Series 1 Episode 14: The Roof of the World

Serial: Marco Polo

Episode: 1 (The Roof of the World)

Doctor: William Hartnell

Companions: Barbara, Ian, and Susan

Writer: John Lucarotti

Director: Waris Hussein

Producer: Verity Lambert

Original Air Date: 22/02/1964

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME (and other stories)

Hold onto your Himalayas – it’s Marco Polo week! Otherwise known as the first ‘FIND THE DAMN EPISODES ALREADY OR MUST WE WAIT ANOTHER 50 YEARS?’ week of this project.

So, to recap, the Tardis has landed in an undisclosed snowy location and Susan and Babs have found a giant footprint in the snow. Ian reckons it could just be a normal footprint gone melty around the edges. Super.

The Doctor is out of breath due to the altitude and speculates that his efforts to get to Tardis to Earth have been successful. He’s also crotchety as hell.

Babs and Ian are in their let’s-dare-to-dream-we’re-home stance, which is Ian standing with his arm around Babs and Babs gazing hopefully into the horizon. Ian’s trailing use of the subjunctive – ‘if it were [Earth]…’ – warms the grammatical cockles of my heart. They name a few mountain ranges before settling on the Himalayas – ‘the roof of the world’. It’s a common phrase, but it’s poetic and probably a tantalising prospect for our homesick humans. Ian is, justifiably, wary, given that the Tardis is flaky as hell.

This is what you give me to work with. Well, honey, I've seen worse.

Enter the Doctor in a flap, saying what we’re all thinking: ‘we’re always in trouble – isn’t it extraordinary, it follows us everywhere!’

It turns out the Tardis has burnt out a circuit that controls the lights, the water, and the heating. Babs points out the bleeding obvious – that it’s really serious. The Doctor’s response is essentially ‘no shit, Sherlock’.

Ian, with forced patience, says he’s going to go and look for fuel while the Doctor continues to be pessimistic as balls. Babs jumps at the chance to get the hell away from Doctor Grumpyface, and Susan wants to come, too. Ian tells her to stay with the Doctor so he and Babs can have some peace and quiet so she can help the Doctor, who is yelling about them all freezing to death. Oh I can just imagine the cantankerous flourishing.

When I say that something/I wanna hold your hand.

Meanwhile, Babs is not enjoying her first date with Ian, and wants to have a breather. Ian sounds rather exasperated and reminds her they haven’t found anything yet. Babs is having a pessimistic moment to herself when – SHOCK HORROR – something moves past her in the snow and she yells for Ian. She tells Ian there was ‘an animal or something’ staring at her in the snow.

As is traditional in all scenarios where a lone woman sees something that makes her panic, she is instantly disbelieved by the first man she confides in. Because everyone knows that a woman left alone even for an instant will immediately start having womb-induced hallucinations as a result of underlying neuroses about being hashtag foreveralone and never having babies, and should under no circumstances be indulged in her delusional chatter.

Remembering this fundamental rule, Babs tells Ian that if he doesn’t believe her he ought to go and have a look at the footprints that prove her story. Either because he believes her and thinks he ought to get her out of harm’s way or because he disbelieves her and thinks he ought to put her in the Tardis’s equivalent of a madwoman’s attic, he says grimly, ‘I’d better take you back to the ship’. Thanks to the lack of visuals, we shall never know.

Back at the Tardis, the Doctor reckons he’s going to have to make a new circuit, which will take days. Ian tells the Doctor he’s had no luck with finding any fuel. The Doctor tells Team Tardis ‘the only chance is to try and get down to a lower a...altitude and, er, er...you know...before it gets cold...and we...’; never change, Billy.

Heated words are no substitute for heating.

Babs tells the Doctor about the ‘strange things’ she saw. The Doctor ignores her and addresses himself to Ian: ‘What’s she talking about now?’

UGH. Who’s ‘she’, the cat’s mother!?

Ian admits he thought the print was made by a fur boot; Babs remains convinced that the print ‘wasn’t human’.

