Synopsis:
In the crypt of the derelict church Ian realises he has walked into a trap when soldiers appear - accompanied by Leon Colbert...
Leon has him tied up and then begins questioning him about the identity of the English spy James Stirling. He has been searching for this man for months.
At the prison Lemaitre is listening in as the Doctor is reunited with Barbara and learns of her recapture with Susan. Once Lemaitre has been called away by Robespierre, the Doctor decides to trick the Jailer into freeing the women. First of all he lets the man know that Barbara is a leading opponent of the government. Capturing them is why he was sent to Paris in the first place. Were she to be allowed to leave, she would lead them to her co-conspirators. The Jailer is taken in by this, and Barbara suddenly finds herself allowed to go free. She makes straight for Renan's house - who is now alerted to the fact that Leon is a traitor.
He goes to the church crypt and is in time to rescue Ian. He is forced to shoot Leon dead.
Back at his house, Barbara is upset by the news of Leon's death, and argues with Ian and Jules about taking sides in such a complex conflict.
The Doctor has been able to meet with Susan when the Jailer demands to know why he is not following Barbara. The Doctor counters that he expected the Jailer to have followed her - so her escape is all his fault. He then proposes that they can redeem the situation by repeating the plan with Susan.
However, Lemaitre arrives back and puts a stop to this. He informs the Jailer that Susan is not to be removed from her cell unless by his direct command.
He then confronts the Doctor privately and informs him he knows he is not a Regional Official. He shows him his old clothes and ring.
Lemaitre tells him that he will release Susan - but only if he is taken to Renan's home.
There, Barbara has made peace with Jules and Ian over Leon's death.
The Doctor arrives - and everyone is shocked to see Lemaitre walk in behind him...
Next episode: Prisoners of Conciergerie
Written by: Dennis Spooner
Recorded: Friday 7th August 1964 - Television Centre Studio 4
First broadcast: 5:30pm, Saturday 5th September 1964
Ratings: 6.9 million / AI 53
Designer: Roderick Laing
Director: Henric Hirsch
For this episode the story moved to TC4 at Television Centre. Verity Lambert agreed to another drama carrying out some filming during the studio rehearsals. In the end only material in the production gallery was filmed apparently, featuring the crew running the title sequence (according to the screenplay). Even this was eventually cut - if it ever existed at all - when the programme - The Day of Ragnarok - was finally broadcast in January 1965.
Earlier in the week, the cast had relocated to a new rehearsal venue - a London Transport training centre close to Television Centre in White City.
William Hartnell insisted that the snooker table not be used, as the noise disturbed his concentration. Ordinarily he was a keen player of the game. (He was also a big fan of the dartboard, and would spend his weekday nights based in London playing the game at his local pub). Hartnell also objected to some aspects of the catering at the new venue - specifically the powdery camp coffee. He insisted on Nescafe or fresh filter coffee. Tim Combe had to go out and buy a jar of the former.
An additional issue was Carole Ann Ford's habit of sunbathing in full view of the LT personnel attending their training courses.
After being side-lined for much of the first four episodes, Barbara gets the chance to shine in her arguments with Ian and Jules over the rights and wrongs of the Revolution. Her argument is that in this sort of conflict such shades of black and white are harder to define. Leon had been just as much a patriot as Jules and believed he was doing the right thing for the cause. It is another fine moment for Jacqueline Hill, and reminds us of her character's moral debate with the Doctor in The Aztecs.
As with the previous episode - The Tyrant of France - this instalment no longer exists in the archives. We mentioned last week how the only known surviving copies were destroyed by bombing in Cyprus. The director opted not to purchase telesnaps either. For the DVD release in 2003 both episodes were animated to complete the story.
Backgrounds, and the majority of characters with their costumes, could be copied from the surviving recordings. In some cases however, no image existed of a character - such as Ronald Pickup's physician, or of a specific location such as his surgery or the church crypt.
Compare the top image below from the animation with the actual screen image from the synopsis above to see just how close the artwork was for the scenes where footage existed to copy. The image at the bottom, of Jules aiming his gun at Leon in the crypt, had to be made up entirely from scratch as no images using this particular set exist. BBC / Radio Times photographers tended to only attend a couple of recording sessions at most - sometimes only the one.
When it comes to animating lost episodes, there are three routes to take. The first is to try to ensure that the new material matches as seamlessly as possible with any existing episodes. Two examples of this might be Episodes 1 and 3 of The Moonbase, or Episodes 2, 4 - 6 of The Faceless Ones. The second route is to seize the opportunity to do whatever you like - especially when there are no existing episodes to compare things with. The most obvious example of this is The Macra Terror.
The third route carries the most risks. This is where you do something to honour existing material, but still attempt to stamp your own mark on the animations, borrowing some of The Macra Terror's "I can do what I want with this" approach. The recent animation of The Abominable Snowmen is a good example of this. They have honoured the cast playing western characters, the sets and locations - but then imposed totally new character design for the Det-sen monks - making them fit their idea of what Tibetan monks look like, despite being voiced by white English actors. (The design chosen for Songsten does not fit the voice at all).
Parts 4 and 5 of The Reign of Terror do honour the cast and sets of the lost episodes very well. Where they've had to make things up, they don't stand out like a sore thumb.
The problem, however, lies in the direction. It's dreadful. Had they decided to ignore the surrounding episodes and done their own thing that might have been acceptable - foolhardy but brave - but they are trying to match their animation with very static studio scenes, mostly medium close-up 2 / 3 shots, with only a few portrait close-ups dotted about.
The animation opts for lots and lots of close-ups - but not of the variety shown in the actual episodes, where a close-up means a portrait shot of the actor. Instead we get many shots of people's eyes and hands, which simply aren't evident in any of the four existing instalments. There is also the problem of too many shots per scene and fast intercutting between. Someone opening a door involves about a dozen individual shots, including close-ups on eyes and hands. The short, simple line: "It's probably just a chill" has three shots covering it.
Had a film or TV programme been directed and edited in this way it would have been laughed off the screen as amateurish or pretentious. It is significant that no later animations ever adopted this directorial style. The company behind this effort was Big Finish. They clearly needed to stick to audio.
Trivia:
- The half million viewers lost last week were regained this week but the AI figure remained at 53.
- A competition was run by Big Finish, the prize being an animated version of the winner. This was to be used for a speaking soldier in the church crypt scenes, for whom no real image existed. He's the soldier with the anachronistic-looking beard.
- Fight Arranger David Anderson, who had played the Guard Captain in The Aztecs, once again plays a soldier in this episode.
- It was during rehearsals for this episode that David Whitaker announced his departure from the show, and that Dennis Spooner would be replacing him.
- The day before broadcast Delia Derbyshire and the Radiophonic Workshop featured on the BBC Light Programme in response to a listener's letter about the electronic music used in the series.
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