Series 1 Episode 38: Guests of Madame Guillotine

Serial: The Reign of Terror
Episode: 2 (Guests of Madame Guillotine)
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Barbara, Ian, and Susan

Writer: Dennis Spooner
Director: Henric Hirsch
Producer: Verity Lambert
Original Air Date: 15/08/1964

WHERE'S THE GIRL WHO WAS BURNING FOR LIFE? (and other stories)

In which Susan gives up, Babs is propositioned for sex in a Parisian jail, Ian gets himself involved in an English spy ring, and the Doctor commits murder (probably).

And we begin with NO RESOLUTION to the whole ‘the Doctor is about to be roasted alive in a burning house’ predicament, just a recap before we’re taken to ‘PARIS’ via a handy, captioned cityscape and FOOTAGE OF A GUILLOTINE GUILLOTINING. I kind of wish I hadn’t wasted the ‘Madame Guillotine’ song from The Scarlet Pimpernel on last week’s episode now. Though I've decided this week's WTF theme tune is 'Where's the Girl', as it combines a lament for a lost 'renegade heart' (Susan) and the creepy, sexually-predatory overtones of Barbara's jailbird fate this week.

Anyway, we’re now at the ‘CONCIERGERIE PRISON’ (or so the sign tells us), where assorted crones (tricoteuses?) are chuckling with their knitting outside the gates. Inside, Babs is trying to sort shit out with the presiding official, asking whether they’ll be allowed to tell their story; they won’t. Said official is satisfied of their guilt of being in the company of traitors; the sentence is…DEATH! And oh gosh the camerawork that’s meant to fool us into believing William Russell isn’t on holiday is hilarious: only Barbara and Susan are in shot, and then they cut away to Ian looking grim against a curtain before cutting back to Babs et al. Slow hand clap.

Russ just wants to be in Shagaluf already.

Glorious Babs DEMANDS the right to speak (hurrah!) only to be told she has no rights (BOOO!) and that they’re all going to be guillotined; the official orders that they be taken to the cells, and points his scrunchily-unforgiving face towards the camera.

In the prison, there’s more hilarious pretending William Russell is there, as we are led to believe he’s already been slung into a cell thanks to Susan yelling ‘IAN!’ and flinging herself at the door behind which he is apparently refusing to stay back by the wall. Oh BBC, you missed a trick by not recording him yelling back.

Susan is bundled out of shot while the lumpy jailer (who has a comedy northern accent because he's working class and those are the Rules of the Beeb) takes Barbara to one side. And OH GOD NO, he basically tells Babs she’ll get preferential treatment in return for sexual favours, only this is a kids’ show and it’s all done through innuendo. That is…horrifying. Barbara, unfortunately, has dealt with far worse (I’m looking at YOU, Vasor, you appalling would-be rapist...Ye Gods did that actually happen?), and merely looks mildly embarrassed for him. Until the point at which he straight up propositions her and she gives him a look of white-hot rage AND SMACKS HIM IN THE FACE. DAMN RIGHT, BABS. Still, I can’t quite believe what I've just witnessed. Or that Babs is getting leched-on so regularly that it's now old hat. Or that she's that polite to this particular lech for that long. Seriously, though, we wonder why we have rape culture and a society where women are expected to deal with this kind of bollocks on a regular basis and be pleasant to arseholes like this until the last possible moment.

Anyway, in return for refusing to trade her body for a less revolting cell, Babs gets to be locked up with Susan in the shittiest cell of them all. Susan observes that the smell is godawful; Babs says it reminds her of when they were prisoners before in prehistoric times; Susan says there’s an important difference, which is that the Doctor and Ian were with them, then. EXCUSE ME, SUSAN, LET’S HAVE LESS OF THAT. Who was it who came up with the whole Flaming Skull thing in the first place, eh? You did, you morbid little weirdo. And Babs was having a bad day then, and wasn’t her usual enterprising self, so of course she was…er...mostly useless. But who took out the Daleks with mud pies? Barbara. Who came up with the thought transference plan on the Sense Sphere? Barbara. And who came up with taking out the Sensorites by thinking defiant thoughts? You did! Together, you are kickass women who very often don’t need no man; don’t be a party pooper.