The Doctor continues to talk over Barbara and speculates that there must be shelter nearby. Then Susan the Living Klaxon makes herself heard – JUMPING JELLYFISH IT’S VERY OBVIOUSLY A PERSON IN FURS! The Doctor yells for them to go after it, as it may be their only chance of shelter. He does have a point. Pausing only to lock the ship, Team Tardis pursues the fleeting furry.

AND OH CRUMBS WITH SUGAR ON TOP they’ve run straight into a band of what the transcript describes as ‘silent sinister warriors’, which the sinister music would seem to corroborate. Ian stands in front of the others, apparently trying to shield them with his cape à la Severus Snape. He tells said ‘silent sinister warriors’ they’re travellers lost on the mountains and asks for shelter from the bitter cold in return for a single rose.

The Chesterton method.

At this point there are some rather disturbing sounds from the audio, which the transcript informs me is as a result of the actions of this guy Tegana, who ‘touches BARBARA'S strange clothes which causes her to flinch and gasp’. Urgh.

Tegana addresses his pals, telling them that Our Heroes are mostly likely ‘evil spirits, who take our likeness to deceive us and then lead us to our deaths’ and must therefore be destroyed.

OH FUCK NO.

REALLY WHAT NO.

I MEAN COME ON.

NO.

Ahem. But seriously, yuck.

Fortunately for Team Tardis, another white guy shows up at this point, telling the Mongols (who are probably white people in yellowface but fortunately the lack of visuals means I don’t have to look at it) to put up their swords for they know not what they do. Tegana isn’t happy about it, but the white guy commands them in the name of Kublai Khan, so that’s the end of that.

The Doctor has mountain sickness, so the white guy tells them to come and chill in his caravan for a bit. Susan asks Barbara who the white guy is. Babs has been asking herself the same question.

Now we’re in a tent, which probably looks great. There’s a long-haired girl preparing soup, because domesticity. Her name is Ping-Cho, and she addresses the white guy as Messr. Marco. Marco tells her they have guests who are cold and hungry, so she starts ladling out said soup. Then this happens:

SUSAN: He's not like her, or any of the others.
BARBARA: No, he's a European, Susan, and he mentioned Kublai Khan.
SUSAN: Kublai Khan?
BARBARA: He was a great Mongol leader, who conquered all of Asia. He had a European in his service. He was a Venetian, and his name...

YEAH HISTORY SERIALS WHERE BABS HAS ALL THE KNOWLEDGE! EDUCATE THOSE VIEWERS, MISS WRIGHT! This is the first time this has happened, and it’s great.

This History lesson is rudely interrupted by the Doctor babbling on about the soup. Marco tells the Doctor ‘the cold here is so intense, it even robs a flame of its heat’. Not to be outdone by Babs, Ian takes this opportunity to give us all a Science lesson:

IAN: The cold can't affect the heat of the flame, sir. The liquid boils at a lower temperature, because there's so little air up here.
MARCO POLO: (Puzzled.) You mean...the air is responsible?
IAN: Well, the lack of it...just as the lack of it is responsible for the Doctor's mountain sickness.

Though it’s pretty funny that Ian’s twentieth-century Science knowledge is so redundant compared to that of Susan and the Doctor that the only time he can impress anyone with his area of expertise is when he’s explaining baby Physics to a guy from the late thirteenth century, I still love how educational this serial is already. EDUCATE! EDUCATE! EDUCAAAAAAATE!

Babs cuts across this Science lesson to ask the white guy whether his name is Marco Polo. It is indeed. When Marco asks who she is, the Doctor answers for her, telling him they’re travellers. It’s worth it though, because this happens:

DOCTOR: That's my grandchild, Susan, and that's Miss Wright, and that's Charlton.
IAN: Chesterton. Ian Chesterton.

Oh Ian.

Marco, Ping-Cho, and the warlord Tegana are travelling to Shang-Tu. Babs forgets that China isn’t a thing yet and has a lovely little moment where you can hear her mentally kicking herself as Marco tells her Shang-Tu is in Cathay. EDUCAAAAAATE.

Anyway, it’s time for bed; Susan is sharing with Ping-Cho, Marco’s sharing with the men, and ‘Miss Wright’ gets to have Marco’s bedroom. Score. There’s the first instance of Team Tardis asking someone from the past/future where and when they are when the Doctor enquires as to the date and location; it’s 1289 and they’re on the Plain of Pamir. Fab.

