The Reign of Terror is a strange tale.  It seems to fall between two stools as far as the historical stories go.   The historicals seem to fall into two camps – the comedy and the tragedy.  The Mythmakers, The Gunfighters, The Romans and The Time Meddler all go for a strong comedic angle whereas Marco Polo, The Crusade, The Massacre and The Aztecs very much take a serious, and often tragic, approach to the history they portray.  The Reign of Terror seems to be a little of both and, consequently for me, is far less satisfying.  The only other story which steers towards this dichotomy of style is possibly The Highlanders.

The subject matter is similar to The Massacre – a reign of terror in France where people live in fear for their lives.  It is quite merciless in its depiction of the violence of this regime, particularly in the first episode.  Susan and Barbara spend an awful lot of the story in a dark, dingy prison cell.  Susan, also for much of the story, is terribly ill.  The Doctor nearly dies in a burning building.  Ian’s cell mate dies before we really get to meet him.  Leon Colbert turns out to be a traitor and Robespierre is shot, relatively graphically, in the jaw.

In contrast, the jailer of the Concergerie is consistently played as a comedic character.  The Doctor’s encounter with the road crew is deliberately meant to be funny and his prancing around with ostrich feathers protruding from a ridiculous hat lends an odd tone to the second half of the story.

It just seems to me that these comedic elements sit awkwardly within the rest of the story.  Unlike the comedy of The Romans or The Mythmakers where it is the tone of the story and threaded throughout the script, the comedy in The Reign of Terror seems like isolated sketches or comes across as shoehorned into the script to desperately lighten the mood.  The worst offender for this is the roadworkers scene.  It serves no purpose, plotwise and, bearing in mind Barbara, Susan and Ian are all potentially headed for the guillotine, it frustrates the Doctor’s progress to Paris for no readily apparent reason – it doesn’t increase the tension as the Doctor is unaware of the predicament his fellow travellers are in.  The other problem with this vignette is how easily the Doctor gives in to the Overseer.  The Overseer tells him to join the crew and the Doctor says yes.  The Overseer doesn’t threaten him with his gun until the Doctor has agreed and there is no reason the Doctor couldn’t have fudged a reason why he couldn’t present his papers (not least because I don’t understand what authority the Overseer even has).  Seeing as Susan states this is the Doctor’s favourite period of history, I find it odd he isn’t better prepared to outwit the Overseer.

And then, of course, we also have the infamous shovel bashing.  When fans complain that the Doctor is never violent, they seem to wilfully forget all the times he is violent.  However, this occasion does seem a little gratuitous.  The Overseer is completely distracted by the coins and there is reason to believe the Doctor could easily have escaped without bashing him over the head with a shovel (which, bizarrely makes the man snore – I’m sure unconscious people don’t snore).  Certainly it would have seemed less out of place if one of the roadworkers had wielded the weapon.  Of course, for the first season, this isn’t completely out of character for the Doctor.  Only the presence of Ian seems to stop the Doctor braining Za with a rock in An Unearthly Child, so his lack of companions here suggests that, unchecked, the Doctor has few moral qualms about inflicting pain on others.  This is an interesting idea when viewed in the light of Donna’s comments to the Doctor at the end of The Runaway Bride about him needing someone to temper his more extreme actions.

Another strange element of this story are the final episode’s scenes with Napoleon.  Ian and Barbara get to play act as landlord and landlady and spy on a secret meeting between Napoleon and Paul Barras.  Basically, this is just a mini history lesson explaining how Napoleon began his rise to power in the wake of the revolution.  It has no true impact on anything in the story and isn’t even that interesting (although Ian does get to wear a lovely hat).

My other problem with the story was the lack of urgency.  Barbara is the only character who really makes any effort to improve their situation but even she gives in easily to Susan’s pathetic moans and mystery illness.  The Doctor wanders around getting himself in and out of trouble with his gift of the gab and Ian stumbles upon the answers to his mysterious message.  The supporting characters, with the possible exception of Edward Brayshaw’s Colbert, fail to make much impact.  In particular I found James Cairncross’ performance as Lemaitre ever so slightly weird.  Maybe it’s because I was fully aware of his secret identity of James Stirling, but every line, every look seemed to be laden with an odd secretive tone which just seemed to much.  It’s as if the audience is supposed to suspect him despite having no reason to.  Much of the story relies on some huge coincidences: Jules and Jean just happen to accost Ian and bring him back to their hideout where Barbara and Susan are; the Doctor just so happens to bring Lemaitre to the hideout who just so happens to be Stirling who Ian is looking for.

The story also takes a strange, never before seen/never seen since stance on changing history.  Rather than the ‘you can’t change history…not one line’ assertions of The Aztecs, here the Doctor and Susan suggest that you can try to change history, but something will happen to set it back on the ‘right course’ regardless of your efforts – which includes an odd explanation where Susan says that if they wrote a letter explaining to a historical character what would happen in the future, ‘they would lose the letter or just forget about it’ – or words to that effect.  It’s a weird scene thrown in at the very end of the story which seems at odds with the ethos of the programme up to that point, and certainly since then.  This seems to be the preference of Dennis Spooner, the writer, who would go on to become script editor after David Whitaker and develop this story's approach to the course of history in later historicals (particularly with dialogue in The Time Meddler).

In the story, we have the presence of Robespierre and, tangentially, Napoelon Bonaparte and Paul Barras but the setting of the French Revolution is a little more than a backdrop because the serial gives very little actual factual information about the so called Reign of Terror.  It’s never really explained who Robespierre is or why Ian, Barbara and Susan are arrested and sent to the guillotine.  The Doctor’s assumed identity of a governor of the southern province isn’t elaborated on and the story seems to assume the viewer already knows the basic facts of this period of history.  I think I know something of the period, but to be honest I think most of my knowledge is based on Carry On…Don’t Lose Your Head!

There is, though, much to enjoy.  The cliffhanger to episode one with the Doctor trapped in a burning farmhouse, is very exciting.  His rescue by Jean-Pierre and subsequent scene with the young boy is very sweet and shows how Hartnell was already softening his character even by the end of the first season.

Although, the sets are fairly limited throughout the story (we spend an inordinate amount of time at the prison and in one tiny room and Jules’ house), what we do have is the first ever location filming.  Even though we know it isn’t actually Hartnell on the film, it looks gorgeous and the cut from film to studio is neatly done, such as the part where the Doctor sits down on the milestone.The regulars are as always wonderful (to Carole Ann Ford’s credit, she makes a fairly thankless role believable and engaging, even if, storywise, she contributes absolutely nothing).  The supporting cast, too, are strong even if, as I’ve said, as characters they make little impact.

The costumes are authentic but I find it amusing that it’s the Doctor and Ian who get the fancy rags, whereas Barbara and Susan spend most of the story in the rather dowdy (and probably by the end of the story fairly dirty) dresses they pick up from the farmhouse in the first episode.

The animated missing episodes on the DVD of this release are an interesting curiousity.  They use a style which wasn't replicated in many other releases and consists of an awful lot of close ups with some very stark black and white contrasts.  It works in as much as it helps tell the story alongside the original soundtrack, but it isn't as accomplished as some of the animations which came later.

The Reign of Terror is a slightly odd fish of a story and not one I think particularly highly of but it does demonstrate an interesting bridge between the different ways historical stories were treated by the ever changing production teams.