Today, the Daleks Aren’t Robots!? team looks at their first missing episode of Doctor Who.  Can “Marco Polo” overcome the slideshow and fan-animated presentation? Why did they lose the episode with the most beautiful sets and sumptuous costumes? And can we all overcome the distressing racism? (Nope!)

Daleks Aren’t Robots!? is a podcast in which two Whovian friends take two non-Whovians on a deep dive through the show from the very beginning.

Theme: Garage – Monplaisir

Podcast Contents Include

Editor’s Note: The following are my original notes for the podcast, slightly edited for readability. They’re very far from the full contents of the pod, though.  – Kari

SUMMARY

Marco Polo wants to claim the broken-down Tardis to give it to Kublai Khan in an effort to get Kublai Khan to let him go home. Our team wants to fix the Tardis and leave. There’s an agent of an enemy warlord, Tegana, who does evil stuff because he’s evil and finally he gets killed trying to assassinate Kublai Khan.

THE SHOW

0. Technically these episodes don’t exist; we just have the audio track. We watched several different types of “reconstituted” episodes, one with black and white pictures, one with color photos and one that was created in a 3D virtual environment, which made it a little like watching the show in the form of a Playstation 2 game.
1. The pacing is awful on this one, and it should have been 2-3 episodes long, because half of it is just Marco Polo going “Tegana says x, the others say y, I believe Tegana!” and this is very tiresome. In my notes, after the first episode was over, I wrote, word for word: I just realized, the whole plot is in this first episode and the entire rest of the series is just faffing about.
2. The yellowface, oh gosh the yellowface. Why are some people Asian and some people white people made up to look “Asian,” with the biggest finger quotes ever?
3. They still haven’t addressed why everyone is speaking English.
4. There’s some swordfighting. No idea if it’s any good, because these episodes don’t exist.

THE GUEST STARS

1. There are a few important characters this time, with the most prominent being Marco Polo, who is probably not meant to read as a jerk, but definitely does seem like a real jerk. In this story he’s working for Kublai Khan.
2. Ping Cho is a sweet noblewoman of 16 who is set to be married to a 75 year old dignitary at the court of Kublai Khan. She has amazing chemistry with Susan and I really enjoyed reading them as a couple.
   2A. Ping Cho’s relationship with Marco Polo is really weird, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be reading it as fatherly or brotherly or what. This element is underdeveloped; if he’d been protective of her and related to her more as a dad it would have been a stronger episode, because he would have been more sympathetic.
   2B. Ping Cho’s storyline is resolved when her ancient husband-to-be poisons himself taking a lethal concoction intended to make him “younger” for her. She decides to stay with Kublai Khan’s court.
3. Tegana is the transparent baddie. He’s a warlord and an emissary of Nogai, an enemy of Kublai Khan, and even though he couldn’t be more obviously evil if he was wearing 47 skulls, Marco Polo trusts him over anyone else. Even though he’s the enemy of Kublai Khan. For no reason. Because that’s the plot. Also, he wastes fruit, so you know he’s evil.
4. Kublai Khan in this story is a nice old man with lots of aches and pains, who is the best administrator in the world. He bonds with the Doctor about being old. He also plays backgammon with the Doctor with horrifying stakes, including, at one point, the Tardis.
5. Eyepatch pirate guy.

THE TEAM

1. FOR THE LOVE OF LITTLE GREEN MEN STOP SPLITTING THE PARTY. We need to make a drinking game for this and the first rule is going to be “take a shot when they split the party.” And everyone will die of alcohol poisoning in the first hour.
2. No one believes Barbara even after she saved the day in the last episode. She screams again in this one.
3. No one believes Susan, either, that the eyes on one of the paintings in the cave moved, even after she’s repeatedly been shown to be reliable. When she’s proven right, no one apologizes for doubting her. Again.
4. Ian is actually slightly, a tiny bit, useful and explains thin air and later, condensation in the episode, both times in an appropriate way. He also comes up with a way to distract baddies by making an explosion later. At one point Ian pretends to be drunk, and this was funny. Maybe it would be better for Ian to just be drunk all the time.
5. The Doctor is an arrogant jerk again for a lot of this episode, but it doesn’t seem to matter much either way.

