[[WMG:[[center:[-''[[Series/DoctorWho Doctor Who]]'' [[Recap/DoctorWho recap index]]\\
'''First Doctor Era'''\\
'''Season 1:''' [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E1AnUnearthlyChild 1]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E2TheDaleks 2]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E3TheEdgeOfDestruction 3]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E4MarcoPolo 4]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E5TheKeysOfMarinus 5]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E6TheAztecs 6]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E7TheSensorites 7]] | '''8'''\\
'''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E1PlanetOfGiants Season 2 >>>]]''']]-]]]
!The Reign of Terror
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/terror_6762.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"[[Music/TheBeatles Vous dites que vous voulez une révolution...]]"]]
->Written by Creator/DennisSpooner\\
Directed by Henric Hirsch[[note]]No director credited for part 3, possibly John Gorrie or Mervyn Pinfield[[/note]]\\
'''Production code:''' H\\
'''Air dates:''' 8 August - 12 September 1964\\
'''Number of episodes:''' 6\\
'''Episode titles:''' "A Land of Fear", "Guests of Madame Guillotine", "A Change of Identity", "The Tyrant of France", "A Bargain of Necessity", "Prisoners of Conciergerie"

->''"Death, always death! Do you think I want this carnage?"''
-->-- '''UsefulNotes/MaximilienRobespierre''' protests too much

JustForFun/{{The one w|ith}}here the Doctor gets a silly outfit.
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For the last story of Season One, we're back in history land with this adventure in [[UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution Revolutionary France]].

Moments after Ian offends the Doctor's HairTriggerTemper in the last episode, the Doctor unceremoniously parks the TARDIS and kicks Ian and Barbara out, despite Susan's protests. The two humans insist on at the very least checking to see if they're in contemporary England. As it turns out, they're not. It's 1794 during the eponymous Reign of Terror, and the TARDIS crew quickly find themselves involved in a ''[[Literature/TheScarletPimpernel Scarlet Pimpernel]]''-style escape committee saving aristocrats from the guillotine, and are then captured by the French army. The Doctor is locked in a burning farmhouse, while Ian, Barbara and Susan are taken to the Conciergerie Prison, the first stop before the guillotine.

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 Lemaître, in charge of the prison, arranges for him to escape with the message he was been given by the dead man.

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 observe a young artillery officer by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Much of the plot turns out to be a setup, and the Doctor quickly realizes that they're in the middle of history and that they can't interfere at all. They find themselves forced to stand by while UsefulNotes/MaximilienRobespierre gets [[FamilyUnfriendlyViolence violently shot in the jaw]]. The group retreats to the TARDIS, silly hat and all.

And thus ends Season One, with a nice view of the galaxy...

->'''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...

