History Recap / DoctorWhoS1E8TheReignOfTerror

'''Production code:''' H

Written by Creator/DennisSpooner. This six-episode serial first aired from August 8 to September 12, 1964.

Episodes: "A Land of Fear", "Guests of Madame Guillotine", "A Change of Identity", "The Tyrant of France" (missing), "A Bargain of Necessity (missing), "Prisoners of Conciergerie".

!!Tropes

-->'''Doctor''': Well, I can assure you, my dear Barbara, Napoleon would never have believed you.
-->'''Ian''': Yes, Doctor, but supposing we had written Napoleon a letter, telling him, you know, some of the things that were going to happen to him.
-->'''Susan''': It wouldn't have made any difference, Ian. He'd have forgotten it, or lost it, or thought it was written by a maniac.
-->'''Barbara''': I suppose if we'd tried to kill him with a gun, the bullet would have missed him.

-->'''Barbara''': Lemaître!
-->'''Jules''': Your friend has betrayed us!

-->'''Ian:''' Robespierre? Must be a... oh, wait a minute. The Doctor's put us down right in the middle of the French Revolution.
-->'''Barbara:''' Yes. The Reign of Terror.

----

While Barbara and Susan are rescued en route the the guillotine, (after Barbara refuses to do you-know-what with the jailor in exchange for their safety), Ian is trapped in a cell with a dying member of LaResistance. He promises to honour the man's last wish to relay a message, and spends a few more hours locked up with a corpse before Le Maitre, in charge of the prison, arranges for him to escape with the message he was been given by the dead man.

While Barbara and Susan are rescued en route the the guillotine, (after Barbara refuses to do you-know-what with the jailor in exchange for their safety), Ian is trapped in a cell with a dying member of LaResistance. He promises to honour the man's last wish to relay a message, and spends a few more hours locked up with a corpse before successfully stealing a key and escaping.

The Doctor, having been rescued from the fire by a young boy, walks to Paris from the nearby woods (briefly getting sidetracked by a random villain, whom he brains with a shovel) and barters his clothes and ring for an impeccable French official's outfit. Now armed with a silly hat and sash, he barges into the jail and starts a grand BavarianFireDrill. After a few episodes of involvement with the rescue group, the traitor among them is exposed, and all that's left is to help English spy James Stirling with a final piece of intelligence gathering before they can all escape. Ian and Barbara pose as innkeepers and bump into a young artillery officer by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte.

* BattleDiscretionShot: The Doctor convinces the leader of the [[PressGanged press gang he's in]] that they're digging up gold coins. While the man scrabbles on the floor, back turned to the Doctor, the Doctor slowly takes a shovel from another of the gang members and readies it. We cut to the face of the man whose shovel the Doctor took as he looks on in confusion, before suddenly wincing in sympathetic agony. This was probably done because having the Doctor kill someone with a spade on screen would not be possible to [[PlayedForLaughs Play For Laughs]] - he's allowed to kill people on screen at dramatic moments, though. (It's implied that the man survived, [[YouHaveFailedMe at least for the moment]], since he is heard snoring as the Doctor leaves.)

-->-- '''Robespierre''' protests too much

-->'''Ian Chesterton''' : "What are we going to see and learn next, Doctor?"
-->'''The Doctor''' : "Well, unlike the old adage, my boy, our destiny is in the stars, so let's go and search for it..."

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

-> ''Death, always death! Do you think I want this carnage?''

The one where the Doctor gets a silly outfit.

* StockEpisodeTitles: 10 uses. Justified, in that this story is about, well, [[UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution the Reign of Terror]].

* NiceHat: The Doctor has one. Susan keeps it in the end.

Written by Dennis Spooner. This six-episode serial first aired from August 8 to September 12, 1964.

Written by Dennis Spooner. This serial first aired August 8-September 12, 1964.