Synopsis:
From his prison cell, Ian watches in horror as Barbara and Susan are taken away to the guillotine...
In a nearby street, en route to the place of execution, two men are waiting to ambush the tumbril. They are Jules Renan and his friend Jean. When they see that one of the horses is being replaced, taking one of the guards away, they seize the opportunity and attack. Barbara and Susan are rescued, and the men smuggle them away to Renan's home.
The Doctor arrives in the city and makes his way to the vicinity of the Conciergerie. He sees a tailor shop within sight of the prison and enters.
He pretends to be an Official from the southern provinces and arranges to swap his clothes for a suitable uniform, plus pen and parchment.
In the prison, the Jailer is distributing food. When he puts his keys into the door of Ian's cell Lemaitre summons him away. Ian reaches down and removes his cell key from the bunch then replaces the rest in the lock. When the flustered Jailer returns, he moves on to the next cell.
Later, when Ian lets himself out of the cell he finds the Jailer fast asleep at his desk, and makes his way outside - observed by Lemaitre.
At the home of Jules Renan, Barbara and Susan meet Jean's sister Danielle. Susan is still ill. Jules is intrigued to learn of their capture, and is unhappy to hear that they were caught at what should have been one of his safe houses. He oversees an escape route which is run by his friend Leon Colbert, who is due to visit later.
The Doctor presents himself at the prison with forged documents, claiming to have come to collect some prisoners from his region - Ian, Barbara and Susan. He is surprised to hear that Ian has escaped, and the woman were sent to the guillotine but rescued on the way. Lemaitre arrives, suspicious of the Doctor due to his claim to know Ian.
He insists that the Doctor remain at the prison that night, for tomorrow they will go and meet Robespierre to discuss the arrest figures for his region amongst other things.
The Doctor attempts to extricate himself from this agreement with the Jailer after Lemaitre departs, but finds he has no choice but to stay.
Leon Colbert arrives at Renan's home. He informs Jules that a stranger has been asking about him. Jules and Jean leave to discover who this is, whilst Leon stays behind to talk with Barbara, who is flattered by his attentions.
The tailor comes to the prison and informs the Jailer that he has brought information about a traitor - offering him the Doctor's ring as evidence...
Next episode: The Tyrant of France
Data:
Written by: Dennis Spooner
Recorded: Friday 24th July 1964 - Lime Grove Studio G
First broadcast: 5:30pm, Saturday 22nd August 1964
Ratings: 6.9 million / AI 55
Designer: Roderick Laing
Additional Cast: Donald Morley (Jules Renan), Roy Herrick (Jean), Edward Brayshaw (Leon Colbert), John Barrard (Tailor), Danielle (Caroline Hunt).
Critique:
This episode has no director credit. Henric Hirsch had been struggling with the production due to lack of experience and language problems. We've already noted how he was poor at giving actors direction, and Carole Ann Ford has expressed her dissatisfaction with him, whilst William Hartnell openly bullied him.
He was used to having more resources - especially time - and could not cope with the pressures of Doctor Who's production schedule, and the technical complexity of staging its episodes in Lime Grove-scale studios. Production assistant Tim Combe had been helping out as much as he could - contributing to casting, locations and camera scripting.
On the day that this episode was to be recorded, Combe returned from the afternoon tea break to be informed that Hirsch had collapsed outside the production gallery. The stress of this particular episode - involving the use of live horses in the tiny studio amongst other things - had been too much for him. Verity Lambert was hurriedly contacted.
Combe took over the studio rehearsals, the cast oblivious to the real drama going on nearby.
For years fandom thought that Combe himself had taken over the directing of the episode, or Lambert. Associate producer Mervyn Pinfield - an experienced director himself - was another candidate. It is now believed that Lambert called upon John Gorrie, director of The Keys of Marinus, to step in at the last minute. The issue is further confused by the fact that he could not recall doing this and even publicly claimed he didn't do it. Carole Ann Ford can't recall who took over, and William Russell was still away on holiday this week. Pinfield died in the Spring of 1966, long before there was a fandom to interview him about his time on the series.
Later, once the cast had been made aware of what had happened - and why - Combe had a meal with Hartnell, and the star agreed to give the director an easier time.
The main site of the guillotine in Paris at this time was the Place de la Revolution (formerly the Place Louis XV and now the Place de la Concorde). It was here that King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and Robespierre met their fate, but in between times it was moved to other locations - including the Place de la Nation and the Place de la Bastille.
The contraption as used during the Reign of Terror was invented by a physician - M. Joseph Ignace Guillotin - who was actually opposed to the death penalty. As it couldn't be abolished, he proposed a more humane form of despatch, and got the blessing of Louis XVI - who would ultimately get to experience it first hand. The prototype was built by a man named Antoine Louis, and it was initially named after him rather than Guillotin.
The guillotine as a form of execution was embraced by the Revolution as it was seen as a symbol of equality. Previously, different sections of society had been executed in different ways - the poorer having the most brutal methods applied whilst the nobility experienced quicker and cleaner forms. The guillotine executed everyone alike - from King to Commoner. A leveller in more ways than one.
It was nicknamed the "National Razor".
The concept of the guillotine was not a new one. You can see a 16th Century version at the National Museum of Scotland. This earlier Scottish version was known as the Maiden. There was also a contraption known as the Halifax Gibbet, which dropped a weighted axe head onto the neck of its victims.
A noticeable gaffe originating in this episode is Jules Renan's assertion that his escape network only ever use first names in order to protect their true identities in case of capture. The two men in Episode 37: A Land of Fear - Rouvray and D'Argenson - were only ever known by their surnames, and Renan himself gives his name to Barbara and Susan. He also gives everyone Leon's surname.
In fact, we know the surname of every conspirator in this story, other than Jean and Danielle. The production team did spot this at the time and Spooner attempted to correct it, but didn't make a very thorough job of it.
In the opening street scene, look out for the man who is clearly waiting for his cue to start walking forward - the camera cuts to him just a fraction too soon. The man in question looks very much like Brian Proudfoot - Hartnell's location double, who we know featured as soldiers and a Parisian citizen in other episodes of this story.
This episode is the first to feature the linked sets comprising the streets of Paris, the tailor shop and surrounding buildings. It was a complex set, needing to have a street wide enough to accommodate the horse and tumbril, raised areas for the citizens to watch from their windows, and the Doctor had to be able to see into the tailor shop from the street.
As mentioned last week, I suspect that it was a model of this set which Carole Ann Ford was talking about, when she spoke about having been given a model of Paris after filming. It was kept on the top of her wardrobe for several years, until destroyed by an over-zealous cleaning lady.
- From this episode onwards the series was moved to the slightly later start time of 5:30pm.
- The audience remains stable, and even has a small increase in the appreciation index over the previous instalment.
- Edward Brayshaw would return to the series as a member of the Doctor's own race. He was the War Chief in The War Games.
- In draft scripts Leon's surname was given as Corneille.
- Roy Herrick also returned to the series, playing the medic Parsons in The Invisible Enemy. He was also one of the voices of computer Xoanon in The Face of Evil.
- Caroline Hunt played the rather glamorous Mind Analysis Machine operator in Frontier in Space.
- Another factor which may have led to Hirsch's stress was the loss of his principal cast from the final day of rehearsals for this episode. They were at Ealing with Mervyn Pinfield doing the pre-filming for Planet of Giants.
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