The Reign of Terror

Enraged at Ian's suggestion that he cannot control the TARDIS, the Doctor sets a course and declares that he has returned Barbara and Ian to their home on Earth. Once outside the ship, though, the crew discover that they are not in England of 1963 but France in 1794 during the Revolution. Ian, Susan and Barbara are captured and taken to the Conceirgerie while the Doctor makes his way there in disguise to rescue them, although as he makes his attempts to free his friends they fall in with groups of spies and revolutionaries. The Doctor himself is drawn into a web of intrigue and meets with the Tyrant of France - Robespierre himself - as the tide of history moves towards the inevitable events that take France into history.

This is another purely historical adventure spanning six episodes with no science fiction elements to it outside of the series premise. The location neatly "bookends" the first season as Susan was seen reading from a book on the French Revolution back in An Unearthly Child, and she tells Ian and Barbara that this is the Doctor's favourite period in Earth history. The Doctor does not seem to show any particular pleasure at being present in it though; his main goal is to get his companions and get out, not linger for the violence in which the era is steeped. He does, however, get to assume the guise of a regional governor to aid in his ambitions, and seems to enjoy playing it up and yelling at a lot of people to get his way. Indeed, the costume he appropriates for this end is very grand and gets featured on the cover of any media release for the title. Being an adventure in the past, Barbara again uses her knowledge of what went on to see where they are headed, and makes an impassioned speech in the fifth episode about the circumstances of the time and how people do not always deserve what they get, comeuppance or otherwise. Susan doesn't get to do much except get put in prison, escape with a fever, and then get put into prison again. It's not been said if this was done deliberately to get some away time for Carole Ann Ford as had been done for other series regulars already this season. It's interesting to note that neither Barbara nor Ian express any concern over Susan's sudden illness - they know she is not from Earth and should realize that her immune system would be different from theirs and taking her to a physician in 18th century France might get her noticed in a bad way,

My first experience with this adventure was in print, a Target novel oh so very long ago. Regular range contributor Ian Marter (who would play companion Harry Sullivan) brought the tale to life on printed page with great skill, evoking all the grit and dirt of the city of Paris in that age, and the violent public deaths at the guillotine. As I read it I remembered feeling, not for the first time, frustrated at the absence of episodes four and five from the BBC archive, which meant there was no way I was going to get to enjoy this adventure on screen unless there was a miraculous find. In 1990 I came into contact with some other local fans and the fan network of "lost" episodes where iffy quality video copies of incomplete stories made the rounds on VHS tapes, copied again and again until the sound was muffled and drowned out with noise, and the picture quality was that of an old newsreel in a snowstorm. I got my hands on not-bad quality copies of the existing episodes and was able to get a feel for what I was missing, although episodes four and five were still nowhere to be seen, and I filled in those blanks with what I had read. As the BBC's marketing program expanded the episodes were finally released on VHS with some linking scenes shot with Carole Ann Ford providing narration and details of what we were missing; incomplete as it was, I could still finally see it clearly. I got a bit closer to the story, though, when the BBC Radio Collection released the entire story soundtrack, much as with Marco Polo, and now I could hear what was missing and experience the whole story, almost. Anytime there was rumour of lost episodes found I was hoping for the revelation that the missing two from this adventure were going to be on the list so it could be fully restored and put on DVD, bringing the first full season to near completion, with only the seven episodes of Marco Polo left out in the cold somewhere. The last time any copies of the two missing episodes could really be traced was Cyprus in 1974 where they were reportedly destroyed during the Turkish invasion.

In 2013 the story was finally done up properly for a DVD release with the existing episodes cleaned up for the release, and the missing ones recreated in animation form. It's no Disney quality animation and it's not anime, but what they achieved is quite remarkable. This practice had become the norm for a while where missing episodes were concerned if they were needed to complete a story for release, although disappointingly the incomplete adventure The Underwater Menace does not get this treatment. The animation companies change between releases but each of them are very good with the character likeness well captured; some may argue that the visuals are not as good as they would like, being sometimes static and not as fully animated as they would like, but the option to not watch them is there for those folks. Specifically for Reign of Terror I found the use of shadow made the episodes feel a lot more menacing, and some of the more expressive faces look freakish, most notably Hartnell's buggy eyes at times. But the big beef I have, and it's not a big one really, is that some scenes where there was nothing to reference as to what characters were doing there's a lot of standing about and close ups of faces looking this way and that much like pre-commercial cliffhangers for soap operas where they have run out of dialogue.

So that's season one finished, plus some extras. Reign of Terror completed broadcast on 12 September 1964 and the next televised episode was Planet of Giants on 31 October 1694. Most of the televised serials of season one left very few gaps between adventures, making placement of new material tricky, but as there is a discernible gap between episodes here there's a lot of opportunity to add stories. BBC Books and Big Finish have produced a good spread of material which fits here nicely...

NEXT EPISODE : CITY AT WORLD'S END