Revolution for the final episode. Reception Broadcast and ratings Episode is missing The Reign of Terror received smaller audiences than previous serials due to the warmer weekends, but still maintained a position within the top 40 shows for the week. The first episode was broadcast on BBC1 on 8 August 1964, and was watched by 6.9 million viewers. The following two episodes maintained these figures, despite the latter's shift to the later time of 5:30pm. The fourth episode was broadcast at 5:15pm (due to coverage of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo) to 6.4 million viewers, while the final two episodes again shifted to 5:30pm to 6.9 and 6.4 million viewers, respectively. The Appreciation Index dropped slightly over the six episodes: the first received 58, while the second and third received 54 and 55, respectively; the fourth and fifth episodes received 53, before rising to 55 for the final episode. The score of 53 was the lowest for the show at the time, but still considered reasonable. The original master tapes for episodes 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 were wiped on 17 August 1967, and the master tape for episode 4 was wiped on 31 January 1969. The telerecording prints of the serial were junked by BBC Enterprises in 1972. The sixth episode was returned to the BBC by a private collector in May 1982, and the first three episodes were located at the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC) in late 1984. The fourth and fifth episodes remain missing, existing only as off-air audio recordings from 1964; the CyBC's copies were stored in a vault but destroyed in a bomb attack during the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The existing episodes were screened as part of the National Film Theatre's Bastille Day schedule on 14 July 1999, with links between the episodes by Carole Ann Ford. Critical response The serial was criticised for its historical inaccuracy. MMG Oborski, secretary of the Napoleon I Society, wrote that the BBC "has a certain duty to educate, or at least not to misinform children", citing the serial's fictional depiction of a meeting between Napoleon and Paul Barras to overthrow Robespierre. In response to another complaint about the English accents used in the serial in September 1964, Whitaker explained that "there is nothing worse than Frenchmen speaking in broken English to each other". Writing for the Daily Worker, Stewart Lane described the serial as a