Doctor Who has had many important episodes over it's sixty year run with some coming as recent as just this past year. However the episode itself whilst not important in any meaningful way does include alot of firsts for the series with of those firsts really being that this is the shows first ever series finale and so then join me as I review the episode that saw the first ever series of Doctor Who go out on a really high note and with a bang with the episode in question being called simply just "The Reign Of Terror" enjoy.
The plot of this episode is that when The Doctor , Ian , Barbera and Susan land in France during the French Revolution they must find away to save themselves before they are killed. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot thats actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good with the plot of the episode being really high up there interms of Doctor Who plots as that's really just how good the plot of this episode really was as the plot of this episode does a good job of keeping you guessing about what's going to happens next and as a result it does make the plot come across as being a really well written plot which given who is writing this episode really isn't all that surprising at all with the plot of this episode of episode also being really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Starring in this episode is William Hartnell as The Doctor , William Russell as Ian Chesterton and Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright. Also starring in this episode is Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman , Keith Anderson as Robespierre , Jack Cunningham as The Jailer , Jeffry Wickham as Webster , Neville Smith as D'Argenson , Laidlaw Dalling as Rouvray , Peter Walker as The Small Boy , James Cairncross as Lemaitre , Roy Herrick as Jean , Donald Morley as Jules Renan , Tony Wall as Napoléon Bonaparte , Caroline Hunt as Danielle , Edward Brayshaw as Léon Colbert , Santa Claus: The Movie star John Barrard as The Shopkeeper and John Law as Paul Barras.
Now the interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / resented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good. Which is really nothing new for this show as the show in this early batch of episodes always had some really good acting in ti with this episode of course being no exception to this rule as all of the actors in this episode really do turn in some really wonderful performances with the same thing also being true for the episodes cast who more then hold there own when it comes to acting against the series main cast with the acting in this episode really being helped by the fact that the script for this episode is just so good that all this episodes cast have to do is just say the lies as they are written and a good performance will come out of them naturally which is something that really does help the overall quality of the acting that's in this episode.
Doing the animation for this episode is the legends and the greats that are currently over at Theta Sigma. Now the interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual animation that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual animation that's actually featured / resented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good. However despite the episode episode having some really good high quality animation in the stories two missing episodes the animation in this episode is also really filled to the brim with alot of cuts which is something that does get annoying really quickly and alot of the characters are given this plastic look which really just makes them look rather odd and really weird this despite the fact that the movements on the characters were really good and really fluid as well with there being alot of detail in each and every single frame of animation and as a result while the quality of the animation in this episode is indeed really high there are alot of things in this episodes animation that also make it come across as also being really off putting as well.
This episode actually features a ton of firsts for the show like the first time that a child actor speaks on the show and the first script to be written by Dennis Spooner. However most importantly is the fact that this episode actually features the first time that the Doctor Who production team actually did some on location filming and while the location filming doesn't feature any of the main cast as it's Brian Proudfoot stood in for William Hartnell during those scenes and while those scenes are incredibly short it does add alot of production value to the show as nothing will ever beat filming on location and while the locations chosen filming aren't really all that impressive at all the very fact that they went on location in the first place is truly something to behold as it does cost alot of money to film on location and the very fact that the BBC approved location filming for a show that hadn't even finished it's first series yet really does show you just how much faith that they had in the show at the time.
One of the major issues that this episode does have is the fact that the film footage episode three really wasn't looked after. As the film footage with Ian is pretty much close to being unwatchable as there are alot of grain in that film footage plus many other things which is of course no fault of the BBC as the episode was lost for many years but they should have gone to some length to trying to repair the episode as a whole when uploading them to BBCIPlayer or when it came to the 2013 DVD as that footage is key to that part of the story and alot of the time that footage is borderline unwatchable and it's something that you can't really miss because if you did then you'd be left wondering how Ian escaped from the French prison in the first place but with that issue aside there are other issues to be found in this episode like the fact that alot of the guest characters do come across as being rather one dimensional characters and aren't as interesting as they really should have been given the fact that this episode is a historical episode that's based on a real event.
To say that this episode goes to to some dark places is a huge understatement as not only does one of the episodes cliffhangers have Barbera and Susan get taken away to be be-headed by guillotine. There's also a cliffhanger where The Doctor almost dies in a fire and The Doctor himself just straight up knocks a guy out with this more darker version of the show being truly shocking to see especially if your used to things being a lot more lighter in tone and heck even the main characters do find themselves "loosing" quite alot of the time and it's not until the final two episodes where things start to turn around for our characters and while having a more darker Doctor Who story does indeed work for this story it's something that would also get old and depressing really quickly if it was something that happened all the time and even then it only works for this story given the fact that ti's taking during the French Revolution which was a notoriously dark time in France's history and as a result having a much more darker story in this time period is a really fitting thing to have in this episodes plot.
Now then while I cannot for the absolutely life of me remember what this episodes grand total running time even was I do know that this episode has / had a rough grand total running time of roughly two hours and thirty thirty minuets. With this episode being six episodes long with episodes four and five being fully animated episodes with this episode count being the perfect amount of episodes for this story to have as the story doesn't have alot of there interms of plot to really cover anything really longer then that and if the story was given a short episode count yes it would really have alot more of a focused plot but it would also mean missing out some really good character stuff as well and it would also mean that the story as a whole would also really run the risk of being butchered as well which would go a really long way to make this episode a really bad episode where as as it is this is a really good episodes thanks to it's running time but I will admit that this episode really does gave some really good pacing to it tho.
So now then as this is a action show that means that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action thats actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. As sixties Doctor Who really wasn't known for having good action in it and while that is also true for this episode as well the action that we do get in this episode was really good as added to the story and was also really exciting to see as we got to see the characters do whatever it takes just to get out of whatever situation that there in and while we don't get to see anything to over the top which does make sense given that Doctor Who was made on a really small budget and as such couldn't really do all that much action wise what they do get to do action wise do also work really well in the context of the episode and was also really exciting to see as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Overall it's not hard to see why alot of people really do like this episode as the episode really does have alot of really good things going for it however sadly it's things like the cuts in the animation that bring down the episodes quality down by quite alot along with alot of other things also mentioned in this review as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very episode in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very episode really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly an 8 out of 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from Amazon . Co . Uk , the official Doctor Who fandom wiki page and Google Images. With my personally preferred website that I personally preferred to use to get the images that I personally used in this very review being the wonderful Google Images since all of the images that are currently up and and featured / presented to us on Google Images are all fairly high in quality and as well as being fairly freaking high in definition.