Published: August 1987

Edition read: Target first, 1987

Coolest Cover: Anybody making jokes about Hartnell and a big chopper can go to the back of the room. But not all at once, because I don’t want to have to shout. The guard behind Hartnell also seems to have fallen asleep on the job.

The BBC Budget Wouldn’t Run To: I’m fairly sure Barbara and Susan’s rescue from the tumbril was rather less elaborate on screen.

The TARDIS materialises with ..."a harsh grinding wail, as if some vast primitive creature were in torment".

Childhood Recollections: This is another one of those where the well-thumbed pages tell me that I read it all the way through, although whether that was before or after I had it signed by Carole Ann Ford is another matter.

Ramblings: It’s a nice touch on Target’s part and a good demonstration of the value of planning that Nigel Robinson’s adaptation of ‘The Sensorites’ should be followed up by the succeeding story, in this case ‘The Reign of Terror’ as adapted by Ian Marter. Somewhat unusual territory for Marter, whose last two books for Target- ‘The Invasion’ and ‘Harry Sullivan’s War’- relied more on action and thrills, it’s nevertheless a story which Marter makes his own, although the subtle differences in tone emphasise an approach rather different from that of original script writer Dennis Spooner.

Having decided to place two adjoining stories in successive places in the schedule, it’s a slight disappointment (and one which could have been overcome with a little more editorial guidance) that the linking device of the Doctor and Ian falling out at the end of ‘The Sensorites’ and Ian and Barbara being thrown off the Ship at the beginning of ‘The Reign of Terror is lost; although a small detail, it’s important in terms of giving the regulars a reason to explore and from there become involved in the action of the story. From there on, what we have is certainly a faithful adaptation of the existing episodes and as far as I can tell, of the missing ones too, although Marter’s tendency to compress the action fo the fifth and sixth episodes does suggest that by this stage the Target writers were regularly using tapes of the episodes concerned as reference material. In any case, the action is fairly straightforward- having split everybdy up in the second episode, the story is based around reuniting the regulars at the end of the fifth, with a fair bit of escaping and being captured in between.

The characterisation isn’t exceptionally good; it’s fairly evident that Spooner’s broadly comic gaoler wasn’t quite to Marter’s taste, and he’s often depicted as rather more menacing or simply downplayed- but then again, apart from a few asides here and there, the picture of the French Revolution presented by the story is a particularly English one, and the vast majority of the revolutionaries are bloodthirsty, stupid and corruptible, while the royalists are romantic and honourable. Leon is given a certain dignity, and Robespierre does begin to come to life as one of the series’ first attempts at dramatising a genuine historical figure, but as with several of the historical stories, the regulars are struggling as much against circumstances as individuals. Marter’s tendency to describe violence in detail is here indulged in various instances such as the deaths of Rouvray and d’Argenson and Robespierre’s downfall, although it’s interesting to note that it never quite feels as incongruous in this historical setting as in some of Marter’s other books with a more advanced setting. If there’s one thing which perhaps says more about the book’s quality than any other, though, it’s that I found myself looking up Robespierre’s Wikipedia page last night- an interesting life, but I can’t help thinking that this was exactly what Sydney Newman intended the historical settings of Doctor Who to do from the outset.