And oh, she heard me, apparently, because now she reckons knowing where they are might help, so she asks Barbara to lift her up so she can see through the bars because she’s a short-arse. Which Barbara does. And it’s inexplicably endearing. Nothing doing, though, and soon Susan is (understandably) wishing she knew what had happened to her Grandfather; Barbara, who seems to be in practical optimism mode, is sure he made it out of the house.

I know Susan is tiny, but this is still impressive.

Well it looks like we’re about to find out, because here’s the Doctor a-coughing and a-spluttering and being revived by the urchin boy from last episode! Hurrah for discount Gavroche! (Yes, yes, I know it’s the wrong revolution, pipe down.) And OH CUE GUSHING the newly-revived Doctor has the following burning question for his urchin saviour: ‘Where are my friends?’

I mean the fact that he chooses this term when his granddaughter is among the missing is a bit odd, but oh for all his blather about dumping the humans in the next place the Tardis lands, it seems friendship has indeed taken hold. Gavroche (or whatever his name is) tells him his crew is about to join the headless hunt, at which point the Doctor calls him ‘a very brave boy’, can’t begin to thank him enough, and determines to rescue his friends. Gavroche is woodenly horrified but the Doctor tells him he rescued him so now the Doctor must rescue them; Gavroche wants to come with him, but has to look after his mum. Oh and his name is Jean-Pierre. He bids him farewell with a cute little salute and yeah the surprising rapport with kids is a joy to behold.

So now the Doctor (or his body double, rather) goes strolling across the fields to Paris.

Back at the prison, Babs and Susan are feigning sleep when the jailer looks in on them. Babs is raring to get their escape on, but Susan is being a real downer:

SUSAN: Oh, what's the use? We'll never get out of this dreadful place.
BARBARA: Oh, you mustn't lose heart, Susan.
SUSAN: I'm not going to fool myself.
BARBARA: Well, think of the times we've been in trouble before. We've always managed to get out of it in the end.
SUSAN: Oh, we've been lucky. We can't go on being lucky. Things catch up with you.
BARBARA: I've never heard you talk like this before. You're usually so optimistic.

Blimey. Seems like Susan’s finally reached the end of her tether. Everyone’s allowed a low point, and everyone gets to despair, and Susan does have the added worry of not knowing whether her grandfather is alive or dead, but the way this pans out dramatically annoys me because Susan is basically there to poor cold water on Barbara’s escape plans by being negative and not helping so that the serial isn’t over in five minutes. Which, as I say, bugs me.

Anyway, Babs continues to show gumption enough for two, observing that there have been times when they’ve made their own luck, and hatching a plan to crowbar her way out of the cell and into the sewers using planks of wood from the bed. You have GOT to admire this woman. Sensing that her cellmate is currently about as much use as a chocolate teapot, she steers Susan bodily into a corner like a shop dummy on wheels and tells her to look out for the guards while she continues to tear the bed apart with her bare hands.

Nobody puts baby in a corner. Except Barbara.

Meanwhile, there are groans coming from Ian’s cell; the jailer tells the moaner to shut up or he’ll give the place a bad name. Inside the cell, it transpires it’s not Ian who’s getting vocal but rather his cellmate Webster, who’s busy dying of a gunshot wound. Ian has apparently been dividing his time between tending Webster and hatching escape plans. He’s really rather sweet with his bedside manner.

At any rate, Webster’s not getting out of there alive, and he appeals to Ian as a fellow Englishman (how does he know?) to promise to go and find an English guy called John Stirling (can’t get a more Englishy surname than that) who has information that will be useful in the event of an English war with France, which is...imminent? Ongoing? I genuinely can't be arsed to look it up. Anyhoo, Ian can hardly refuse a guy who is quite literally dying in his arms, and promises; Webster tells him to find a guy called Jules Renan at the sign of Le Chien Gris, and then dies. Ian is left to cover up the corpse.

Goodnight, sweet...Thingummy...

