says, sooner or later everyone ends up believing her the hard way.

Budget Smugglers

Anyway, we now get to see Shabby Babs in a Dress of Tatty Unloveliness, running off into a stone chamber. She hears footsteps and hides behind a pillar. Fortunately, and against all logic, Altos doesn’t find her; unfortunately, he’s locked the door behind him. Barbara, alone, her friends brainwashed, trapped in an alien dungeon, and wearing a fucking awful dress, sits down and has a little cry.

Meanwhile, Altos is going to check in with his bosses…WHO ARE STALK-EYED SNAIL BRAINS IN JARS! Boogly-eyed monsters for the win!

'MEOW'

But seriously they do look like Gary from Spongebob.

Anyway, Altos tells the Snail Brains that one of the women ‘has resisted the power of the Mesmeron’. I repeat, THE MESMERON. Ye GODS. More concerningly still, the rest of Team Tardis is going to get the next stage of treatment after a trip to the Doctor’s new lab, at which point they will be COMPLETELY SUBJUGATED. What is it with this planet and Free Will? Oh and Altos needs to kill Barbara. Because she has seen the TRUTH and is beyond their control. Damn right she is. Also, YIKES. Oh and the woman who placed the discs on everyone’s heads? Her name is Sabetha, and she’s going to be punished for Babs’s sleeping habits. Poor Sabetha.

Back in the cell, Babs is dozing when she hears footsteps and hides oh-so-stealthily behind the pillar again. Sabetha has been thrown into the mix, and Babs recognises her as the girl who put the discs on their foreheads; how she knows this I am not prepared to say. Anyway, Sabetha is pretty zombified, and despite Barbara’s best efforts, all she manages to say is ‘I am to be punished’. Exasperation ensues.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Ian are being reassured that Babs was suffering from Victorian Lady Disease and is now under sedation. Ian is, uncharacteristically, totally fine with this, and thinks they’ll maybe be able to visit her later. Because this is what the plot requires of him at the moment. The Doctor pays lip service to being concerned for Barbara’s welfare before essentially saying ‘hey ho nothing we can do right now let’s see my lab now please’.

Then there’s another triumph for Shoestring Budget Sci-Fi: upon entering the super-duper science lab, Ian and Doctor immediately start nerding out at a room that is totally empty but for a manky old mug on a bench. It’s like the Emperor’s New Clothes only without the moral bit. Ian is excited about something called a cyclotron, which is apparently an early form of particle accelerator; I bet he’d swoon with excitement if anyone ever showed him around CERN. The Doctor reckons that, with equipment like the manky old mug, he might be able to repair the Tardis’s time thingummy; oh, comedy.

Meanwhile, back in the cell, Sabetha is fondling something on a chain around her neck…IT’S A KEY OF MARINUS! Sabetha has a touch of the Gollums about her and claims it’s hers and was given to her by her masters as the thing she desired most; Babs puts two and two together and asks her if Arbitan is her father. Sabetha’s memory would appear to have been jogged. And indeed the Bechdel test would appear to have been passed this week. Thank goodness.

Elsewhere, the Snail Brains have plans for Team Tardis: Ian is to go into manual labour, the Doctor is to put his mind to ‘increasing manpowers’ (whatever that is), and Susan is to replace Sabetha being a hostess with the mostess and brainwasherwoman. Because alien Snail Brains are well into gender stereotyping.

Back in the cell, Babs is trying to get a very tired Sabetha to remember more things. Giving up on her variant of the Chesterton Method (arm-gripping and slowly articulating motivational stuff into the face of the grippee), she falls back on the Cuddle Method before scarpering behind the pillar again as Altos’s footsteps draw nearer. Altos grabs ragdoll Sabetha by the arm and tells her she’s to come with him; meanwhile, Babs has made a break for the door. Altos intercepts her and they have a brief scuffle, during which Babs is thrown to the ground, gets up, tries again, and is about to be throttled with a raggedy piece of Altos’s costume when Sabetha comes up from behind and smashes a stool over his head. GIRL POWER! Barbara tells Sabetha she has to go find the others and ‘try and convince them’ (of what?), and that she’ll come back for her if she’s successful; Sabetha goes to sleep.

Sabetha is smashing

Out in the corridors, Babs is sneaking about; hearing a noise, she ducks behind a doorway before realising she’s run into Ian! Relieved, she runs over to hug him, telling him she thought they must have got to him; realising that he is not hugging her back and that there is therefore something terribly wrong with the Universe, she breaks off. And indeed Ian is now in full zombie mode and must take her to his leaders. Barbara is too busy trying to stop her dress falling down to resist much.

Oblivious as ever to Ms. Hill's wardrobe malfunctions

As Barbara is bundled through the door, she comes face to face with the Snail Brain Bell Jars, and swiftly pronounces them ‘disgusting’. She tries to appeal to Ian, but the Snail Brains talk over her:

MORPHO: We are the masters of this place! Our brains outgrew our bodies, it is our intelligence that has created this whole city. But we need the help of the human body to feed us and to carry out our orders.
BARBARA: You use your people to act as machines for you.
MORPHO: Much more than machines. The human body is the most flexible instrument in the world, no mechanical device could reproduce its mobility and dexterity.
BARBARA: So, I'm to become one of your slaves?
MORPHO: No, you have seen the truth of our city, it is beyond our power to erase this from your memory. You must be destroyed. Kill her. Kill her.

Before we go on to the next bit, in which Bamfbara is a BAMF, let’s take a moment to appreciate the ongoing Marxist subtext of this serial, in which the Bourgeoisie are so grotesquely out of whack with the Proletariat that they are entirely divorced from the literal, physical ‘body’ of humanity and yet depend on them for their survival.

ANYWAY, in yet another instance of a woman being nearly throttled to death by a man on a kids’ TV show, Ian the Serial Strangler gets his hands around Barbara’s throat. But then OH YES PLEASE, after a brief moment of panic in which she tries to get through to Ian by calling his name a lot, Barbara decides she has finally had enough of this victimisation bullshit; you can actually see the moment where she suddenly decides ‘ACTUALLY FUCK THIS’, at which point she flings Ian’s hands away and starts smashing shit up Russian Revolution style:

Barbara’s quadruple homicide seems to have done the trick: as the last Snail Brain’s eye stalk wilts pathetically, Ian snaps out of it. It is very much time for hugs.

