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Season 01 / Story 008 / Production code H
The Reign Of Terror
The Doctors?: William Hartnell
The Companions: Susan Foreman | Barbara Wright | Ian Chesterton
Other Main Characters:
John Lucarotti: Writer
Henric Hirsch: Director
John Gorrie: Director
Verity Lambert: Producer
The TARDIS brings the four time travellers to Paris in 1794 - one of the bloodiest years of the French Revolution - where they become involved with an escape chain rescuing prisoners from the guillotine. Ian, Barbara and Susan are captured by soldiers and taken to the Conciergerie Prison in Paris, where they arouse the interest of its governor, Lemaitre. The Doctor, left for dead in a burning farmhouse, is rescued by a young boy and makes his way to Paris on foot.
Ian escapes from the prison, much to the alarm of the incompetent jailer, while Barbara and Susan are rescued en route to the guillotine by Jules Renan and Jean - two organisers of the escape chain. Ian eventually meets up with his friends at Renan's house, and later exposes one of the man's associates, Leon Colbert, as a traitor betraying escapees to the authorities.
The Doctor, posing as a civic dignitary, has meanwhile arrived at the Conciergerie Prison in search of his friends. Twice he is brought by Lemaitre before the great tyrant Robespierre and has to talk his way out of trouble.
It eventually transpires that Lemaitre is an English undercover spy, James Stirling, in Paris to observe developments there. In return for his help in freeing Susan, who has been recaptured and taken back to the Prison, Ian and Barbara journey to an inn called the Sinking Ship to spy on a clandestine meeting between Robespierre's deputy, Paul Barrass, and an even more ambitious man, Napoleon Bonaparte, who are plotting the tyrant's downfall. The two friends subsequently report back to Stirling, who is intrigued at the suggestion that Bonaparte could be the next ruler of France.
As events reach their climax, Robespierre is overthrown - shot in the jaw and dragged off to the Prison - and the Doctor and his companions slip quietly away.
6 episodes:
- A Land of Fear - 08 August 1964
- Guests of Madame Guillotine - 15 August 1964
- A Change of Identity - 22 August 1964
- The Tyrant of France - 29 August 1964
- Bargain of Necessity - 05 September 1964
- Prisoners of Concergerie - 12 September 1964
Script available in print from Titan Books.