The DVD release reconstructed the two missing episodes with off-air recordings of the original soundtracks and new animated visuals.
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!!Tropes:
* 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 as the offscreen Doctor knocks the supervisor cold with the shovel. The man is heard snoring as the Doctor leaves.
* BavarianFireDrill: The Doctor, of course, with enough plumes in his hat to overshadow all of Broadway.
* BigBad: Maximilien Robespierre, as the leader of the Revolution which causes all the Doctor and company's problems (at least until the end).
* {{Bookends}}: In the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E1AnUnearthlyChild opening story]] of Season One, Susan was reading a book on the French Revolution. In the season finale, they actually visit it.
* ContinuityNod:
** Barbara mentions that they [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E4MarcoPolo met Marco Polo]].
** The Doctor admits that the TARDIS has suffered only two minor faults, namely [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E1AnUnearthlyChild the failure of the chameleon circuit]] and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E3TheEdgeOfDestruction the jamming of the fast return switch]].
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E1AnUnearthlyChild During her incarceration, Barbara is reminded of her imprisonment in the Cave of Skulls in 100,000 BC]].
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E6TheAztecs Barbara claims to have learnt her lesson about meddling in history in Mexico in the 15th century]].
* ChangedMyJumper: The Doctor goes out of his way to obtain a député's (member of parliament) outfit as part of a bluff, attempting to trade his own clothes for one. He insists his clothes are more than high enough quality to swap, but the clothes merchant is incredibly confused by the style of them, calling them worthless and admitting he assumed they were cheap fancy dress. He does eventually get a fabulous outfit complete with a feathery hat and spends the rest of the story wearing it and ordering people about — a comment by Susan implies that this may be because he has a ForeignCultureFetish for the French Revolution.
* CliffHanger: The first episode ends with the Doctor trapped in a burning building, fire licking the bottom of the credit scroll all the while.
* DarkerAndEdgier: A very violent serial, with plenty of on-screen death, and Barbara being asked to have sex in exchange for her freedom (she's not impressed with the idea).
* FailedASpotCheck: The physician does not notice Susan's BizarreAlienBiology. YMMV, but considering that he sells her and Barbara out, maybe he wasn't giving her his full attention?...
* FakeShemp: The Doctor is played by a stand-in for the location shots of Paris. According to Creator/CaroleAnnFord, the man actually tailed Creator/WilliamHartnell to try and emulate him, much to the actor's annoyance.
* FakingTheDead: The Doctor reports Lemaître, aka Stirling, shot.
* FamilyUnfriendlyViolence: Robespierre gets ''shot in the jaw'', and spends the next few scenes being dragged around by his soldiers in absolute agony with one hand covering his face.
* GodzillaThreshold: When Jules Renan learned that there was a good chance of UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte rising to power, the prospect so terrified him that ''he even considered the present madness under Robespierre preferable''!
* GoryDiscretionShot: Robespierre is shot in the jaw offscreen (in mid-sentence, even), and is seen clutching his jaw with his hand covered in blood for the next few scenes as he is dragged off by the mob who came to arrest him.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: UsefulNotes/MaximilienRobespierre, UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte.
* HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct: Not said by name of course, but the four speculate what would have happened if they had tried to warn Napoleon about the future.
-->'''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.
* IdiotBall:
** Barbara, a history teacher with a wide and extensive knowledge of even obscure points of the subject, completely forgets that medical treatment in the French Revolution was not as good as it is in 1960s Britain. A chunk of her plotline involves her trying to get Susan to a doctor, and she is shocked when the doctor just wants to put leeches on her.
** Susan, who previously was shown to be easily scared but able to endure fear when she was forced to (see "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E1AnUnearthlyChild An Unearthly Child]]", "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E2TheDaleks The Daleks]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E7TheSensorites The Sensorites]]") refuses to attempt to escape from a prison cell where she has been told she will be guillotined tomorrow, because there are rats in the cell that she is scared of. Even if that was a sensible priority for fear (even {{Phobia}}s in the real world do not override known threats to life), this means she remains in the cell ''with'' the rats...
* IgnoredEpiphany: Robespierre has one in Episode 4.
* {{Leitmotif}}: The obligatory first few bars of ''La Marseillaise''.
* OhCrap: Jules when the Doctor enters the counter-revolutionaries' hideout, followed by Lemaître, whom they believe to be an enemy working for the Revolutionary government.
-->'''Barbara:''' Lemaître!\\
'''Jules:''' Your friend has betrayed us!
* TheMole:
** M. Léon Colbert, infiltrating the counter-revolutionaries on behalf of the Revolution.
** On the other side, James Stirling infiltrating the Revolutionary government on behalf of the British government.
* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: None of the guest cast have accents. Most egregiously is the jailer, who is clearly from OopNorth
* ReignOfTerror: The story is set at the height of the trope-naming Reign of Terror in 1790s France.
* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: Naturally given the time period.
* {{Rotoscoping}}: Used in some scenes of the animated Episodes 4 and 5 on the DVD release.
* SarcasticConfession:
-->'''Ian:''' I flew here with three friends in a small box. When I left England it was 1963.
* SmugSnake: The jailer, the road construction overseer...
* ShutUpHannibal: One of the men come to arrest Robespierre shoots Robespierre in the jaw when he tries [[BreakThemByTalking breaking him by talking]].
* TheSmurfettePrinciple: Danielle is the only female among the 23 guest characters.
* SociopathicSoldier: The soldiers who pursue Rouvray and D'Argenson are little more than murderous thugs.
* SoundOnlyDeath: D'Argenson is shot off-screen after he tried to run and the mob of soldiers surrounded him. This trope is averted with Rouvray.
* TalkingYourWayOut: The Doctor, posing as a regional official from a southern province, is taken to meet Robespierre. Robespierre asks him for a report on his region, but the Doctor turns the question aside by offering his thoughts on the situation in Paris first. Time for the meeting runs out before the conversation can come back to the original subject.
* TitleDrop: When Barbara and Ian realize they're in the middle of UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution.
-->'''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.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: Robespierre.
* TheXOfY: Not only the story, but all six episode titles (give or take a "The")!
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->''"Well, unlike the old adage, my boy, our destiny is in the stars, so let's go and search for it."''