Later on, through the Power of the Boatneck, Babs has found the outfit she was wearing before her Greco-Roman fashion disaster, and she and Ian have been reunited with the Doctor. It seems Barbara’s killing spree has awoken the citizens of Morphoton to the shitty reality of their living conditions and they’re burning the city in a full-on riot, which is what happens when you don’t have a provisional government in place ready to take over once you’ve toppled your tyrant(s) of choice. Everyone agrees they need to get the hell out of Dodge before the revolution catches up with them; Susan’s bringing Sabetha and Altos, as it seems the latter is also one of Arbitan’s crew.

It turns out Altos had a chum who went on ahead to find the fourth key in a city called Millenials Millenius, a super-advanced and well-ordered society. The Doctor, who clearly can’t be arsed to rough it in (as we shall discover) the jungle or an icy wasteland, decides he’s going to jump ahead and search for Altos’s pal and have some Doctor Time away from the humans and Susan, who’s going to stay with the main party. The Doctor’s self-interest continues to be hilariously blatant. They decide to meet up in five days, and Susan turns her travel dial after a ludicrously swift goodbye to her Grandfather. Ongoing issues are ongoing.

Then HOLY DYSTOPIA BATMAN Susan arrives in a jungle where everything is screaming, Catching Fire style. She claps her hand over her ears and screams for the screaming to stop; we clap our hands over our ears and do much the same thing.

GALLOPING CROSSOVERS, HAS SUSAN INADVERTENTLY FOUND HERSELF IN THE MIDDLE OF THE 75TH ANNUAL HUNGER GAMES? WHAT AWAITS OUT HEROES IN THE SCREAMING JUNGLE APART FROM SCREAMING? WILL WILLIAM HARTNELL NOW HAVE A LOVELY HOLIDAY AND RETURN REFRESHED? WILL BARBARA BE ALLOWED TO HAVE A FEW EPISODES IN WHICH SHE IS NOT THREATENED WITH BODILY HARM? WILL SUSAN GET SOMETHING BETTER TO DO THAN SCREAM? WILL IAN GET A CHANCE TO CHANGE HIS OUTFIT?

Summary (as applicable to this episode)

Does it pass the Bechdel test? Indeed it does! Hurrah for Sabetha!

Is the gaze problematic? Not especially.

Is/are the woman companion(s) dressed 'for the Dads'? No. Altos, on the other hand...

Does a woman fall over/twist her ankle (whilst running from peril)? No.

Does a woman wander off alone for the sole dramatic purpose of getting into trouble so she can be rescued later? No.

Is/are the woman companion(s) captured? Everyone gets brainwashed but Barbara, and though Barbara does end up in a cell it's an accidental imprisonment as she just happened to hide in a dungeon.

Does the Doctor/a man companion/any other man have to rescue the woman companion(s) from peril? HELL NO. It's Barbara's turn to save everyone's skins this week.

Is/are the woman companion's/s' first/only reaction(s) to peril gratuitous screaming? Susan a bit.

Does a woman companion go into hysterics over something reasonably minor? Susan a bit.

Is a woman 'spared' the ordeal of having to do/witness something unpleasant by a man who makes a decision on her behalf/keeps her deliberately ignorant? No.

Does a man automatically disbelieve or belittle something a woman (companion) says happened to her? As ever, nobody believes Barbara.

Does a man talk over a woman or talk about a woman as though she isn't there? Yes.

Does the woman companion have to be calmed/comforted by the Doctor/a man companion/a man? I'd say Ian needs a hug as much as Barbara does after all that business with the brains, so I'm going to say it's evens.

Is a woman the first/only person to be (most gratuitously) menaced by the episode's antagonist(s)? Yup. Barbara. Also she's already had to deal with attempted strangulation way too often. I disapprove.

Is a man shamed into doing/not doing something because the alternative is a woman doing/not doing something? No.

Does the woman companion come up with a plan? Yes.

Does the woman companion do something stupid/banal/weird which inspires a man to be a Man with a Plan? Nope.

Does a woman come up with a theory and is it ridiculed by the Doctor/a man? Yes and yes. 

Does a woman call the Doctor out on his bullshit? Barbara calls out literally everyone this week.

Does a woman get to be a badass? BARBARA SMASH. SABETHA SMASH.

Is the young, strong, straight, white male lead the person most often in control of the situation? Nope. Makes a change!

Is there past/future/alien sexism? They seem to have pretty Victorian ideas about women and hysteria in Morphoton, but otherwise not so much.

Does a 'present'-day character call anybody out on past/future/alien sexism? No.

Did a woman write/direct/produce this episode? No/No/Yes.

Verdict

Hurrah for Barbara! This week is very much her episode, and though she mostly gets lucky with her 'better start smashing jars' tactic, it's still a very quick bit of thinking under pressure. I'm not happy with the amount of let's-put-the-women-under-immediate-threat-of-bodily-harm that's going on of late, but I do love that this is the week where Barbara has very much had enough of being victimised and doesn't let the fact that the person trying to kill her is her zombified friend get in the way of being a badass. Interesting that this is the first time she's ever actually killed anyone (having been of course complicit in the Dalek genocide a few episodes back) and that she doesn't seem to give it much thought because they're boogly-eyed snail brains rather than humanoids. It's also interesting that the Doctor seems to get his 'well the baddies are dead now so let's move on and leave the locals to clear up the mess' approach to things from the two humans, who don't seem to be particularly worried about the fact that one of them has just plunged an entire civilisation into revolutionary chaos. I always find the politics of Terry Nation stories fascinating and this is no exception. On with the screaming jungle! Or the jungle at any rate.

Series 1 Episode 21: The Sea of Death

Serial: The Keys of Marinus
Episode: 1 (The Sea of Death)
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Barbara, Ian, and Susan

Writer: Terry Nation
Director: John Gorrie
Producer: Verity Lambert
Original Air Date: 11/04/1964

A SHOE HOPE (and other stories)

THE PICTURES ARE MOVING AGAIN! REJOICE! And oh, hello again, Terry Nation. Must be an Extra-Terrestrial week.

