The Violent & Morbid Season Finale - Doctor Who: The Reign of Terror (1964) - REVIEW 

Due to illness and the festive period, I've fallen behind on the production of these Hartnell reviews, which I apologise for. So they'll be taking a break for a couple of weeks and then we'll make our way to Season 2!

I love the 60s historicals. The Reign of Terror doesn't give as much context as others, despite having history teacher Barbara there. However, it gives the story its oppressive, chaotic atmosphere, and really gives the audience an impression of how disorienting time travel would be.

Hahaha. I love Spooner's writing and sense of humour. Hartnell is wonderful here - clubbing a man with a spade!

A revisitation of revolutionary France would be great, especially if the doctor was paranoid the entire time of running into the first doctor and crew

Its interesting how in the pilot episode Susan borrows a book on the French Revolution, and then later they wind up going to that time period.

The Doctors French getup is simply fabulous!

3:24 I love that you played the usual Family Guy clip but in it's French audio clip in a ironic way cause the Doctor and his crew are in France, So the joke does make sense.

I love this, it is one of those serials that is a rollercoaster in quality. The best thing about it are the costumes. They really went all out

I’m honestly surprised we haven’t had the series go back and revisit some of these time periods, I’d love to see the Aztecs and French Revolution done with the modern day budget

People say it’s out of character when Capaldi shoots someone, but here we’ve got Hartnell donking people on the head with shovels, jars and whatever he get his hands on! The First Doctor is more violent than The War Doctor! XD

11:07 Looking sharp, Doctor!

I recently watched this serial again and I love it so much, The Jailer played by Jack Cunningham was my favourite character in this serial

The first season was pretty impressive as a whole, and I enjoyed all the season 1 reviews. Thank you!

The Doctor is the real Reign of Terror here, beating up everyone. And keep in mind, that he's not using his true potential here.... he's not using his Venusian Karate skills.

I'll be honest, I find this story pretty unengaging. Not awful, but just... Bland. Fair play for getting such a big review out of the content.

In the very first episode, you could see Susan reading a book from the French Revolution, then the show went full circle to do a serial on the Reign of Terror. All of this was proposed by William Russell himself.

I'll give Planet 55 credit, It was a bit of a decent attempt for them to recreate Eps 4 and 5 and Ido appreciate it, But I don't think it's quite prefect, I think their later work 'The Tenth Planet Ep 4 & The Moonbase Eps 1 & 3' is better than their first animated work,.

this might be my fav animation... i've never seen animation like it. It has a life to it that no other Doccy Who animations ever match. It's super stylised but idk I find it really exciting... like it's made of liquid that is constantly shifting about, never resting, always ready to show me visuals I've never witnessed in my life. Love the idea that it's the reign of terror is in reference to the Doccy. I adore the cliffhanger where the Doccy is burning coz it announces the name of the next episode as Guests of Madame Guillotine, which is so playfully and shockingly dark that it is one of my fav cliffhangers in Doccy Who. Tbh, this and The Massacre leave me utterly confused as to what is going on and whose side is what. This one is grim and fun, whereas The Massacre is entirely bland except for one bit when a dude is swording someone out the house - love the intensity of him there.

I didn't even notice Ian was gone. He still seemed like the one of the main characters apart from the Doctor in this story while the others just spent a lot of time sick, in jail, or in hiding .

11:06 has got to be my favourite edit that you've done in any of your reviews. I died of laughter 🤣

First Doctor vs Evil Dan!

Not sure about it being taught in primary schools in the 50s and 60s {it probably was} but you have to remember that A Tale of Two Cities was a very popular novel.

I think one of the reasons for the lack of context given is that the French Revolution was a mainstay of history classes in British schools at the time, so most of the audience would have been familiar with the main historical characters and the general outline.

Something to watch after I’m done writing? Sweet!

The French Revolution was certainly a part of the general knowledge of the UK at the time, with recent adaptations of The Scarlet Pimpernel being fresh in the memory. Also, as you say, it was a period of history that was taught about in schools at the time. As such, figures such as Robespierre and Napoleon Bonaparte didn't need contextualising for the audience. A couple of minor points: I wouldn't have said the young boy was cockney; he's certainly speaking in RP, and it's unlikely - given the later edict regarding Dodo - that a cockney accent would be permissible on the BBC at the time. Also, you mispronounced 'Cypriot': it's 'sip-', not 'sipe-' (despite Cyprus being pronounced as the latter). Also, Lemaître is the French for... the Master!

(Edited for brevity) Great video, Will!! You'll get a view from me when I've been able to watch the story myself - I had no clue there was footage or video of any kind for this adventure.

I really enjoy these! Are you planning on doing all the classic series?

