This was my first experience of one of the so called “lost episodes”, wiped by the BBC in the early 1970s before the dawn of home video and when television was still seen as disposable entertainment. How then, I hear you ask, could I watch it? Well, thanks to the ingenuity and dedication of Who fans, the serial has been painstakingly reconstructed, using audio recordings made by fans at the time of broadcast and multiple still photographs. The reconstruction I was watching was created by Loose Cannon and featured an introduction by Mark Eden, the actor who originally played Marco, and colourised stills.

Did the reconstructed nature of this serial diminish my viewing experience? Obviously the answer is yes, but I was amazed at how little it did so. The episodes played like an illustrated radio drama and for the most part that was enough. Some dynamic battle scenes or scenes with no dialogue were a little confusing but on the whole the reconstruction worked incredibly well.

So, what of the serial itself? The Doctor and his companions find themselves in the Himalayas, where they encounter the Venetian explorer Marco Polo, now in the service of Kublai Khan, who immediately claims the TARDIS (or ‘flying caravan’ as he calls it) as his own, to gift to the mighty Khan. As they journey across ancient China, the group face all manner of threats and treachery.

This was a sprawling epic of a story, clearly designed with the show’s original educational leanings in mind. Different cultures are recreated through incredibly ornate costumes and sets and the drama, while convoluted, never crossed the line into feeling forced or dragged out. Despite the lack of supernatural elements, there were some genuinely chilling moments as well, especially the cliffhanger ending to episode 2.

A great episode that would be sure to send children into school ready to bug their history teachers about ancient Chinese history, this is an excellent serial still well worth a watch 50 years on and in its reconstructed format.