So there’s this island with a big art deco masonic pyramid thing on it and what is clearly a teeny model of the Tardis materialising on its shores. I want it so I can play with it.

So. Precious.

Inside the Tardis, Susan and Babs have changed their outfits, which in Barbara’s case rather begs the question of when she got her Marco Polo boatneck jumper back. Maybe there’s a stash of them in the Tardis wardrobe? Maybe she’s been carrying it around with her in a secret hair compartment? Who knows. Ian, meanwhile, is still in his Chinese jacket, because he looks boss in it and all his teacher cardigans are probably ruined.

Ian asks the Doctor about the radiation levels, and has clearly learned nothing from his experiences on Skaro because he doesn’t ask the Doctor to double-check his Geiger counter when he says it’s all gravy. Babs says it’s a pity they don’t have colour TV aboard the Tardis; the Doctor says they do but it’s currently hors de combat, which is French for ‘fucked’. I’m assuming this is Terry Nation’s way of saying ‘this serial would look great in colour hint hint’. At any rate, Babs is amused.

Stockholm Syndrome BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP

Susan wants to go and frolic on the beach; the Doctor agrees, with much fluffing of lines. Ian thinks he might have seen something moving out there on the scanner but dismisses it as probably just a shadow, which is Whovianese for KILLER ALIENS. Like the ones that are presumably inside those submarine dildos that have just been pulled ashore.

Susan is digging the beach; Ian is waxing lyrical about the stillness of the water; Babs wonders whether it’s frozen; Billy fluffs his lines; everyone deals with it gorgeously.

The Doctor reckons they ought to be cautious about swimming because you never know what creatures are a-lurking. Maybe you should ask that sinister-looking scuba diver who’s following you through the rocks? They’ll know for sure. Unless they’re KILLER SCUBA-DIVING ALIENS.

Ian is perturbed by the lack of birds. The Doctor barges in on his moment with Babs by shoving a lump of glass into his hand with hilarious lack of concern for his sliceable human hands. He wonders whether the sand turned to glass or whether the glass was put there deliberately; either way, it’s intriguing, and he’s into it.

Meanwhile, Susan has found a rockpool and is taking off her shoes and socks. Babs is having a clumsy moment and has tripped and knocked one of Susan’s shoes into the rockpool. She is also, emphatically, not going paddling, but is happy to help Susan clamber over the rocks for a splash. Enter Ian, whose cautious parenting and/or school trip instincts have kicked in because he’s spotted danger and is keen to point it out – OH DEAR LORD IT’S…A SHOE!?

A melting shoe, to be precise. Babs asks Ian ‘what is it’, because it takes a scientist to work out that the pool is full of acid. It could also be alkaline. Just sayin’. (I have no idea whether or not this is true, actually, but I just assume a strong alkali would also corrode the bejaysus out of your footwear.) Susan has, apparently, assumed the worst, because she is already burying her face in Barbara’s jumper. Melty shoes are just that terrifying. Though NEW HEADCANON ALERT: the reason Susan’s reaction to having lost her shoe at the end of The Dalek Invasion of Earth is so ridiculous is either a) that she associates shoe loss with that time she was on Marinus and had just had to say goodbye to her GF/BFF or b) that there is a third shoe loss/painful goodbye incident in Susan’s past that triggers these reactions. Is shoe loss to Susan as Velcro is to Kimmy Schmidt? Did she leave her shoe behind on Gallifrey? DID THE TIME LORDS TAKE SUSAN’S SHOE? I must know.

DON'T LIE TO ME, ANSWERS.COM!!!

Ahem. Sorry, I’m just a little giddy at having moving pictures to work with. I’ll be good.

Anyway, Babs tells Susan to calm the fuck down and go get another pair of shoes from the Tardis; Ian lends Susan his boots, and the general ad lib Space Parenting is generally adorable. Once alone with Ian, Babs points out that the Shoe-Melting Puddle of Trauma is in fact a tidal pool; the sea must be ‘a sea of acid’. Trippy.

Meanwhile, back at the Tardis, the Sinister Scuba Diver is furtling about with the lock…unsuccessfully. They scarper before Susan arrives.

Back at the beach, the Doctor is contemplating the sea of acid, whilst Babs informs him of Susan’s phobia of losing her shoes. Then this happens:

DOCTOR: (To IAN.) Yes, and if you'd had your shoes on, my boy, you could have lent her hers. You mustn't get sloppy in your habits, you know.

Billy Hartnell, never change. Fortunately, Messrs. Hill and Russell don’t have to keep a straight face at this point.

'Dear LORD you've lost the plot P.S. WE LOVE YOU'

But OOH LOOK the Doctor has spotted the giant glass dildos! Babs wanders off while he and Ian investigate, and OH this is interesting, because I think this might be the first time Babs has called for the Doctor rather than Ian (and very calmly, too, I might add) upon finding something unusual. Apparently she’s spotted another of the submarines, and there’s something inside this one…cripes.

Back at the Tardis, Susan has found some extra shoes…and some flipper-shaped footprints! She yells for her grandfather, then decides to follow them; either she’s really shit at tracking or there’s more than one scuba-diver, because one of them appears from behind the rock she’s just passed. Its head looks the rubber lovechild of a Cyberman and a Teletubby; it’s rather alarming.

Back at the plastic glass submarine, they’ve found an empty wetsuit minus its humanoid; Ian wonders how it got out; Babs reckons the tear in the suit means it’s been melted with acid; Ian, despite being a Science teacher who would presumably know that this would most likely result in a suit full of biological sludge rather than a vanishing act, actually accepts this theory.

We melted her!

The Doctor reckons they ought to go and find Susan; Ian is more interested in the awesome trapezium pyramid thing jutting up through the glass beach, which is indeed magnificent. The Doctor looks so proud and delighted and reckons they should pay it a visit…but after they find Susan. Because actual priorities. Well done.