THE SETTING

1. The Tardis breaks AGAIN, and this time it has no water or temperature control. And it will take A WHOLE WEEK of work to fix.
2. The Palace sets looked pretty, particularly in the color photos.
3. At one point, there’s a sandstorm and I remembered the episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 featuring a sandstorm; this was just as much DEEP HURTING.
4. AND STILL NO ONE HAS FED THE TARDIS.

Honestly, this episode just shows the road trip from hell: Everyone is angry with everyone else and anyone who isn’t is just whining constantly.

Sources Include

• http://www.shannonsullivan.com/doctorwho/serials/d.html
• https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Marco_Polo_(TV_story)
• http://www.warpedfactor.com/2015/12/doctor-who-tribute-to-waris-hussein.html
• https://broadwcast.org/index.php/Radio_Marco
• https://drwhointerviews.wordpress.com/category/john-lucarotti/
• https://whorecons.neocities.org/
• https://drwhointerviews.wordpress.com/category/william-hartnell/
• https://drwhointerviews.wordpress.com/category/jacqueline-hill/

In Doctor Who’s third serial, “Edge of Destruction,” the Daleks Aren’t Robots!? crew must contend with the most dangerous of adversaries — A RUSHED BOTTLE EPISODE! Meanwhile, the crew of the Tardis deals with the second most dangerous adversary: audience complaints.

Daleks Aren’t Robots!? is a podcast in which two Whovian friends take two non-Whovians on a deep dive through the show from the very beginning.

Theme: Garage – Monplaisir

Podcast Contents Include

Editor’s Note: The following are my original notes for the podcast, slightly edited for readability. They’re very far from the full contents of the pod, though.  – Kari

THE GUEST STAR

1. The guest star in this one is the Tardis, the ship itself. It still sounds like a hungry T-rex. We are gonna need to call the RSPCT here.
2. It’s also apparently somewhat of a person. As it turns out, the reason everything has gone wrong is that they were trying to drive into the start of a new solar system and the ship stopped and tried to explain it to them, but it has no method of direct communication.
3. The Tardis is very clever, but it would be better served with a more direct means of communicating, since the humans aren’t terribly quick on the uptake!

THE TEAM

1. Susan gets very stabby in this episode, and threatens to stab Ian with a pair of scissors. We all have those feelings about Ian, girl.
2. Barbara is the queen of everything in this one. She figures out that the Tardis is trying to explain itself to them, and is able to connect the images on the viewscreen to what is happening.
3. The Doctor doesn’t ACTUALLY apologize to Barbara, just compliments her a few times toward the end. Then he can’t seem to understand why she hasn’t forgiven him! But at least he seems to recognize she’s the smart one.
4. The Doctor lies to the women that they have 10 minutes left when there are only 5, which is a real dick move, and Ian helps him do that, so f*** Ian.
5. The Doctor obliquely takes credit for Barbara figuring out what’s going on (because HE put HER under stress by accusing her, you see) which is also a dick move.
6. The Doctor drugs everyone to sleep, but sort of admits that’s what he’s doing–only to Ian though. Dick mooooove.
7. The Doctor threatens to “put them off the ship.” So he’s definitely willing to murder them.
8. We all saw Ian’s boxers a few times. Why isn’t the Doctor willing to murder US?

THE SETTING

1. We learn a lot about the Tardis this time. Ian sleeps in an equipment room off by himself, as far as I can tell; the women share a room. Everyone sleeps in what looks like barcaloungers? And is that outfit Susan’s wearing a nightgown or wizards’ robes or a snuggie?
2. The Tardis doors can’t be opened by an accident, they have to be opened on purpose.
3. They have magic bandages that turn white when the wound is healed.
4. The food machine has a milk button, and the water shows up in little baggies.

