I'm a sucker for a Doctor Who pure historical - especially in the shows first season. Its remarkable that the three stories here take up very different approaches to the same problem of needing the TARDIS to be inaccessible - Marco Polo has the crew all together throughout with Marco holding the key hostage to sell to Kublai Khan, the Aztecs has the TARDIS locking in Yataxa's tomb where the crew cannot access easily, and where Barbara ends up in a key position; and here where the French Revolution results in Ian, Barbara and Susan being arrested and the Doctor needing to recover them.

The story is simple - the Doctor is keen to throw Ian and Barbara off the TARDIS because of a perceived slight at the end of the Sensorites (one of the weaker cliffhangers between stories); the TARDIS lands in revolutionary France mid-Reign of Terror and the crew blunders into a safe house of a group of people opposed of Robespierre right as it is discovered. Ian, Barbara and Susan are arrested and sent to Paris and the guillotine; while the Doctor (almost burned to death) ends up taking on the role of a provincial official to get them back to safety. I think this is a story where interest in the period is required to fully appreciate: especially the terrifying nature of revolutionary France. The side story is also interesting; with an attempt to try and discover the identity of James Sterling, an English spy, who ends up being one of the key officials in the prison in charge of executions.

The set designs in this are good considering the budget of the show; I like the Direction (even though from all reports it was one of the more chaotic production jobs, with the Director having a breakdown mid-show) and the aminiation of the lost episodes is very functional for what it is - although clearly produced on a budget.

Negatives might include the animation point above (which also has some of the poorer audio quality of a Doctor Who story - and one where I hope recent discoveries of fan recordings may help them improve for the Season 1 Collection Blu-Ray when that comes); I think they probably could have achieved everything in four episodes and also the fact that again Susan is really not used at all well here - she spends basically the entire story locked up and when she isn't she's sick (which results in her and Barbara being re-locked up again).