Having said this, it's rather lovely that Ian (and Barbara, as we shall see when they get up to the pyramid) are beginning to be more willing adventurers. A few episodes ago it was all about the Doctor wanting to explore and the two humans giving zero fucks about anything other than getting home, but it seems they're now relaxed enough about their new lifestyle to get curious about things. And at last some character development for Ian! Rejoice!

Meanwhile, at the impressive prism thingummy, Susan is taking in the gorgeous, Skaro-esque German Expressionism of it all. And the corridors are again excellent. But OH CRUMBS one of the scuba-divers is waiting around the corner…WITH A KNIFE!

Back at the Tardis, Babs informs the Doctor that Susan isn’t anywhere in the Tardis. Well, anywhere Barbara knows about, anyway, seeing as the Tardis is mahoosive. The Doctor wonders where the ‘wretched child’ has got to. Nice. Babs spots Ian’s boots and Susan’s footprints in the sand; the Doctor is beginning to suspect the sea of acid is indeed a defence mechanism; they all think they’d better go and find Susan, who has probably gone to look at the cool building because she’s a big nerd.

At the building, Susan is still moving towards her would-be murderer…WHO SUDDENLY FALLS THROUGH THE WALLS AS THEY TURN AROUND LIKE MR, SWEENEY'S TRICK FENCE IN ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE. Oh wow that’s hysterical.

Elsewhere, the rest of Team Tardis arrives at the building, and Barbara and Ian immediately start geeking out about the architecture:

BARBARA: Look at the joins in the blocks, Ian.
IAN: Yes, no mortar! Must have been built with tremendous accuracy.
BARBARA: Yes, the Egyptians did the same thing. So did the Indians of Central and Southern America.
IAN: A precise distribution of certain weights. That's the key, isn't it?
BARBARA: Yes. It’s marvellous, isn't it?
IAN: Marvellous.
DOCTOR: Yes well, before you two get carried away, I think we'd better go and find Susan. Mmm?

Oh LORD somebody give me a ‘Barbara and Ian do the Inca Trail’ fic. In which there are no references to ‘Indians’.

Carried away indeed...

Anyway, the Doctor essentially tells them to get a grip on their strange impulse to indulge in educational asides and go find his granddaughter already. They do so.

Elsewhere, Susan is still wandering around when she leans down to fiddle with her shoe…AND ALSO GOES THROUGH THE TRICK WALL! Seriously, this girl already has issues with shoes, let’s not give her any more. Anyway, she screams, and is heard by Barbara and Ian.

Meanwhile, the Doctor is wandering about and casually goes through the trick wall too in a manner so understatedly comedic that it can only by conveyed through the medium of the gif.

He does not scream. By the time Barbara and Ian get there, the outdoor corridor is empty and they’re horribly confused.

Inside the building, Susan is wandering the corridors alone, and once again there’s a wetsuited menace lurking. Then there’s a monk; Susan backs away…and into the wetsuited menace! It grabs her…AND LETS HER GO, having been mysteriously stabbed in the back by assailant or booby-trap unseen.

Outside, Babs reckons they should try another circuit of the walls or go back to the Tardis, as Susan is probably waiting for them there. Ian stops answering. A concerned Babs starts calling for him, leans against the trick wall, and is also swizzled inside the pyramid! Even more disconcertingly, as the wall turns, we see the monk waiting for her. That’s all of them got!

Inside, Ian has found the dead scuba-diver. He seems to be the only lone wanderer, though, because the Doctor, Susan, and Barbara are all in a cell together swapping stories of having been swallowed by the walls. The Doctor reckons the monk lives in the pyramid while the wetsuit guys ae intruders like them, though with one ‘puzzling but relieving’ difference: ‘They died, and we’re only prisoners.’ Then this happens:

OH DOCTOR LOOK AT YOU LEARNING TO RELY ON YOUR HUMAN FRIENDS BUT MOSTLY LOOK AT YOUR EXCELLENT FACE.

In the corridors, Ian stops the monk getting murdered by a wetsuit guy, who then falls through a trap wall into an acid bath. Ow. The special effects are also pretty special at this point. Ian asks the monk wtf is going on, and it transpires the wetsuit guys are called the Voord and the monk is the only guy defending the pyramid against them; the monk had to treat Team Tardis as potential enemies until proven otherwise, but now he’s going to release the others and Explain. Marv.

There are no words.

Although OH NO it seems the Voord have indeed penetrated the walls, as one of them is staring in admiration at the sliding triangular door through which Ian and the monk have just disappeared. A suggestion, Mister Monk Person: maybe don’t have revolving walls and your enemies won’t be able to get through them?

And now, in a room whose main feature is a big pentagonal machine, it’s Exposition Time on Marinus (the name of the planet) and Bullet Point Time on the blog:

• The monk guy is called Arbitan
• The big machine was called the Conscience of Marinus
• The Conscience started out as an infallible judge and jury then became a mind control radio thing that decided right and wrong for the people and eliminated evil from their minds
• Eventually a guy named Yartek found a way of overcoming the machine’s power, presumably because the whole thing was Orwellian as fuck and also because his followers, the Voords, were now able to screw over the population of a planet for whom violence was now alien
• Instead of destroying the machine, Arbitan’s guys removed five key micro-circuits from the machine so the Voords couldn’t use it while they tried to make it irresistible again
• One of the keys is with Arbitan, while the rest have been hidden all over Marinus
• Now he needs the keys back because he’s worked out how to make the machine irresistible again, only there’s nobody to go and get them any more
• Arbitan sent his daughter off to find them but she never came back and now he wants Team Tardis to go and do his dirty work for him because, much like Obi-Wan Kenobi, they're now his only hope
• Team Tardis gives the best collective Drop Dead Look that has ever been seen on telly

There is now, I kid you not, a missing scene in which Team Tardis presumably tells him FUCK NO, WE WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR DYSTOPIAN BULLSHIT because the next minute we’re back at the glass beach en route to the Tardis. Hilariously, they’re all ‘I wish there was something we could’ve done for him and I feel really bad but equally no way were we getting his keys back for him’.

'ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME'

But OH WHAT FUCKERY IS THIS!? When they get back to the Tardis, there’s a forcefield around it and everyone is doing truly awful forcefield acting – seriously, Susan and Ian keep walking inside it after the barrier has been established with other actors’ mime hands. Anyway, it’s Arbitan’s doing, because his voice comes booming out of the ether:

ARBITAN: If you help me find the keys of Marinus I will let you have free access to your machine... when you have delivered all the keys to me. If not, you will stay on the island without food or water. The choice is yours.
IAN: (Shouting.) Choice? What choice?

Ian, I appreciate your sass.

Back in the Conscience Room, Arbitan is showing them the map. The Doctor and Babs are particularly excellent at conveying the extent to which they are unimpressed with the shit Arbitan just pulled. Arbitan gives them natty little travel dials to get from A to B which work by twisting it once. Babs is magnificently no-nonsense and apparently keen to get on with it sans faff: ‘Like this?’ she asks, turning the dial; she promptly vanishes.

Ian, predictably, freaks out, and the rest of Team Tardis follows on with all due haste. Arbitan tells the empty room he hopes for the sake of his people they’ll succeed. Then a Voord stabs him in the back.

Elsewhere on Marinus, Ian, the Doctor, and Susan have arrived and are exhilarated by the journey. But where’s Barbara? Nowhere to be seen. But OH LOOK, there’s her travel dial…AND THERE’S BLOOD ON IT!

GORE BLIMEY WHAT’S HAPPENED TO BARBARA!? WILL IAN BE ABLE TO PULL HIMSELF TOGETHER LONG ENOUGH TO CONDUCT A SENSIBLE SEARCH OR WILL HE SIMPLY HULK OUT UNTIL BABS RE-EMERGES? WILL HIS FANCY JACKET MAKE IT THROUGH THE NEXT EPISODE UNSCATHED? WHY DOES SUSAN FEAR THE LOSS OF HER SHOES? HOW WILL TEAM TARDIS GET OFF MARINUS NOW THAT ARBITAN IS BROWN BREAD? WHY HAS NOBODY FROM TEAM TARDIS EXPRESSED ANY THOUGHTS ON HOW FUCKING ABYSMAL THE SUPER-DYSTOPIAN CONSCIENCE MACHINE SOUNDS? WHO WILL WRITE ME THE MISSING SCENE IN WHICH TEAM TARDIS TELLS ARBITAN THANKS BUT NO THANKS?

Summary (as applicable to this episode)

Does it pass the Bechdel test? Er...Susan and Barbara talk about shoes?

Is the gaze problematic? No.

Is/are the woman companion(s) dressed 'for the Dads'? No.

Does a woman fall over/twist her ankle (whilst running from peril)? No.

Does a woman wander off alone for the sole dramatic purpose of getting into trouble so she can be rescued later? A bit.

Is/are the woman companion(s) captured? Everyone is captured. Those walls...

Does the Doctor/a man companion/any other man have to rescue the woman companion(s) from peril? Everyone goes off to find Susan.

Is/are the woman companion's/s' first/only reaction(s) to peril gratuitous screaming? Susan does scream when the wall swallows her up, but the Doctor and Ian go through silently.

Does a woman companion go into hysterics over something reasonably minor? Nope.

Is a woman 'spared' the ordeal of having to do/witness something unpleasant by a man who makes a decision on her behalf/keeps her deliberately ignorant? No.

Does a man automatically disbelieve or belittle something a woman (companion) says happened to her? Nope.

Does a man talk over a woman or talk about a woman as though she isn't there? No.

Does the woman companion have to be calmed/comforted by the Doctor/a man companion/a man? It's Barbara on Susan-calming duty this week.

Is a woman the first/only person to be (most gratuitously) menaced by the episode's antagonist(s)? Yes. Susan.

Is a man shamed into doing/not doing something because the alternative is a woman doing/not doing something? No.

Does the woman companion come up with a plan? Nope.

Does the woman companion do something stupid/banal/weird which inspires a man to be a Man with a Plan? Nope.

Does a woman come up with a theory and is it ridiculed by the Doctor/a man? Yes and no. Barbara's tidal pool theory is correct, as is her melted Voord theory, though I personally question such gore-free evidence of someone having been melted in acid. 

Does a woman call the Doctor out on his bullshit? Not particularly necessary this week.

Does a woman get to be a badass? No.

Is the young, strong, straight, white male lead the person most often in control of the situation? Yes. Ian.

Is there past/future/alien sexism? No.

Does a 'present'-day character call anybody out on past/future/alien sexism? N/A.

Did a woman write/direct/produce this episode? No/No/Yes.

Verdict

Poor, poor, poor, POOR Susan. No sooner has she left Ping-Cho behind than she's been reduced to having panic attacks about shoes and being menaced by stabby scuba-divers. There are some nice comic moments in this episode, and some nice Team Tardis moments too as they all show how newly comfortable they are around one another. It's lovely to see. Also Barbara and Ian getting excited about alien architecture is gorgeous even if it contains non-PC 1960s terminology relating to the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The Conscience machine sounds morally appalling and I hope we get to have a bit of debate around the Biblical Orwellian nightmare that is a device that withholds knowledge of good and evil from the people. Ian finally gets some character development and the Doctor is clearly warming to his new companions. Barbara's no-nonsense approach to alien space-travel is brilliant. I hope we get to hear from the Voords, though if memory serves they remain mostly-mute rubber baddies, which is a shame, as from where I'm standing this has the potential to be a kid-friendly Clockwork Orange. ON WITH THE QUEST!

Series 1 Episode 20: Assassin at Peking

Serial: Marco Polo
Episode: 7 (Assassin at Peking)
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Barbara, Ian, and Susan

Writer: John Lucarotti
Director: Waris Hussein
Producer: Verity Lambert
Original Air Date: 04/04/1964

TEN MINUTES ISN'T VERY LONG TO SAY AN ETERNAL FAREWELL IN (and other stories)

In which I manage to get through the entire serial without making a Marco #YOLO joke.

We return to find Ian and Ping-Cho where we left them – being menaced by Tegana and his big sword.