And now OH LOVELY it’s sleepover time in the girls’ room, and Susan finally gets to spend time with someone her own age. We assume. Ping-Cho kickstarts their conversation with the one question Susan – rather poignantly – can’t answer:

PING-CHO: Where are you from?
SUSAN: (Hesitating) That's a very difficult question to answer, Ping-Cho.
PING-CHO: (Puzzled) You do not know where your home is?
SUSAN: Well, I've had...many homes...in many places.

Oh this is tantalising. And also rather sad. Though it’s nice to see Susan getting some character stuff for a change.

Ping-Cho and Susan hurdling the Bechdel Test.

As they continue chatting, it transpires Ping-Cho is sixteen like Susan (really though?) and travelling to Kublai Khan’s palace to get married to a super important and super crusty old guy. Susan gasps.

Meanwhile, by the fireside, Tegana is sulking because Marco didn’t let him kill Team Tardis. Marco tells him not to hate on people with funny clothes. Tegana, however, has bigger fish to fry: for instance, how the hell does their caravan (the Tardis) move without wheels and how in the name of propriety is it big enough for four people? Valid questions, Tegana. Valid questions.

The next morning, Team Tardis minus the Doctor but plus Marco and Tegana treks back up to the Tardis. Marco voices Tegana’s concerns from the night before about their weird-ass caravan. When Ian tells Marco it moves through the air, Marco asks if they’re Buddhists, because he thinks Buddhists are magic. Or else K’anpo Rimpoche also took his Tardis to the late thirteenth-century Mongol Empire. Anyway, he seems pretty open-minded about stuff he’s seen but doesn’t understand. When asking whether all four of them fit into the Tardis, Marco addresses himself to Miss Wright. Because of reasons. When Marco tries to get inside, he discovers it’s locked. Babs and Ian explain that the Tardis is bust, and Marco offers to take it down the mountain.

Meanwhile back in the tent, the Doctor is enjoying Ping-Cho’s beansprout soup. He says what we’re all thinking, which is that it’s odd that the daughter of a high-ranking official is acting as Marco Polo’s skivvy. Ping-Cho says she wants to serve and anyway the so-called cook is shit. She also tells him Tegana is an unlikely emissary of peace from a rival Mongol lord.

The Doctor is relentless in his ongoing quest for soup.

Then the others arrive back with the Tardis in tow, and Marco tells them they’ll be travelling to a city called Lop on the edge of the Gobi Desert. The Doctor thinks he’ll be able to work on the Tardis repairs on the way but Marco says there’ll be trouble if he tries to go back inside the Tardis because everyone still thinks he’s an evil spirit. Sigh. The Doctor, out of courtesy, agrees to stay out of the ship until they reach Lop. Marco Polo definitely isn’t trying to trick them. No sirree.

Once in Lop, Barbara and Ian are rocking some excellent local headgear. Susan and Ping-Cho are adorably inseparable, even if Ping-Cho is confused by Susan’s use of sixties slang like ‘fab’, which Susan explains as ‘a verb we often use on Earth’. Oh honey, you are on Earth, remember? Poor displaced baby.

Hat Goals

Then OH BETRAYAL! The Doctor tries to get back into the Tardis but is prevented from doing so by armed guards. Marco wants to explain, but the Doctor is having none of it. Babs uses her newly-acquired Doctor-whispering skills to suggest that listening to what he has to say might be a good thing, so Marco tells them an abridged version of his life story. The Doctor is hilariously and demonstrably bored.

It turns out (History lesson alert) that Marco was so great at serving Kublai Khan that the latter won’t let him go home to Venice. Babs is adorkably nerdy and knows that the date of his appointment to the Khan’s service was 1277. She knows her stuff. Anyway, Marco plans to offer the Khan ‘a gift so magnificent that he will not able to refuse’ his request to go home. Three guesses as to what that gift might be.