8:14 like the Chad that he is 🤣

Great video, it's always nice to see a positive perspective on a story I don't like that much myself. I found the Reign of Terror incredibly dull most of the time, and felt like it had nothing to say, really. Which you touch on in your review - the only scene of substance we get is the argument between Barbara and Ian, everything else is just a series of captures and breakouts, with an admittedly nice costume change for Hartnell thrown in. I don't even mind the liberties taken with the animation, either - it looks pretty good, and trying to pace the episodes a bit more quickly with fast and constant cuts is at least trying to make them less of a slog. Some more context would be nice, I agree - but even if we weren't going to get that, I wish we got at least a sense of what the story was about. I would argue that we get that in every other serial in the first year of Doctor Who, with the exception of the Keys of Marinus, the other stinker of the season in my mind, as much as some of it is fun (your Phoenix Wright music in that review being both hilarious and also incredibly apt haha). In any case, congrats on finishing series 1! I'm looking forward to series 2!

Crimes against liberty during revolutionary France - the original cancel culture. 😂 That’s too accurate.

This was the best video yet - thank you!

I actually got my Reign of Terror education from YT guy, Oversimplified, he's a gem!

When I got to episode 2 of this story and the first thing that happens is the messed up music intro I laughed for a good minute

I quite like this one, it’s probably one of my favourite Historicals. It does help that I am genuinely interested in The French Revolution and I enjoy the twists and turns of the story (though from a Historical perspective, this story is complete nonsense).

I was 10 when I bought the DVD of this, it had just hit US shelves and I was so excited for it! I loved the Invasion DVD animation and was excited to get more! I put it on as soon as I got home and... I hated it. I was never a fan of the pure historicals as a kid and this was awful. None of the history made sense. I thought the french revolution ended with Louie XVI's beheading and Napoleon taking power. I had no idea who Robespierre was at all, or what any of the sides in the story were actually fighting for! And the plot was very nasty in a way that bored younger me. And I still don't the Planet 55 style of faces, they just slip right into the uncanny valley. And this was not the best execution of them. As soon as I was done, I packed the DVD in its case and never watched it again. Which I never did with Doctor Who! I watched Revenge of The Cybermen like 20 times as a kid but not this! Even as I'm working through my own Hartnell Marathon to fill in all my gaps, I made an effort to skip this! However, your review has made me think about giving it a second look, and maybe using the Loose Cannon recon for eps 4 and 5. I don't think it will ever be a favorite, but I'm gonna give it a shot!

18:00 The original Jimquisition was quite different.

What about the “It’s probably just a chill” moment in the animation?

where is the episode about St. Bartholemew massacre didn't know there was one and would love to see it

I never knew 1st Doctor was very violent, bashing people in heads with shovel and ceramic jar😊😅

Am I the only person who was taken off guard by glamazon playing over the first doctor looking fresh in that military uniform?

Such a different world to today's rendering of Doctor Who. One of my biggest gripes with all the recent stuff is that you cannot go back in time to some historical period without the influence of some stupid aliens. They just cannot leave things alone due to just human goings on. Perhaps they think it's more exciting that way - no it's just rubbish and unimaginative.

O hope uou feel better soon

Do you get a pay rise for being drunk on the job

My Dad did the sound on this series :-) Yeh ! Uncredited though sadly, Chick Anthony.

iT wAs PrObAbLy JuSt ThE wInD That's all I can remember from watching this story on DVD

I actually know very little about the French Revolution

I like The Reigh of Terror

I rather like the early historical episodes in the classic series before aliens and the Doctor started getting too involved with everything. Speaking to the writing quality of this serial, it sure is tense and suspenseful all the way through. But i think the writers overuse coincidence and deus ex machina to get the TARDIS crew out of trouble. In episode 1, the Doctor collapses from smoke inhalation on the upper floor of a burning building. How will he get out of that? Tune in next week to find out... that he uh... just does with no explanation. Are we supposed to believe the little boy ran into the burning building and carried him out?And then he just walks 12km to Paris. This old man that's winded and complaining about his back constantly in previous episodes. Doesn't think to take the TARDIS. All right. And then Ian just randomly getting put in the most plot relevant cell and having the keys left in his lock... I diagree about your criticism of lack of context. It's basic common knowledge who Robespierre and Napoleon were, and even if a viewer isn't familiar with the time period, you can still understand from the context that they're strong authority figures.

My apologies to this story, but it does have the distinction of being a story that I fell asleep watching… on my first viewing… I barely remember much else about it, I’m afraid

Actually, I thought they came up with a pretty decent and involved story for this one, but I just didn't think it was much of a Doctor Who story.

Frankly, I reckon the 1960s kids were outside kicking their footballs around by part 3. Its the most dull historical for me and would be right near the bottom of my Classic rewatch list.

If one animation company could do all missing episodes, at least they'd all looked the same.

👍

It was not Cypriot civil war, it was Turkish colonisation.

I remember watching this as a 6 year old and I lost interest very quickly lost interest. Silly hats and no monsters. And being set in historic France made it too much like school. Remember this was during the golden age of 📺 and Sunday evening always had an historic drama- and Saturday afternoon after Grandstand and before Juke Box Jury was for entertainment purposes only

The animation is like..... bad anime.

1.) No drama for the first cliffhanger: The Doctor just activates his respitory bypass system. 2) All First Doctor companion-less stories, as a nod to An Unearthly Child, should have The Doctor bonk someone in the head.