Having failed at the ‘I’ll kill your accomplice’ tactic (Tegana doesn’t care whether or not Kuiju the Eyepatch Guy from Indiana Jones lives or dies) and perhaps reading into the sword metaphor, Ian tries an appeal to Tegana’s masculinity: ‘Will the mighty Warlord kill a child, too?’ Apparently yes. Tegana serves Noghai, and anyone who gets in the way of Noghai getting the Tardis that will help him rule the world (because nobody thinks to ask for proof of its abilities and just assumes it does indeed fly) is for the chop. Looks like you’re going to have to get really good at swordfighting really quickly, Ian. Or rather really good at fighting an expert swordsman with what really does look like a breadknife this time.

BUT OH RIDER FROM SHANG-TU EX MACHINA! Ling-Tau (the Khan’s express courier service from a couple of episodes ago) has rocked up and is demanding full disarmament. Poor old Kuiju gets stabbed trying to run away and Ling-Tau rather exasperatedly tells one of his warrior minions he wasn’t meant to kill anyone, duh.

Anyway, Tegana, Ian, and Ping-Cho all indulge in a spot of ‘no they stole it’ squabbling and Ling-Tau takes them all back to Peking (seeing as they’ve now all left Shang-Tu) so the Khan can deal with this mess. Poor Ping-Cho. Looks like the wedding is back on.

Meanwhile, in the anachronistically-named Peking, the Doctor is kicking Kublai Khan’s ass at backgammon and has won the following: thirty-five elephants with ceremonial bridles, trappings, brocades and pavilions; seventy-five golden camels four thousand white stallions; twenty-five tigers; the sacred tooth of Buddha; and a partridge in a pear tree all the commerce from Burma for one year.

And of course it’s not long before the Doctor proposes an all-or-nothing wager: if the Doctor loses, the Khan gets everything back; if the Doctor wins, the Doctor gets the Tardis back. The Khan asks the Doctor whether he wouldn’t rather play for the Island of Sumatra instead; the Doctor declines, and the game is on. Rich people.

How not to quit while you're ahead

Enter Marco, and the Khan is gloriously indifferent to his presence. There’s some business about granting Tegana an audience, and then this happens:

THE KHAN: Oh, we want to tell you something Marco. We owe half of Asia to our friend at backgammon.
POLO: It is unusual for you to lose, my Lord.
THE KHAN: Oh... he is a fortunate one! But our friend here made a truly royal gesture which we have accepted, although it might upset you.
POLO: Why should it do that?
THE KHAN: That's our last game. Our losses against your gift to me.
POLO: (Aghast.) The caravan?
DOCTOR: Ah yes, Marco, we're playing for the Tardis.
POLO: But my Lord...
THE KHAN: Well?
POLO: (Solemnly.) Nothing, my Lord. I will leave you to your game.

IN YOUR FACE, MARCO! Also the hint of vindictive glee in the Doctor’s voice at this point is unmistakable. And I am all about that. Marco slinks off, presumably to write a sad poem in his journal.

On the balcony outside, Barbara and Susan have had a truly splendid costume change. Marco tells them about the Doctor gambling for the Tardis, which Susan thinks is hilarious; she’s also sure he’ll win, which according to the Rules of Telly means he absolutely won’t.

Marco Frollo

Barbara continues to be ludicrously magnanimous towards Marco, reasoning that everything has worked out seeing as he’s still made his gesture to the Khan and that ‘with any luck, we can go home too’, so that ‘we’ll all have what we want’. ‘Yes,’ says Susan, ‘all except Ping-Cho.’ YES SUSAN. Poor Ping-Cho indeed. Many, many points for actually bringing this up.

Enter Ling-Tau to tell them that Ian and Ping-Cho are being held under guard, accused of stealing the Khan’s property. Barbara, who has clearly had enough of this whole rigmarole by now, is hilariously forthright in cutting through the crap:

BARBARA: The Tardis.
POLO: Well, who accuses them?
BARBARA: Tegana!
LING-TAU: Yes, my lady.
BARBARA: That man is a –

HA! Watch out, Tegana, because it sounds like Barbara Wright is Officially Done with your shit even if she is now resigned to the fact that nobody outside Team Tardis believes her ‘Tegana is up to something’ theory. It’s all getting very Harry Potter and The Book where Harry was Convinced Draco Malfoy was Up to Something.

Barbara's 'FUCK TEGANA' face

Enter the Doctor, who has, predictably, lost at backgammon. The Khan has given him some paper money as a consolation prize; the Doctor starts laughing again.

Later on, Marco is getting Ian’s side of the story. It sounds like Ian is also pretty done with not being taken seriously, too, because despite both he and Ping-Cho having heard Tegana say the Khan was his enemy, it’s still not good enough as evidence because Ling-Tau didn’t hear it. Then this happens:

IAN: You mean our word isn't strong enough against Tegana's?
PING-CHO: There are two of us, Messr Marco.
POLO: No, Ping-Cho. Ian must stand trial alone.
PING-CHO: Why?
POLO: Your husband-to-be has asked the Khan to excuse you. He promises to take you away from Peking as soon as the marriage ceremony is over.
PING-CHO: And the Khan has agreed?
POLO: You are to be married tomorrow morning.

SUFFERING ZARQUON, we are denied the wonder that is Ping-Cho stepping up to the plate because she’s getting married in the morning and her husband won’t let her testify.

Unbefuckinglievable

Meanwhile, the Tardis has made it to the throne room. As has Tegana, who is grassing on Marco, telling the Khan that there have in fact been several attempts to steal the Tardis. He tells the Khan that Marco protected them because they’re white. In the words of the Khan himself, ‘your point is taken, Lord Tegana’.

Enter Marco, who is now in the doghouse:

THE KHAN: They were on our soil, therefore, subject to our laws. Why did you not invoke them?
POLO: The caravan belonged to them, my lord.
TEGANA: (Impatiently.) My lord, I can hold my peace no longer. Forgive me. (Turning to POLO.) How can that be? You claimed it in the Khan's name?
POLO: It was wrong of me to do so.
TEGANA: You wear the Khan's gold seal. It gives you your authority to take what you will.
POLO: When the cause is just. This was not.
THE KHAN: What was it then?
POLO: Selfish.

WHAT A TIME TO HAVE A CHANGE OF HEART, MARCO! Seriously, you’ve been an utter dick for six whole episodes and it’s taken you this long to realise it!? Well it’s too late now, I still think you’re a nob and I don’t feel the least bit sorry for you. What goes around comes around.

