User Reviews

My overall impression of The Reign of Terror has improved as it's gone on, and after a decent few episodes, I felt it improved and concluded very well with Prisoners of Conciergerie. It's very interesting from a historic point of view, and definitely caused an to look into some of the historical figures. I enjoyed the scenes of Ian and Barbara posing as Innkeepers, with the dealings going on in the background. For me this last one was interesting, but lacking in any urgency or tension, it was a bit casual in pace.

Lots of worthwhile detail throughout, good performances and super production values, Hartnell shone through to the last. 7/10

Having thrown a strop at the end of the previous story, the Doctor decides to take Ian and Barbara back to where they came from and get shot of them. Landing in green fields everyone assumes they have done it aside from a bit of a train journey I suppose) but in reality they have missed their target physically and time-wise, landing in France in the middle of the French Revolution. A very small percentage error when viewed in the context of their whole journey, the Doctor rightly points out, but it doesn't change anything and soon enough the travelers are in trouble, separated and involved in another historical event that they cannot change but at least have to survive.

This story is missing two episodes, although this is only a third of the episodes so I decided to watch it anyway, since the middle episodes are the one missing so a plot summary online would carry me across to the conclusion. "Not following" was an issue sooner than I expected because, while I can understand the basic actions involving our quartet, I really didn't know who any of the other characters were. On one hand I appreciate the writers respecting my intelligence and assuming that I would know who Robespierre, Barras and others were but the reality is that they got it wrong because I do not deserve their respect and this is not a part of history I know really anything about. The better course would have been to introduce and explain the context without making me feel spoon fed, but as it was I felt I was missing things and not just because of the missing two episodes.

Perhaps due to this, the plot didn't quite grab me although I did appreciate the history and the well designed sets and costumes. I'm not sure why they bothered shooting outdoors just for the sake of a couple of shots of the Doctor walking, but I guess it is historically valuable since this is the first (or at least the first one I saw – some other episodes are lost too). The cliffhangers are a bit forced here and they feel too obvious, like they are replacing a more consistent sense of danger and tension – which they are I guess. The cast are roundly good though and I enjoyed that there was a nice edge of humor to the serial; Hartnell had the best of it in some of his interactions and I liked his playful dialogue which worked well with some of the incidental music being given a Gaelic touch. The rest are solid although again Ford is pushed into a blubbering mess again – the writers seem to struggle to find a good middle ground for her character, she seems to be wise and confident or totally losing her head, nothing in between.

The Reign of Terror was the final serial of the first series and, while it was not the best, it was pretty decent for what it did. I would have liked a more consistent sense of tension and danger and for sure I would have liked it to have helped me out a little bit with the historical context and not assume I understood everything simply from their names.

Review for all 6 episodes:

This pure historical adventure beginning with A Land of Fear and continuing for 6 episodes takes place in the French Revolution. It is an excellent and thoroughly entertaining story from writer Dennis Spooner.

It features William Hartnell in a wonderful double role showing his ability to act very differently from his normal performance as The Doctor. The story revolves around the characters being caught up with the revolution and shows the way Dennis Spooner would continue to write in the series mixing very serious drama with humour. This is one of his very best efforts as sometimes later on he got that balance wrong.

There are scenes, mostly in episodes 2 and 3, that are not so great and Carole Ann Ford as Susan is annoying at times. She is a sad shadow of the promise of the character in 'An Unearthly Child', the writers did let the character generally diminish in strength after the initial promise. Apart from these minor flaws, though, the vast majority of this story is real top quality.

This finishes the first season in the same superbly high standard that it began. The writing of most of the first series is brilliant and the main credit for the series must go to script editor David Whitaker and producer Verity Lambert. The scripts and story here maintain that brilliance. William Hartnell (The Doctor), William Russell (Ian) and Jacqueline Hill (Barbara) also maintain their fantastic characterisation and acting quality. The Doctor himself is particularly tremendous in this story.

The final 3 episodes are particularly strong and thankfully there are good animated reconstructions available with the original audio to preserve episodes 4 and 5 for which the videos were sadly wiped.

Overall very high standard story.

My Ratings: Episodes 1, 4, 5 and 6 - 10/10, Episodes 2 & 3 - 8.5/10, overall average rating - 9.5/10

Average Rating for Season 1 - 8.83/10