Doctor Who Rewind - The Reign Of Terror

Doctor Who Rewind
The Reign Of Terror

This final story of series 1 of Doctor Who broadcast back in August 1964, it's another historical six part story, this time set in the midst of the French Revolution. Unfortunately, two episodes are missing from the BBC archives, but they have been re-created on the BBC DVD by using animation.

At the beginning of the last story the TARDIS lands in a wooded area, that the crew mistake for England.

The Doctor is not in a good mood after Ian has insinuated at the end of The Sensorites, that he had no control over the TARDIS. How dare he! This is Doctor Who after all.

It's only when the crew come across a box full of clothes (or costumes) in an old farmhouse that they realise they are not in England but in France during the 18th century. The farmhouse is being used by counter revolutionaries in an escape chain. There are fake papers, bearing the signature of Robespierre. Who, in case you didn't know, was the chief orchestrator of Government during The Reign Of Terror (a period of violence that occurred after the onset of The French Revolution - incited by conflicts between rival politically fractions. Marked by mass executions (by guillotine) of enemies of the revolution).

So as in previous historical DW stories the crew are aloud to dress for the part, conveniently the box of clothes provides the correct sizes for all the Doctors companions! This being the French Revolution though, the frivolity doesn't last long and they find themselves held at gunpoint by two counter revolutionaries who knock the Doctor unconscious.

Before long revolutionary soldiers surround the farm, kill the two anti revolutionaries and capture Susan, Barbara and Ian. Meanwhile the Doctor goes unnoticed as the soldiers set fire to the house and march off to Paris with the prisoners, bound for the guillotine.

Luckily for the Doctor a young boy saves him from being burned to a crisp. Hartnell then sets of in pursuit of the girls and Ian by taking a very long walk to Paris. This filmed walking sequence incidentally, is the first outside film to be featured in Doctor Who.

So begins what is, for the most part a story full of intrigue, betrayal and twisty turny plot twists. I lost count how many times during the six episodes Barbara, Ian and Barbara are captured, prisoned, escape and then get recaptured again.

The Doctor's little walk to Paris is interrupted by a brief spell as part of chain gang, working with a road maintenance crew. The boss man is a ghastly fellow and the Doctor takes an instant dislike to him, deciding to help the con men escape. As in Cave Of Skulls (when the Doc nearly brains a stone age man with a rock, the doctor wastes no time in tricking the official and hitting him with a shovel. Good old Hartnell, always ready to help.

When finally arriving in Paris the Doc wanders into a clothing establishment and finally gets in one the dressing up lark. Choosing to take on the garb of a regional prison officer from the southern Provence, sporting a rather silly hat which has somthing like an oversized ostrich feather sticking out of it.

Strangely everyone ignores the grotesque feather and treats Hartnell as real official. This gives Hartnell the chance to saunter around the place ordering this and that, and basically exerting his authority over everyone else. No change there then from any other DW story!

The Reign Of Terror has to be one of the darkest Doctor Who stories of the early years. Even for a children's programme this had to be hard going. What with the deaths, the horrible dirty prisons, and Susan becoming ill. There's not really that much to smile about.

Not only that, but the production of this story was fraught with problems. Most of the filming was done at BBC's Lime Grove studios, which was one of the regular DW recording studios. It was notoriously small and cramped for a show like Doctor Who which required multiple sets. This made filming uncomfortable, impractical, and in some cases downright dangerous.

Several times during the production of Doctor Who recordings had to be stopped as the water sprinkler system was tripped due to excessive heat in the studio. This infuriated William Hartnell no end.

Back in those days filming was done in much longer sequences or takes, as opposed to shorter ones. A sequence could last 7-8 minutes before there was a natural break. To give the appearance of depth and space backdrops had to be used. And in some shots in Reign Of Terror, you can clearly see the join in those crude paintings.

The director of Reign Of Terror, Henric Hirsch was under tremendous pressure to keep to the filming deadline. He was relatively inexperienced in working in TV and found it difficult to deal with the conditions, the out of order shooting schedule and William Hartnell's lack of respect for him paid its toll.

This all came to a head during the filming for the third episode, when Henric collapsed up in the gallery. Verity Lambert was called to draft in another director for the day. Luckily Henric was well enough to continue with episode four and shared some of the Director responsibilities with production assistant Tom Combe. It also helped that Hartnell then lay off him a little too.

Two missing episodes of Reign of Terror and have been replaced with animated alternatives. These were produced by Big Finnish,(the company that produces the new Doctor Who audio adventures) and are pretty faithful to the black and white originals.

Overall, as an historical story Reign Of Terror is an amusing jaunt through the French history books, and , while it may not always be a hundred percent accurate, it does give an insight into the people and themes of the times.

Again, both music and set design play close attention to detail and really bring the story alive.

And while this story was being recorded, behind closed doors, meetings were taking place about the very future of the show. The powers that be had decided to give DW just four more episodes before it was taken off screen for good.

Verity Lambert told the BBC she needed time to come up with a fitting finale to the story. More episodes were needed. And guess what, more episodes is just what they got.

In the next Doctor Who Rewind we start series 2 with a giant problem.