Phew - my last recon until The Knight of Jaffa, 23 episodes away - which is the first of only two missing episodes in the second season. I think I might find season 3 quite a trial, to be honest: I may have to write shorter reviews. Which is effectively what I'm going to do now, but at the moment I can bulk it out with a couple of factual sections. At least one reader said they found the info useful, so I'll try not to feel too bad about it.
Anyway, let's do the opinionated bit first. This has been my favourite episode from a writing point of view, with fewer contrived coincidences. All the characterisation is good, and most of the guest cast have strongly individual personalities - it's only really Jules and Jean that blur together, and if I'd seen more of them in motion that might have compensated.
There's a part of me that winces at the classist way the jailer is always the butt of the jokes, but I can also put that aside and enjoy the moments. Lemaitre is turning out to be very interesting, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that he's the mysterious Stirling. Robespierre's paranoia - a self-fulfilling prophesy, since his actions are about to ensure they really are out to get him, assuming the story follows the actual history of the time - is pitched just right.
On the other hand, although it seemed as if Léon's death is supposed to be an emotional moment I couldn't really feel this, since I disliked him at first sight. This hardly matters, since the reactions of the others were so affecting. I may have disagreed with Barbara's attachment to the swine, but it's still a horrible thing to happen; and the discussion about people not being defined by one facet of their identity is really quite sophisticated.
Missing from the Archives, Part 5: Recovering Reign
The Reign of Terror was one of the serials completely missing from the BBC archives when an audit was taken in 1978, shortly after the junkings were halted. Four years later a copy of the final episode was returned from a private collection; and then, two years later, the four known surviving episodes were discovered at a TV station in Cyprus.
The combination of missing episodes, hopeful fans and a mischievous press resulted in a number of hoaxes and rumours regarding the alleged existence of missing episodes. The two relevant ones here are, first, a (completely untrue) story that the individual who returned the final episode had all the rest and kept them because he didn't trust the BBC; and second, a report from tabloid newspaper The Sun that Robert Mugabe was keeping them (along with Marco Polo) because he hated the British!
This time and last, I was surprised to see brief periods of motion in the reconstruction. These came about because an Australian had filmed them directly from the TV during broadcast. There were six sections in each episode, all very brief; but they did provide welcome relief.
A final piece of news, and one which almost made me postpone my viewing, was the announcement that 2|Entertain are animating the missing episodes for the DVD release. I'll post an update on that when I've seen the results of their efforts.
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 5th September 1964
Viewers: 6.9 million
Chart Position: 39
Appreciation Index: 53
Rating:
7.5/10.
Next Time:
Prisoners of Conciergerie.
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