Ian finally delivers his message to James Stirling but in order to secure Susan's release he and Barbara are forced into a dangerous spying mission.Ian finally delivers his message to James Stirling but in order to secure Susan's release he and Barbara are forced into a dangerous spying mission.Ian finally delivers his message to James Stirling but in order to secure Susan's release he and Barbara are forced into a dangerous spying mission.
Photos
- Directors
- Henric Hirsch
- Timothy Combe(uncredited)
- Writers
- Dennis Spooner
- Sydney Newman(uncredited)
- Donald Wilson(uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis episode survives only as a 16mm tele-recording, recovered from a television station in Cyprus circa 1985. Prior to this, a print was returned to the BBC, by a private collector in May 1982.
- GoofsNapoleon was in Nice, not Paris, when Robespierre was overthrown.
- Quotes
Dr. Who: [Barbara begins to laugh] What is it? What do you find so amusing, hmm?
Barbara Wright: Oh, I don't know. Yes, I do. It's this feverish activity to try and stop something that we know is going to happen. Robespierre will be guillotined whatever we do!
Dr. Who: [gravely] I've told you of our position so often.
Barbara Wright: Yes, I know. You can't influence or change history. I learnt that lesson with the Aztecs.
Dr. Who: The events will happen, just as they are written... I'm afraid so and we can't stem the tide. But at least we can stop being carried away with the flood! Now, Susan and the prison.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Dennis Spooner: Wanna Write a Television Series? (2009)
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
- A_Kind_Of_CineMagic
- Jul 5, 2014
Details
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- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime25 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1