I’m always interested to see the extent to which the humans in particular think of their travels as actually real, especially when they’re stranded in their own planet’s history. Post-Aztecs Barbara seems to have developed a kind of positive fatalism, whereby she assumes that everything has always already happened so everything will more or less work out if they manage to keep their heads above water long enough not to be murdered, and seems to have sworn off getting involved with the politics; Ian, however, is about to find himself embroiled in some sort of English Secret Service subplot purely because he wants to honour the wishes of a dying man who, from his temporal point of view, has already been dead for more than a century.

Anyway, the Doctor (or his body double) is still strolling along country roads that actually look quite French to me, so well done, location people. He comes across a group of tax-dodgers digging a road under the supervision of a bullying boss, and stops to ask directions to Paris…and to sass the bully in question:

DOCTOR: I'm sure you're very experienced at this job, my man. But, as an impartial onlooker I think I might have a bit of an advice to give you.
OVERSEER: Well, I'll listen to anything that'll get this job finished quickly.
DOCTOR: Well, if you were to expend your energy helping with the road, instead of bawling and shouting at them every few seconds, you might be able to get somewhere. Good day to you, sir!

Alas this isn’t quite the mic-drop moment he’d hoped for: the overseer asks him for papers he doesn’t have, and when it becomes apparent that the Doctor hasn’t payed his taxes either, the overseer hands him a pick and sets him to work at gunpoint. And refers to him as ‘skinny’. Oh Doctor, you do pick your battles, don’t you?

Back in the cells, Babs is also putting her back into some manual labour and needs a breather. Her hands are torn to pieces, and Susan’s are worse, but she wants to take over from Babs to take her mind off things. Attagirl, Susan. But oh, it really hurts her hands, so Babs steers her back over to the bed where they sit and rest and look bloody knackered but are also rather pleased with themselves for having made progress. My proactive darlings, I salute you.

Someone’s coming, and Babs hastily covers the hole they’ve made with a blanket; Susan thinks their time’s up, but it’s only the jailer come with food. He spots the blankets and is having none of Babs’s ‘wot me guv’ routine; he nearly rumbles them but just as he’s about to pick the blankets up (revealing the hole they’ve been digging), the jailer is called away by some bigwig called Lemaitre; Babs and Susan cuddle to express their relief.

I will never not gif Babara smiling.

Meanwhile, Ian is staring at the bars to relieve the tedium of sharing a cell with a corpse, while Lemaitre examines said deado. He asks Ian how long Webster’s been dead, and when Ian doesn’t answer he pins him up against the wall by the throat. Ian is so done by this point he merely looks at his attacker in bored condescension as he answers his questions, taking care to sass him by calling him ‘citizen’ in a pointed manner. Lemaitre asks Ian whether Webster spoke; Ian lies to his face and says he didn’t. I’m a bit concerned for Ian these days, or maybe it’s just the old Chestertonian thing of not quite being himself when he’s not welded to the side of the Bae. At any rate, he’s looking grimmer and more detached than ever…which could have something to do with the fact that he’s just watched a man die, or indeed the fact that this mostly left-leaning character is on the wrong side of the French Revolution. In fact, Ian allying himself with the aristocracy for this serial strikes an odd note.

Anyway, Lemaitre is asking the jailer whether he heard Ian and Webster talking; the jailers says they did but not for long. Lemaitre decides to take Ian off the execution list…I think? Well, he crosses somebody’s name off the list, anyway. Could be the dead guy. Either way, looks like interesting times for Ian and his new frenemy.

#sorrynotsorry

Back in Susan and Barbara’s cell, our faves are reflecting on their lucky escape; Babs is cheerily musing on the wonders of the kind of slop you’ll eat when you’re hungry; Susan makes a bleurgh-type noise, allows her slop to splodge from the spoon, and puts her food down. EAT YOUR FOOD, SUSAN. Anyway, they get back to work; Babs says it’s her turn, but Susan wants a go until…EEK! IT’S RATS!

