Marco Polo [TV/1964.2.22 ~ 4.4]
★★★★★
Let me preface this review with something I've been saying ever since I first started this blog: I absolutely love pure historicals. I love their focus on historical characters, I love the heightened drama and beautifully crafted sets, and I love the very real danger that history presents to our characters, the kind of danger that cannot be felt in other Doctor Who subgenres. Our travellers are stuck in real influential events, unable to change people and places with reckless abandon like they usually do because history is portrayed almost as a living, breathing entity that traps them within its jaws and uses them as pawns in its chess game. Marco Polo, the very first pure historical, displays these traits in droves; the Doctor and co. have limited influences, resorting to carefully skirting around larger-than-life historical figures and trying to achieve their goals, meeting several failures along the way.
It's also still one of the finest Doctor Who pure historicals, perhaps even the best (even counting the many historicals other mediums have done). Remaining telesnaps show the assured direction of Waris Hussein and John Crockett, the incredibly detailed and beautiful sets that effortlessly make you believe there is a whole wide world beyond the matte painting walls, and the wonderful music which brings alive the atmosphere of each location, be it on the top of a frosty mountain, in the middle of the Gobi desert or inside the royal palace in Peking. The regulars are having such a wonderful time dressing up in fancy getups and walking around the aforementioned sets, and Mark Eden's Marco Polo is a striking figure with complex motivations, brought to life with a sterling performance. This seven-parter actually feels like a journey caught on camera, which is astounding considering its age, and it never fails to capture the imagination and thrill, scare, and make you laugh.
I love Marco Polo very, very much. I can always tell when something is special when I can manage to binge-watch it in one sitting even after having slept for 4 hours in the last two days. There's a real sense of adventure that grabs you in this serial, and it's something that the William Hartnell historicals excelled at displaying. I desperately wish to see the day when this is rediscovered; to watch this magnificent journey across Asia in its original glory would be heavenly.
Let me preface this review with something I've been saying ever since I first started this blog: I absolutely love pure historicals. I love their focus on historical characters, I love the heightened drama and beautifully crafted sets, and I love the very real danger that history presents to our characters, the kind of danger that cannot be felt in other Doctor Who subgenres. Our travellers are stuck in real influential events, unable to change people and places with reckless abandon like they usually do because history is portrayed almost as a living, breathing entity that traps them within its jaws and uses them as pawns in its chess game. Marco Polo, the very first pure historical, displays these traits in droves; the Doctor and co. have limited influences, resorting to carefully skirting around larger-than-life historical figures and trying to achieve their goals, meeting several failures along the way.
It's also still one of the finest Doctor Who pure historicals, perhaps even the best (even counting the many historicals other mediums have done). Remaining telesnaps show the assured direction of Waris Hussein and John Crockett, the incredibly detailed and beautiful sets that effortlessly make you believe there is a whole wide world beyond the matte painting walls, and the wonderful music which brings alive the atmosphere of each location, be it on the top of a frosty mountain, in the middle of the Gobi desert or inside the royal palace in Peking. The regulars are having such a wonderful time dressing up in fancy getups and walking around the aforementioned sets, and Mark Eden's Marco Polo is a striking figure with complex motivations, brought to life with a sterling performance. This seven-parter actually feels like a journey caught on camera, which is astounding considering its age, and it never fails to capture the imagination and thrill, scare, and make you laugh.
I love Marco Polo very, very much. I can always tell when something is special when I can manage to binge-watch it in one sitting even after having slept for 4 hours in the last two days. There's a real sense of adventure that grabs you in this serial, and it's something that the William Hartnell historicals excelled at displaying. I desperately wish to see the day when this is rediscovered; to watch this magnificent journey across Asia in its original glory would be heavenly.
Comments
Post a Comment