Today the travellers begin a new adventure in medieval China
FROM the galactic battle of the Thals and the Daleks, from the tense drama played out within Tardis itself, Dr. Who's strange vessel has travelled on once more, and today it has touched ground again to launch its four passengers on a new adventure.
Its landing place is Earth—but not the comfortable settled Earth that the Doctor and Susan knew during their sojourn in the twentieth century. This is far Cathay, the fabled land of. silks and spices which we know as China. The time is the thirteenth century, and the Empire of the fierce Tartars is at the peak of its power. In Peking Kublai Khan holds his magnificent court.
But the travellers have not been lucky enough to land amid the delights of Kublai's pleasure domes. Tardis has brought them instead to the very fringe of his Empire, to the icy slopes of the high Pamir. This was the fearful mountain barrier which had long kept Cathay almost isolated from the new civilisation emerging in the west.
The early explorers called the Pamir 'the roof of the world,' so that is the title of today's episode. And very soon Dr. Who and his companions are to discover that they are not the only travellers on that inhospitable plateau. A caravan is making its painful way towards the capital of the Tartars, and leading it is a young Venetian in the service of Kublai Khan. His name? Marco Polo.
Caption: Dr. Who and his companions meet Marco Polo and the Mongols on 'the roof of the world' in today's episode
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