Ah, the sixties. Because there isn’t a table to hand, Susan immediately leaps onto the bed, shrieking. I mean…fair enough, I suppose. I’d probably jump if I lifted up a blanket and there were rats under it. Babs hops to it and blocks up the hole again, and Susan has had just about enough. She says she can’t go on with their escape attempt with all those rats down there…AND BARBARA JUST AGREES TO GIVE UP!?!? WHAT. THE. FUCK. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. She literally says ‘we’ll just stay where we are’, which is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I appreciate that they’re at the end of their tether, but why the hell is she indulging Susan to the extent that she agrees to SIT THERE AND WAIT FOR DEATH? It’s ludicrously out of character and my blood is pretty-much boiling at the thought that the writers expected people to swallow this out-of-character nonsense because ladies are scared of rats and would literally rather die than be confronted with them ever again. I repeat: when confronted with the choice between death or rats, they choose death. I WILL CLEAR THIS PLACE.

Barbara accepts death.

(Though...hang about. Having said that this is out of character for both Barbara and Susan, I am now reminded of that time on Skaro when Babs was willing to stay and wait for death with Ian who was trapped in some Dalek casing. Which is a disturbing trend.)

Back on the road, the Doctor is still digging with the tax dodgers. Noticing that the overseer is counting his money and is therefore a greedy bastard, the Doctor hatches a plan and tells his new pals to run with it. And it’s fucking silly but I fucking love it. His plan is to yell in excitement until the overseer comes running and then go OH LOOK IT’S AN ECLIPSE. I’m deaded. (Though the infotext suggests this is not as random as it seems, as apparently there was a partial eclipse over Paris on 31 January 1794. Well then.) While the overseer is looking for the non-existent eclipse, the Doctor picks his pocket; when the overseer goes back to counting his coins, the Doctor pretends to have found a coin in the dirt. The overseer starts digging for himself and doesn’t want anyone else to help because it’s his, his own, his precious; while the overseer is busy, the Doctor MURDERS HIM WITH A SPADE. THE FUCK...!? It seems the stone-wielding Doctor from An Unearthly Child is still alive and kicking.

But oh wait! Phew! It seems the freshly-felled overseer is snoring. I mean, the Doctor has put coins on his eyes like on a dead person, and the infotext tells me the snoring and the Doctor saying ‘pleasant dreams’ were unscripted ad libs (implying that the Doctor does actually kill him in the script), but he’s alive when the Doctor leaves him, which is a small mercy. Also, I now want a version of The Princess Bride in which William Hartnell is Wesley.

Just...y'know...gleefully battering a man to death.

And so the Doctor goes on his merry way along French-looking country lanes, and is now only 5km from Paris.

Back in the cells, Susan is sleeping on Babs when the jailer tells them to get out and get in line; Susan asks where Ian is; the jailer tells her he was lucky because Lemaitre crossed him off the list. So that did happen. And OH SHIT they’re being dispatched for the guillotine!

Back in Ian’s cell, Ian hears the hullaballoo outside, and looks through the bars; horrorstruck, he realises his fellow travellers are for the chop.

Ian reverts to his factory settings.

MON DIEU! HOW WILL BARBARA AND SUSAN GET OUT OF THIS ONE? WILL IAN HULK HIS WAY OUT? WILL THE DOCTOR DEVELOP MO FARAH-LIKE SPEED ACROSS THE 5K? WILL SUSAN FIND HER GUMPTION AND GO ALONG WITH BARBARA’S NEXT ESCAPE PLAN WITHOUT GIVING UP AT THE FIRST SIGN OF INTERFERENCE FROM RODENTS? WHAT MANNER OF DEUS EX MACHINA IS WAITING IN THE WINGS TO GET US OUT OF THIS CLIFFHANGER OF ALL CLIFFHANGERS?

Summary (as applicable to this episode)

Does it pass the Bechdel test? Hurdles it.

Is the gaze problematic? Nope.

Is/are the woman companion(s) dressed 'for the Dads'? No. Though Susan and Barbara finally get to show a bit of clavicle. Scandalous.

Does a woman fall over/twist her ankle (whilst running from peril)? No running this week.

Does a woman wander off alone for the sole dramatic purpose of getting into trouble so she can be rescued later? Nope.

Is/are the woman companion(s) captured? Everyone is captured.

Does the Doctor/a man companion/any other man have to rescue the woman companion(s) from peril? The Doctor seems to be on a one-man mission to save his Crew, but he spends most of the episode pissing about with shovels, and Ian's locked up, so Babs and Susan have to save themselves YET ARE PREVENTED FROM DOING SO BY BULLSHIT WRITING INVOLVING RATS AND UNCHARACTERISTIC PESSIMISM.