And now Tegana’s really sticking the knife in, telling the Khan about how Marco was trying to bribe him with the caravan. The Khan is not best pleased; Marco leaves dejectedly.

Zero fucks were given.

However, it seems Tegana’s skulduggery has not been lost on the Khan, who now has a reason to be cautious:

TEGANA: (Surprised.) What have I that the Khan should fear?
THE KHAN: The power of persuasion.

No flies on Kublai Khan.

Later that evening, everyone in the throne room is crying because it turns out Ping-Cho’s husband-to-be ‘drank a potion of quicksilver and sulphur – the elixir of life and eternal youth – and expired’. OLD MAN DRINKS MERCURY BRIMSTONE COCKTAIL AND DIES. Ye gods what a nasty way to go. Maybe he drank what was supposed to be hot chocolate with cinnamon and they gave him cinnabar instead? Either way, sad that an old man feels he needs to be young and virile to the extent that he would poison himself, but equally FIND AN AGE-APPROPRIATE WIFE. Then this happens:

EMPRESS: (In tears.) Come into my arms, child. Let me share your grief.
THE KHAN: You're overdoing it, my dear, the child is dry eyed.
EMPRESS: (Outraged.) Oh, ungrateful wretch! Do you not weep for your lost love?
PING-CHO: My lady, I grieve an old man's death as all would do. But how can I weep for a love I have never known?
THE KHAN: Tell us Ping-Cho, do you wish to return to your home in Samarkand? Or would you like to stay a while in our Court and brighten all our days?
PING-CHO: If I may, my lord, I would like to stay.
THE KHAN: So be it.

PING-CHO IS OFF THE HOOK! Though disturbingly, according to the transcript, her decision to stay has a lot to do with Ling-Tau’s sudden entrance to the throne room.

'My cage has many rooms, damask and dark...'

However, as I can’t see what’s happening, I reject this utterly and choose to believe that Ping-Cho wants to stay at the court rather than go home because she now believes Susan to be stuck here and wants to remain with her. I will go down with this ship.

Anyway, the Khan likes the cut of her jib and asks her opinion of Team Tardis. She tells him ‘they are my friends, my lord…as they will always be’. No YOU’VE got something in your eye.

The Khan tells Ling-Tau to escort her to her quarters clearly thinking he’s a great matchmaker but we know better because yes we do precious and tells Marco he trusts Ping-Cho LIKE HE USED TO TRUST HIM. Burn. The Khan tells Marco he has to prove himself, and asks him for the Tardis key; Marco tells the Khan he’d be well advised to have the Doctor with him when he opens it. Then this happens:

POLO: I underestimated you, Tegana.
TEGANA: No... you overestimated yourself.

OH MARCO I HOPE YOU HAVE SOME SAVLON TO HAND BECAUSE YOU ARE GETTING BURNED ALL OVER.

Meanwhile, in captivity, Team Tardis is trying to work out what Tegana’s deal is before Ian has to stand trial.

So. Very. Done.

Barbara reckons if she could only remember what it was the Khan said that upset Marco so much they’d have more of a clue, and hey she’s right:

BARBARA: I remember!
DOCTOR: Hmmm?
BARBARA: The Khan was furious because Noghai had moved his armies from Samarkand to Karakorum.
DOCTOR: And that's why he delayed Marco Polo's caravan - to give Noghai more time to move his armies nearer Peking.

Go Babs. Ian wonders why Noghai’s bothering as the Khan’s defeated him before and can presumably do it again; the Doctor tells Ian it’s all about the leaders: ‘Kill the leader, and where are you? What happens? The whole army dissipates itself into chaos and utter confusion. It's happened throughout your history time and time again!’

Susan catches the Doctor’s drift: Tegana must be about the assassinate the Khan! And if that happens…

IAN: I've had it.
DOCTOR: Yes - we've all had it.

Oh Ian, I know you’re the one in immediate danger, but I doubt anyone’s top priority after the Khan’s assassination will be conducting your trial.

Ian what even is your face

Anyway, they need to get past the guard, which proves surprisingly easy: they bang on the door, and when he comes in, the Doctor trips him with his walking stick, and they all run out. It’s the simple things.

They run down some corridors for a bit until OH FOR THE LOVE OF MERLIN they run into Marco Bloody Polo. Marco says ‘Ian, what are you doing, you fool?’ and Ian tries to tell him about the Khan being assassinated; Marco tells the guards to seize him and everyone’s about to be escorted back to their cell when YES LING-TAU EX MACHINA! Our convenient courier has run in to tell Marco that Noghai’s army is marching on Peking. Everyone in Team Tardis starts yelling variants on WE FUCKING TOLD YOU SO YOU MASSIVE BELLEND YOU SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO US IN THE FIRST PLACE I MEAN GOD. Once it becomes apparent that Tegana is in the throne room with the Khan at that very moment, Marco tells the Doctor to hold his things while he runs off to intervene. I hope they murder each other.

Babs and the Doctor debate the pros and cons of reading Marco's diary

Meanwhile, in the throne room, Tegana is chatting with the Khan about peace terms; Tegana wants to put an end to the matter…WITH HIS SWORD! And oh the poor old Vizier has thrown himself in front of the Khan and presumably been gutted.

Enter Marco, and he and Tegana fight. As there are only telesnaps to hand, I’m just going to assume it’s exactly like the duel from The Princess Bride.

Anyway, Marco wins and disarms Tegana as Ling-Tau et al come in to surround the Khan, who sentences Tegana to death. But Tegana being Tegana, he manages to throw a spanner in the works even with his last breath, impaling himself upon one of the guards’ spears and denying the Khan the satisfaction. Tegana, you drive me mad, but I respect that you have managed to be a pain in the arse until the bitter end. (It is worth noting that at this point the transcript becomes somewhat reflective, musing that ‘the dishonourable member of the expedition has taken the honourable way out’.)

