Марко Поло және Құбылай хан: Уақыт пен кеңістік саяхаты

Marco Polo is the fourth serial of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC TV in seven weekly parts from 22 February to 4 April 1964. It was written by John Lucarotti and directed largely by Waris Hussein; John Crockett directed the fourth episode. The story is set in Yuan era China in the year 1289, where the Doctor (William Hartnell), his granddaughter Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford), and her teachers Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) meet the Italian merchant explorer Marco Polo (Mark Eden) and Mongolian Emperor Kublai Khan (Martin Miller). Lucarotti—who had previously written works based on Marco Polo's adventures—was suggested to producers by Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman when the show was early in development. Throughout production, the script was rewritten to make the story more personal to Polo. Barry Newbery, the serial's designer, used several historical books for research of the old designs, taking inspiration from 1900 Korean architecture. The serial premiered with nine million viewers, and maintained audience figures throughout its seven week run. It received generally positive responses from critics and was sold widely overseas, but was erased by the BBC in 1967; the entire serial is missing as a result. The serial received later print adaptations, and soundtrack releases using the surviving audio.

The TARDIS, badly damaged, lands in the Pamir Mountains of the Himalayas in 1289, and the crew are picked up by Marco Polo's (Mark Eden) caravan on its way along the fabled Silk Road to see the Emperor Kublai Khan (Martin Miller). The story concerns the First Doctor (William Hartnell), his granddaughter Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford) and her teachers Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), and their attempts to thwart the machinations of Tegana (Derren Nesbitt), who attempts to sabotage the caravan along its travels through the Pamir Plateau and across the treacherous Gobi Desert, and ultimately to assassinate Kublai Khan in Peking, at the height of his imperial power. The Doctor and his companions also attempt to regain the TARDIS, which Marco Polo has taken to give to Kublai Khan in effort to regain the Emperor's good graces. Susan gets the TARDIS key from Ping Cho (Zienia Merton) but is captured by Tegana before they can depart. They are finally able to thwart Tegana, who kills himself before he can be executed, restoring the Emperor's respect for Marco Polo, and the Emperor allows them to depart.

Show creator Sydney Newman suggested writer John Lucarotti, an old colleague from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, to the production team during the show's early development. Story editor David Whitaker contacted Lucarotti to write for the programme; Lucarotti, who had recently worked on the 18 part radio serial The Three Journeys of Marco Polo (1955), was commissioned on 9 July 1963 to write a seven part serial about Italian merchant and explorer Marco Polo, titled Dr Who and a Journey to Cathay. While developing the storyline Lucarotti struggled with the fourth episode, and used anecdotal material from Polo's memoirs, The Travels of Marco Polo, to pad out the plot. The serial was originally placed third in the show's running order, to begin broadcast on 18 January 1964, but was pushed back to fourth to accommodate the two part "filler" serial The Edge of Destruction. Waris Hussein, who worked on the show's first serial, was selected as the director for Marco Polo; John Crockett directed the fourth episode in Hussein's absence. Like most serials in the show's early history, the costumes for Marco Polo were designed by Daphne Dare. The serial's designer, Barry Newbery, used Aurel Stein's Ruins of Desert Cathay (1912) and Nelson Ikon Wu's Chinese and Indian Architecture (1963) for research of the 13th century designs. Newbery also found that Korean architecture from 1900 was similar to that of the 13th century. The incidental music for the serial was composed by Tristram Cary, who previously worked on The Daleks. Cary used conventional instruments for the score, including flute, harp and percussion, and he recorded electronic voices for the second episode's sandstorm scenes.

Mark Eden was cast as Marco Polo; Hussein had seen Eden in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of A Penny for a Song in 1962. While the serial's narration was originally scripted for the Doctor, Ian and Barbara, Hussein decided to make the story more personal to Polo, and the narration was rewritten for Eden. Derren Nesbitt, who had appeared in several historical film series in the 1950s, was cast as Tegana. For the role of Ping Cho, Hussein wanted an "oriental" actress who had not appeared in the West End production of The World of Suzie Wong or the film 55 Days at Peking (1963), due to the prominence of those productions. Actress Zienia Merton auditioned at Hussein's home, and was offered the role. William Russell was unhappy with sudden rewrites minimising the role of his character, Ian Chesterton, in the serial, and his agent wrote to BBC's head of serials Donald Wilson; Wilson replied to Russell's agent, assuring that he would "be watching very carefully" to ensure the scripts "use [Russell's] talents to the maximum". The fifth episode featured an untrained spider monkey, which the cast found difficult to work with; Carole Ann Ford recalled that "it was a nasty little thing peeing all over the place and biting anyone who came near it".

A week of shooting took place at Ealing Studios from 13 to 17 January 1964, consisting mostly of inserts of locations and props for the montage sequences. Rehearsals for the first episode ran from 27 to 30 January, and the episodes were recorded weekly at Lime Grove Studio D from 31 January to 13 March. When William Hartnell became ill in the first week of February, quick rewrites were performed on the second episode to eliminate the Doctor from most scenes; Hartnell only had one line of dialogue in the episode.