Is a woman placed under threat of actual bodily harm? Yup. Everyone is. Plus Babs is propositioned.

Does a woman have to deal with a sexual predator? Yup. Yuck.

Is/are the woman companion's/s' first/only reaction(s) to peril gratuitous screaming? No.

Does a woman companion go into hysterics over something reasonably minor? Susan is stereotypically hysterical about the rats, though she has had a rough day.

Is a woman 'spared' the ordeal of having to do/witness something unpleasant by a man who makes a decision on her behalf/keeps her deliberately ignorant? No. Though Babs seems willing to let Susan die rather than allow for the possibility of her Space Daughter encountering any more rodents.

Does a man automatically disbelieve or belittle something a woman (companion) says happened to her? Not really applicable this episode as the women are in their own cell this week.

Does a man talk over a woman or talk about a woman as though she isn't there? No.

Does the woman companion have to be calmed/comforted by the Doctor/a man companion/a man? No, but Susan has to be cuddled and comforted by Babs a lot.

Is a woman the first/only person to be (most gratuitously) menaced by the episode's antagonist(s)? I'll say. Ian gets crossed off the death list, and the Doctor is out and about murdering people with shovels, while Babs and Susan are carted off to get beheaded at the end of the episode.

Is a man shamed into doing/not doing something because the alternative is a woman doing/not doing something? No.

Does the woman companion come up with a plan? Barbara comes up with an escape plan but Susan pours cold water on it at every opportunity; when she finally gets on board, the plan is scuppered by rats.

Does the woman companion do something stupid/banal/weird which inspires a man to be a Man with a Plan? No.

Does a woman come up with a theory and is it ridiculed by the Doctor/a man? N/A.

Does a woman call the Doctor out on his bullshit? N/A.

Does a woman get to be a badass? Barbara gets to slap the jailer when he propositions her for sex and she is generally kickass about tearing a bed apart with her bare hands and trying to dig her way out of the cell.

Is the young, strong, straight, white male lead the person most often in control of the situation? Not really.

Is there past/future/alien sexism? PROPOSITIONING BARBARA FOR SEX IN EXCHANGE FOR PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT IN JAIL.

Does a 'present'-day character call anybody out on past/future/alien sexism? Barbara smacks him in the gob.

Does an past/future/alien person have the hots for a woman companion and is it reciprocated? Yes and no. See above.

Did a woman write/direct/produce this episode? No/No/Yes.

Verdict

A seriously mixed bag this week. While I appreciate the fact that Babs gives the jailer a good hard slap, I'd rather she weren't propositioned on the first place; it's really not ok. Then she gets to be a positive, proactive force (and indeed pull some fantastic faces) when she's trying her damnedest to escape, but ultimately gives up and accepts death because Susan's having a pessimistic moment. Susan is clearly worried about her grandfather and on a bit of a downer because she's in very real danger of being guillotined. I appreciate that there is actually dialogue in which Barbara comments on how unusual this is for Susan, and it is interesting at least to see her at a low ebb, but I flat out refuse to believe that Susan Foreman would choose death over rats, or that Barbara would ever let her do such a thing. It's lazy, sexist writing that's only there to throw a spanner in their escape plans to spin out the plot and could have been avoided easily by simply having them run out of time, which is entirely believable, as I reckon it would take bloody ages to crowbar your way out of a stone prison cell with a plank of wood, and you probably would be taken away to be executed before you finished the job. Ian is a bit out of sorts, too, and seems to have forgotten all about his fellow travellers until he sees them being led to the guillotine. Now he's somewhat recklessly throwing in his lot with eighteenth-century MI6 just for the hell of it. Plus, as I say, it's odd that he's on the side of the aristocracy in this serial as he's generally the leftier of the humans. Meanwhile, the Doctor is having a whale of a time murdering the locals. A few hours away from the mellowing influence of his granddaughter and the humans and he's already whacking people with spades with gay abandon. The man is a menace. Let's hope Susan finds her mojo next week, and that the Team is reunited soon (but not at the expense of Barbara's proactive badassery).