Susan, Ian and Barbara are sentenced to be guillotined but an encounter with a dying English prisoner may offer Ian a chance of survival.Susan, Ian and Barbara are sentenced to be guillotined but an encounter with a dying English prisoner may offer Ian a chance of survival.Susan, Ian and Barbara are sentenced to be guillotined but an encounter with a dying English prisoner may offer Ian a chance of survival.
Photos
David Banville
- Conciergerie Prisoner
- (uncredited)
Brian Proudfoot
- Dr. Who
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- Dennis Spooner
- Sydney Newman(uncredited)
- Donald Wilson(uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe three shots of the Doctor walking through Paris, was the first instance of location filming for Doctor Who (1963). The location filming actually took place at Denham and Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire. In these shots, Brian Proudfoot had to double for William Hartnell as the Doctor.
- GoofsLemaitre wears a frilly shirt when he's in Ian's cell and a non-frilly shirt when the shot changes to him leaving the cell.
- Quotes
Jailer: This batch for the guillotine. Take them away!
Ian Chesterton: Barbara! Susan!
- ConnectionsEdited from A Tale of Two Cities (1958)
Featured review
The Reign of Terror: Episode 2 - Excellent French Revolution Adventure
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 in my opinion.
There are scenes, mostly in episodes 1 and 2, 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 and it gets better as it goes along.
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 2 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 & 2 - 8.5/10, Episodes 3 & 4 - 9/10, Episodes 5 & 6 - 9.5/10.
Overall average rating - 9/10
Average Rating for Season 1 - 8.46/10.
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 in my opinion.
There are scenes, mostly in episodes 1 and 2, 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 and it gets better as it goes along.
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 2 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 & 2 - 8.5/10, Episodes 3 & 4 - 9/10, Episodes 5 & 6 - 9.5/10.
Overall average rating - 9/10
Average Rating for Season 1 - 8.46/10.
helpful•21
- A_Kind_Of_CineMagic
- Jul 5, 2014
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official site
- Language
- Filming locations
- White Plains, Tilehouse Lane, Denham, Buckinghamshire, England, UK(The Doctor walks down a tree lined avenue.)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime24 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
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