Sunday 18 September 2022

Episode 37: A Land Of Fear


Synopsis:
In the TARDIS the Doctor is determined to have the schoolteachers leave at their next destination... 
The ship lands and the scanner shows a seemingly tranquil country scene at dusk. When Barbara mentions that it reminds her of a holiday in Somerset, the Doctor suggests that is exactly where they are. Ian points out they thought they were home once before - and met Marco Polo. He suggests that the Doctor ascertain where and when they are before leaving. The offer of a farewell drink seals the deal.
The Doctor tells Susan that they will escort Ian and Barbara to confirm they are home. 
They move through the woods and Barbara notes that there is no sign of life. In such an area as this they ought to see the lights of a farmhouse or two.
They hear a noise in the bushes and Ian grabs hold of a boy who has been watching them.
He is dressed in ragged fashion. He tells them his name is Jean-Pierre, and from him they learn that they are not in England but in France. Before he can tell them any more he breaks free and flees into the forest.
They shortly come to a farmhouse, but it appears abandoned.
Inside, the Doctor ventures upstairs to explore whilst the others investigate the contents of a huge chest. Within are clothes of 18th Century fashion and supplies of bread and wine. There are also a number of documents which prove to be travel passes, signed by Maximilien Robespierre. Ian and Barbara are horrified to learn that they have landed in the middle of the "Reign of Terror" - one of the bloodiest episodes of the French Revolution. Susan comments that this is a period of great interest to her grandfather. Ian suspects that the farmhouse may be part of some escape route.
Upstairs, the Doctor is knocked unconscious by an unseen assailant.
Ian, Barbara and Susan are then confronted by two men - Rouvray and D'Argenson. It was they who had been hiding upstairs, and who were responsible for assaulting the Doctor.
Satisfied that the TARDIS crew are nothing to do with the government forces, they explain that they are fleeing Paris as they are considered enemies of the Revolution. 
A rabble of soldiers approach the building, and Rouvray advises that they may pass if they all keep quiet. His companion's nerve breaks, however, and he rushes outside. The soldiers torment him and he is killed trying to flee.
The commanding officer orders his men to search the house. They refuse at first, until mention of a potential reward is made. Rouvray appears and almost manages to divert command away from the officer, but his sergeant shoots him dead.
Ian, Barbara and Susan are all captured, but are saved from summary execution by that promise of a reward.
The sergeant decides to burn the building to the ground. In the upper room, the Doctor lies unconscious.
As they are marched away, Ian, Barbara and Susan turn and see the farmhouse ablaze...
Next episode: Guests of Madame Guillotine


Data:
Written by: Dennis Spooner
Recorded: Friday 10th July 1964 - Lime Grove Studio G
First broadcast: 5:15pm, Saturday 8th August 1964
Ratings: 6.9 million / AI 58
Designer: Roderick Laing
Director: Henric Hirsch
Guest cast: Laidlaw Dalling (Rouvray), Neville Smith (D'Argenson), Peter Walker (Jean-Pierre), Ken Lawrence (Officer), Robert Hunter (Sergeant).


Critique:
After helping get the series off the ground, story editor David Whitaker decided that he would leave at the end of the first year. He was no doubt worn out by having to commission every story from scratch, deal with the problems of Anthony Coburn's second story (and other unused adventures such as the one involving Alexander the Great and Malcolm Hulke's "Hidden Planet" scripts), and write the two-part The Edge of Destruction himself when it looked like the series might only last 13 weeks. We don't know how much work he had to do on the stories which were screened, but every one of his successors had to work very hard to fashion theirs into a broadcast-ready state - and it's highly unlikely he had an easier ride.
The person considered to replace him after the first year of production was Dennis Spooner. 
He was, like Terry Nation, a member of Associated London Scripts - the agency set up by Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes, whose secretary was Beryl Vertue (future mother-in-law of Steven Moffat). Also like Nation, he had attempted a career in stand-up comedy which led to writing material instead of performing it as he wasn't all that good. Spooner also contributed to The Avengers and to Gerry Anderson serials, and it was the latter which led to him being approached by Whitaker for Doctor Who. He was initially thinking of getting a sci-fi script from him, rather than an historical one. Given a choice of four subjects, Spooner decided on the French Revolution.

In Episode 1: An Unearthly Child, Susan had borrowed a book about the French Revolution from Barbara. Once on her own she started to leaf through it - and immediately spotted an error. The implication was clearly that she knew differently from personal experience.
In this episode she tells the teachers that the Reign of Terror is one of the Doctor's "favourite" periods of Earth's history. It cannot be that he actually likes the epoch, as it was characterised by mass executions, more that he finds it particularly interesting. Coming from the stuffy cloisters of Gallifrey, as we will later discover, a time of revolution - liberty, equality and fraternity - would have fascinated him.
The story is set in July 1794 - or Thermidor, Year II, of the Revolutionary calendar.
The Reign of Terror had its origins in the summer of 1793 when a number of provincial cities rebelled against the Parisian Revolutionaries, who were particularly radical. Lawyer Maximilien Robespierre was elected onto the Committee of Public Safety, a powerful body which helped "police" the revolution and determine its philosophy. He had come to prominence following in-fighting between the Jacobins - his faction - and the more moderate Girondins within the governing assembly itself.
He quickly became President of the National Convention. The political in-fighting continued, but Robespierre's faction proved the stronger and so began the mass executions of his opponents, like Danton, and anyone accused of having Girondin and Royalist sympathies. The prisons of Paris began to overflow with suspects - anyone could denounce anyone they simply did not like, and others were imprisoned on the flimsiest of suspicions - and so the guillotine was kept extremely busy. Hundreds were executed every day. This had the knock-on effect of overflowing cemeteries, and two new ones had to be created just to accommodate the Terror's victims.
The TARDIS has arrived in France towards the end of Robespierre's leadership, as we will see as events unfold. We'll look at those particular historical events when we get to the appropriate episode.