THE SHOW

1. At one point someone says of the Doctor that “his heart seems all right and his breathing’s quite regular.” Doesn’t the Doctor have two hearts?
2. The Doctor flubs THREE SEPARATE LINES in this one, and none of them were apparently worth another take.
3. This is a good episode set-up, but the resolution is weak and hinges on a switch that got stuck due to a spring. The set up is much better than the solution.
4. Everyone is acting oddly at some point in this one. Whatever the Tardis was doing to them apparently confused them but also made them a bit homicidal or paranoid.
5. What WAS the Tardis doing to them?

Sources Include

• ShannonSullivan.com
• The TARDIS Data Core

Kari and Justin finally meet the Doctor’s primary antagonists, “The Daleks,” and see what lengths are worth going to in order to put Ian Chesterton in a trash can. (The answer is: All of them. All the lengths.) Daleks Aren’t Robots!? is a podcast in which two Whovian friends take two non-Whovians on a deep dive through the show from the very beginning.

Theme: Garage – Monplaisir

Podcast Contents Include

Editor’s Note: The following are my original notes for the podcast, slightly edited for readability. My notes will get more complete in later installments of the pod. – Kari

THE DALEKS

0. The name of the podcast. I used to think Daleks was pronounced Day-leks, and also that they were robots. It turns out they are ugly little squid things who are piloting the trash can bots, when they take one out of its case. (I seriously thought the doctor had murdered it. I’m still not sure it survived.)
1. They also have plungers and egg beaters. I am not sure what the plungers do other than plunge, but the egg beaters are a paralysis weapon they nail Ian with at one point. They miss his mouth and get him in the legs though, unfortunately.
2. I do like that the Daleks lie.
3. The Daleks hate laughter.
4. What does it smell like in a Dalek casing? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

THE THALS

1. The Thals are FABULOUS. Puffy vests! Cut-out pants! A kicky little crown for the leader! A kicky fascinator for the woman! I wanna see these people in glorious technicolor!
2. That said, I mostly can’t tell them apart.
3. The show does not approve of pacifism and shows it to be wrong.
4. “We always do what the leader of our race decides for us, but he never does anything without our approval.”

THE TEAM

1. Susan is the only one who wants to be an adventurer and isn’t a wet blanket.
2. The women take turns screaming. At one point Barbara screams as a plunger comes at her, which is supposed to be scary I guess? I mean, I guess you don’t know what might be ON that plunger, so.
3. The Doctor is a selfish jerk and Ian is bossy. No one believes Susan and she’s always right. So there are no changes there.
4. Barbara figures out how to open the doors before anyone else. Later, Barbara comes up with the mud solution to beat the Daleks, and Ian contributes by getting brutally and violently plunged.
5. WHY ARE YOU SPLITTING THE PARTY??? They keep doing this! Once they all get captured by Daleks because of it, and once a Thal friend meets DEATH BY TENTACLE THINGY because of it.
6. The doctor says: “I am too old to be a pioneer, although I was once among my own people.”

THE SETTING

1. They eat candy bars that taste like bacon and eggs.
2. The viewscreen is teeny tiny by today’s standards.
3. At one point they find a Geiger counter in the Dalek city that says “Danger” on it in English.
4. The Tardis has a lock that if opened incorrectly, MELTS stuff.
5. They still haven’t fed the Tardis and it sounds really hungry. But there were no goats on this planet, only a dead metallic animal.

THE SHOW

1. The city design is really cool, even if you can tell it’s a miniature. The asymmetrical doors are a nice touch–it reminds me of Ghostbusters, “No human would stack books that way.” It’s clearly a very small set but they get a lot of mileage out of it.
2. The makeup is good, considering the show is black and white. The doctor looks genuinely sweaty and ill.
3. The padding in this is more noticeable on a re-watch. There’s more sneaking around the city and running through the woods and wandering around in caves than is strictly necessary.
4. You know, when a neutron bomb ISN’T the worst thing that can happen to you, you can’t say the stakes aren’t high enough.
5. We are still doing cliffhanger endings.

Sources Include

• ShannonSullivan.com
• The TARDIS Data Core