Be careful what you wish for, there, Babs

At this point, Marco commits fully to his change of heart and gives the Doctor the Tardis key, telling him to go and quickly. The Doctor doesn’t need telling twice. Susan and Ping-Cho have a criminally rushed goodbye that we don’t get to see, though we do get to hear a swift goodbye kiss a la Green Gables, so that’s something. TAKE HER WITH YOU, SUSAN, AND THEN PEOPLE WILL MAKE CRINGEWORTHY YOUTUBE VIDEOS ABOUT YOU, TOO!

Aaaaaaand they dematerialise. FINALLY. The Khan watches it happen, and is surprisingly relaxed about it:

POLO: I'm sorry, my lord. I had to give them back their flying caravan.
THE KHAN: If you hadn't, the old man would have won it at backgammon. And it is true... a flying caravan... there's something for you to tell your friends in Venice.

Marco wonders what truth is. Nobody cares. He wonders whether Team Tardis is now in the past or the future. So do we.

GODS BE PRAISED WE'RE BACK TO MOVING PICTURES NEXT WEEK AND NO MORE BLOG-A-DAY MADNESS UNTIL THE NEXT SERIAL THAT HAS A SHITLOAD OF MISSING EPISODES NOBODY EVERY WATCHES. WILL TEAM TARDIS FINALLY HAVE A RELAXING TIME OF IT? WILL SUSAN BE OK NOW THAT SHE WILL NEVER SEE HER BOSOM FRIEND AGAIN? CAN WE HAVE A NEW WHO EPISODE WHERE A REGENERATED SUSAN PILOTS A FUNCTIONING TARDIS BACK TO LATE-THIRTEENTH-CENTURY 'PEKING' AND TAKES PING-CHO ON ADVENTURES THROUGH TIME AND SPACE? WILL BARBARA GET MORE TO DO NEXT SERIAL? WILL THE DOCTOR EVER CLAIM THOSE TIGERS HE WON OFF MARCO POLO AND MAYBE DEPOSIT THEM ON THE ISLAND OF SUMATRA IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY STAR TREK IV STYLE? WILL OUR TWO HUMANS GET TO KEEP THEIR SWISH NEW CLOTHES?

Summary (as applicable to this episode)

Does it pass the Bechdel test? Again not a strong episode for women having actual conversations rather than implied ones or just being in the same ones. If Susan and Ping-Cho saying goodbye (HOWL) counts then yes.

Is the gaze problematic? Not as far as I can tell.

Is/are the woman companion(s) dressed 'for the Dads'? No.

Does a woman fall over/twist her ankle (whilst running from peril)? No.

Does a woman wander off alone for the sole dramatic purpose of getting into trouble so she can be rescued later? No.

Is/are the woman companion(s) captured? Everyone is captured. Team Tardis spend so much time being captured in this serial.

Does the Doctor/a man companion/any other man have to rescue the woman companion(s) from peril? Ian has to defend Ping-Cho from Tegana's swordsmanship but otherwise no.

Is/are the woman companion's/s' first/only reaction(s) to peril gratuitous screaming? Ping-Cho screams when Tegana shows up, and Barbara and/or Susan get(s) screamy when Tegana tops himself, but this seems reasonable if (as ever) gendered.

Does a woman companion go into hysterics over something reasonably minor? Nope.

Is a woman 'spared' the ordeal of having to do/witness something unpleasant by a man who makes a decision on her behalf/keeps her deliberately ignorant? No.

Does a man automatically disbelieve or belittle something a woman (companion) says happened to her? FINALLY we have an instance of a woman's opinion being actually valued in the case of Kublai Khan choosing to take Ping-Cho's word for it that Team Tardis is great really because he likes the cut of her jib.

Does a man talk over a woman or talk about a woman as though she isn't there? Not that I remember.

Does the woman companion have to be calmed/comforted by the Doctor/a man companion/a man? Babs has to take refuge in the ever-willing arms of Ian 'free hugs' Chesterton when Tegana does actually stab himself in what is presumably a guilty moment for a woman who I'm pretty sure fantasised about stabbing him at some point.

Is a woman the first/only person to be (most gratuitously) menaced by the episode's antagonist(s)? Nope.

Is a man shamed into doing/not doing something because the alternative is a woman doing/not doing something? No.

Does the woman companion come up with a plan? Nope.

Does the woman companion do something stupid/banal/weird which inspires a man to be a Man with a Plan? Nope.

Does a woman come up with a theory and is it ridiculed by the Doctor/a man? It's Barbara's thinking that gets Team Tardis on the right track with Tegana's motives.

Does a woman call the Doctor out on his bullshit? Not particularly necessary this week.

Does a woman get to be a badass? Not so much.

Is the young, strong, straight, white male lead the person most often in control of the situation? Not so much.

Is there past/future/alien sexism? Ping-Cho gets excused from legal proceedings because her husband-to-be has pulled a few strings, rendering her testimony redundant.

Does a 'present'-day character call anybody out on past/future/alien sexism? Susan points out that everyone getting what they want doesn't actually include Ping-Cho at this point. Yes Susan.

Did a woman write/direct/produce this episode? No/No/Yes.

Verdict

I feel like this serial could have been smushed into six episodes if not four without losing any of the good stuff. There was too much of Marco being in the doghouse with the Khan and not enough Team Tardis for my liking in this final episode, and it's annoying that there have been no real scenes between Ping-Cho and Susan for a few episodes now. However, I did enjoy the backgammon scenes between the two old men, and I love that Barbara almost gets to call Tegana something I'm assuming would be unsuitable for children's television. Also I could not give fewer fucks about Marco's change of heart, though in fairness it did spare us three more episodes of the Doctor playing backgammon with Kublai Khan. (Spare? I mean deprive.) The real strong point of this serial of course has been the fleshing out of the two Gallifreyans' characters, particularly Susan, and I shall not rest until Ping-Cho gets written into New Who in a 'finding Susan' episode. Even if it means having to learn how to write a TV script myself. In short, it's been weird, and there was an unacceptable amount of yellowface (well any amount is unacceptable but there was a lot of it), and the title character was a Nice Guy who specialised in victim blaming and writing petulant diary entries; nevertheless, it should on no account be skipped, if only because without it Susan's character is sorely diminished. Now bring on the bug-eyed monsters!