As well as its inspirations in historical fact, The Reign of Terror also has literary inspirations. The fact that the TARDIS crew discover a safe house, part of an escape route, automatically reminds us of The Scarlet Pimpernel - the 1905 novel by Baroness Orczy. It had started life as a play, also written by her and staged in 1903. 
It tells of the foppish English aristocrat Sir Percy Blakeney who has a secret double life, as he travels to France to help enemies of the Revolution escape to England. There, he is known only as the mysterious "Scarlet Pimpernel". This mirrors both the spy James Stirling / Le Maitre, who arrives in the next episode, as well as Jules Renan, who runs an escape route. Radio Times actually called it a "spy" story, and referred to a "Pimpernel type operation".
The general public would have been very familiar with the story. If they hadn't read the book they might have seen the 1934 movie adaptation, starring Leslie Howard, or ITV's The Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel, starring Marius Goring, which ran from 1955 - 56.
The most famous story of the French Revolution would be Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, first published in 1859. It had also been adapted for the cinema - in 1935, starring Ronald Coleman, and again in 1958, starring Dirk Bogarde. Peter Wyngarde had been the star of a BBC TV dramatisation in 1957.
For research, Spooner would almost certainly have read Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution: A History (1837) - the definitive work on the period at the time.

For three of the production team, this was to be their only contribution to the programme.
We have a new designer for this story - Roderick Laing. Up until now Ray Cusick has been handling the futuristic episodes, alternating with Barry Newbery on the historical ones. Laing was tasked with working in the restrictive environs of Lime Grove G - the long, narrow studio previously used for one instalment of The Sensorites.
This episode didn't tax him in too many other ways, as he only had to supply three small sections of forest, two farmhouse rooms (one empty) with connected farmyard, plus the TARDIS interior.
We also have a new director - Henric Hirsch. He had fled the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. His English was not great, but he had been selected by Verity Lambert after directing a piece for the BBC's "Bloomsday" - the 60th anniversary celebration of James Joyce's Ulysses on the day on which it is set (16th June - though Hirsch's item was actually broadcast on the 10th).
He was very unhappy throughout the assignment, as we'll see especially with the third episode, but one ray of light for him was that Dennis Spooner was a bridge player. 
William Hartnell took a dislike to the director when he realised he hadn't a lot of experience (and was a foreigner), and tended to bully him. Hirsch was assisted greatly by his Production Assistant - future director Tim Combe (The Silurians, The Mind of Evil). He helped suggest a number of the cast.
Lastly, the composer is Stanley Myers. He makes great use of La Marseillaise in his score. It became the French national anthem the year after this story is set.

Last week we mentioned the TARDIS scanner. Here it can clearly see beyond the immediate vicinity of the ship's landing site as the Doctor can make it view through the trees.
The opening scene is played for its humour, quickly undermining any fears that the Doctor's character development of Episode 13: The Brink of Disaster had been reversed. Ian and Barbara now know how to gently manipulate him.

Trivia:
  • This story was for a long time known as "The French Revolution". This is how it was referred to in Radio Times (see below) and was the title used by fans in the 1970's. The camera scripts of the time state the title as The Reign of Terror. This is the more accurate title, as "the French Revolution" might have suggested the early days of the event, such as the storming of the Bastille and the March to Versailles in 1789.
  • Following the recording of this episode, it was finally William Russell's turn to have a holiday - eleven months after the series had started its weekly schedule. He and his family headed for - appropriately enough - France.
  • The idea of doing a French Revolution story originated with Russell, as he suggested it to Whitaker.
  • In Episode 2: The Cave of Skulls, Susan mentioned that the TARDIS had once assumed the form of a sedan chair. This mode of covered personal transport was common in the 18th Century, and perhaps it may have been during its earlier visit to the era of the French Revolution that it adopted this disguise.
  • Spooner almost never worked on the show. On the day he was due to visit the BBC and meet with Whitaker, a commissionaire refused to let him use the car park and he angrily drove home again. Luckily Whitaker was able to sort things out and invite him back.
  • The shots of the flaming torches being thrown and the model farmhouse ablaze were filmed at Ealing on Thursday 18th June.
  • The TARDIS materialisation was achieved by simply fading between two photographs - one of the empty forest set and one with the Police Box in place.
  • Neville Smith (D'Argenson) went on to become a noted writer, collaborating with directors Ken Loach and Stephen Frears.
  • Young Peter Walker was a big fan of the series.
  • One of the soldiers is played by Gerry Wain, who would later appear as Blackbeard in The Mind Robber.
  • Radio Times featured the opening instalment, accompanied by a photograph of a scene which doesn't actually feature in the episode - or anywhere else in the story. It depicts the Doctor fighting with a soldier. It was specially posed on the farmyard set for the magazine photographer.

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