Marco tells the Doctor he can always make another caravan when he comes back with him to Venice. The Doctor is speechless with rage, so Ian takes over with Marco, who reasons that ‘for a man who possesses a flying caravan, all things are possible’. Ian tells Marco it’s more complicated than that, that they need things that don’t exist in (thirteenth-century) Venice, and that he doesn’t understand all the problems involved; neither does Ian, snaps the Doctor. It’s all oddly poignant, actually, insofar as everyone is at odds with everyone else on account of a shared desire – the desire to go home.

The Doctor and Marco try to out-sass one another:

MARCO POLO: I may never see Venice again.
DOCTOR: Well, that is your problem, not mine!
MARCO POLO: I have just made it yours, Doctor!

Then Babs has her first temporal dilemma of the series, when she tells Marco that she knows he’ll see Venice again. Marco is clearly nonplussed at what must appear to him as baseless intuition, but fortunately for Babs he probably thinks it’s a woman thing. When Ian points out the Tardis will be a shit present for the Khan on account of the Doctor being only one who can fly it, Marco says the Buddhists will sort it out. (K’anpo…?) Tegana seems very interested in this flying caravan that’ll supposedly make Kublai Khan ‘the most powerful ruler the world has ever known’.

Anyway, Marco’s mind is made up. He leaves the room, and the Doctor cracks up for – I kid you not – a full thirty seconds, during which Babs sits him down and tries to Mary Poppins him out of his laughing fit. He shows no signs of stopping.

But oh what’s this? Outside the caravan, the clearly dastardly Tegana is being handed a vial full of poison by some randomer with whom he’s in league. Tegana vows to use it on all but the first of Marco Polo’s water gourds as they set out across the Gobi Desert. Then once they’re dead, they’re going to steal ‘the thing of magic that will bring the mighty Kublai Khan to his knees’.

COR BLIMEY GUV’NOR HOW WILL TEAM TARDIS GET OUT OF THIS ALMIGHTY PICKLE? WILL THEY SURVIVE TEGANA’S POISONING? HOW WILL THEY GET THE TARDIS BACK? WILL THE DOCTOR LAUGH SO HARD HE ENDS UP HAVING TEA PARTIES ON THE CEILING? WILL SUSAN’S BLOSSOMING FRIENDSHIP WITH PING-CHO BE ALLOWED TO FLOURISH? WILL WE EVER FIND THESE MISSING EPISODES?

Summary (as applicable to this episode)

Does it pass the Bechdel test? Indeed.

Is the gaze problematic? As far as one can tell from the telesnaps, 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.

Is/are the woman companion(s) captured? No.

Does the Doctor/a man companion/any other man have to rescue the woman companion(s) from peril? Not as such.

Is/are the woman companion's/s' first/only reaction(s) to peril gratuitous screaming? Susan has a right piercing scream when she sights one of Tegana's warriors.

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? Yes.

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? Babs has a bit of a moment when she thinks she sees an animal but she doesn't need comforting/calming as such afterwards. 

Is a woman the first/only person to be (most gratuitously) menaced by the episode's antagonist(s)? The women get more gratuitously spooked by Tegana and his pals.

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? No.

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? No.

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.

Is there past/future/alien sexism? I'd say forcibly marrying off Ping-Cho to a seventy-five-year-old is past sexism but I have a nasty feeling the arranged marriage aspect of it is going to be portrayed as an East/West thing rather than a past/future thing.

Does a 'present'-day character call anybody out on past/future/alien sexism? Susan doesn't seem keen but not overtly.

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

Verdict

SO EDUCATIONAL. I like it. The Doctor is gloriously cantankerous this week, which I love, and indeed gloriously fixated on soup. I'm not loving everyone's 'let's never believe anything Barbara says' attitude. However, both our humans get to shine in their respective fields, especially Babs, who seems to know a lot about the late thirteenth-century Mongol Empire. Go Babs. Susan finally gets some character development and gets to spend quality time with a girl her own age, which is lovely. The fact that everyone is divided by their shared longing for their respective homes is possibly my favourite thing about this episode. In other news, the sixties yellowface needs to die in a fire, as does the whole 'lol the superstitious natives think the white people are supernatural entities' trope. Cease and desist.