DOCTOR WHO - THE HAPPINESS PATROL (1988)

January 21, 2024

DOCTOR WHO - THE HAPPINESS PATROL (1988)

DIRECTED by Chris Clough

SCREENPLAY by Graeme Curry

STARRING - Sylvester McCoy as The Doctor, Sophie Aldred as Ace, Sheila Hancock as Helen A, Ronald Fraser as Joeseph C, Georgina Hale as Daisey K, Harold Innocent as Gilbert M, Leslie Dunlop as Susan Q, Rachel Bell as Priscilla P, Jonathan Burn as Silas P, Tim Barker as Harold V, David John Pope as The Kandyman, John Normington as Trevor Sigma, Richard D. Sharp as Earl Sigma, Ryan Freedman as Wulfric, Phillip Neve as Wences.

PLOT - The Doctor and his companion Ace arrive on the human colony world of Terra Alpha to find that things are not right at all. The planet's population is living under an oppressive regime where the very emotion of sadness has been outlawed. Anything remotely related to that emotion is also outlawed - books, music and all forms of art that may potentialy cause a sense of melancholy are all highly illegal in this dystopian society.

The colony ruler - Helen A uses the Happiness Patrol to uphold her laws. The Happiness Patrol roams the city streets hunting down and killing anybody who they judge to be a "Killjoy". Those unlucky enough to be judged as particularly extreme cases are sent to The Kandy Kitchen where they fall victim to The Kandyman - a psychotic robot that is made of sugared sweets.

The Happiness Patrol discover the TARDIS and paint it pink (blue is considered to be an unhappy colour), The Doctor is arrested for being a Killjoy spy and Ace is taken away to be conditioned as a member of the Happiness Patrol.

The Doctor must escape, rescue Ace and find a way to topple the oppressive regime that doesn't allow its citizens the luxury of being able to feel a full range of human emotions, but first he must survive the horrors of the Kandy Kitchen...

DIALOUGE - Terra Alphan greeting - "I'm glad you're happy." "I'm happy you're glad."

The Kandyman - "IMPOLITE GUESTS GET TO MEET THE BACK OF MY KANDY HAND !!!"

PERFORMANCES - Sylvester McCoy plays the seventh Doctor in this story from the classic era's penultimate series. I always liked McCoy in the role, he bought a whimsical approach to playing the Doctor. On the surface McCoy's Doctor was an odd little man, almost like a Vaudeville performer with his conjuring tricks and predilection for playing the spoons. He bought a feeling of the circus or the sideshow to the part. However, underneath this quirky and disarming exterior lay a cunning manipulator - a man who played devious games with gods and monsters. In this incarnation the Doctor would very often orchestrate schemes and plans to trap his enemies. He was a chess player on a cosmic scale.

This approach had never been taken with the character before and it led to the seventh Doctor having a feel to his character that was both unique and fresh. The manipulative aspects of McCoy's Doctor are played down somewhat in this story, but he does still arrive on Terra Alpha with a prior agenda - he's heared about the colony's oppressive regime on the cosmic grapevine and has arrived on the planet with the full intention of doing something about it. Ultimately the Doctor manages to cause massive social unrest and ends up overthrowing the colony's government in a single night without breaking a sweat. You get the feeling that the Doctor is just flexing his metaphorical muscles here, this isn't remotely challenging to him - he could topple a tyrant like Helen A in his sleep (she's not even on his "A list" of villains, she just happened to wind up on his "to do" list).

McCoy effortlessly sells this aspect of his Doctor's character. He also does well at portraying the moral outrage that Helen A's actions instill in him.

Another aspect of McCoy's Doctor is that he always had a sense of mild melancholy that sat at the heart of him, that despite his fun loving nature he did sometimes feel slightly weighed down by his responsibilities. Modern Who writer Stephen Moffat once described McCoy's Doctor as being a "sad wise clown" and I think that description is particularly apt in this story. The Doctor here is standing up for the individuals right to feel a full range of emotions, to not feel obliged to wear a false smile at all times. The Doctor is saying that it's OK to not be OK sometimes. I think the message of this story is even more relevant in today's world (where the pressures of modern society have led to a rise in mental health issues) than it was back in the late 1980's.

Sophie Aldred plays Ace, the Doctor's companion - a teenager from late 80's Perivale with a ton of emotional issues and a fascination for blowing things up with home made explosives. Aldred is not technically the best actress there is (she's not even the best actress there's been in Doctor Who), sometimes some of her line readings come over a bit flat and/or forced but what she does do is work very well with McCoy. The two have a natural chemistry together like a rebellious teenage girl hanging out with her funny uncle. Theres an affection there (they where and still are great friends in real life) which comes over on screen. Despite her faults I really can't (and don't want to) imagine anybody else playing Ace, it would just feel wrong somehow.

In this story Ace gets to insult various members of the Happiness Patrol, form a friendship with a Patrol member who is starting to experience sadness for the first time (Leslie Dunlop as Susan Q) and hang out with a bunch of alien troglodytes (the Pipe People) who pick up 80's London street slang from her. All in all its a pretty packed story for Ace and one which suits her character well.

The Happiness Patrol boasts some excellent villians. Particularly good is Sheila Hancock as Helen A. Hancock basically plays Helen A as caricature of then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. This especially comes across when we see Helen A address her nation via TV broadcasts, Hancock captures Thatcher's mannerisms when making a speech, she has the same softly spoken voice with a hard undertone to it. At the time this story was broadcast many people made the connection and saw the story as a satire on Thatcherism.

I can see the parallels but to me Helen A more embodies what we would term today as "toxic positivity" - that irritating mindset that plagues many 21st century workplaces where workers are required to be "upbeat" and "positive" at all times, usually for the good of the company. The same mindset that jumps upon any criticism or feedback (however well intentioned) as being "negative" and thus undesirable. I've worked in many places like this - they call it "negativity"... I call it being realistic.

Helen A is basically evey call centre manager on the planet who urges her staff to "smile while you dial" (this being while the workers are being sworn at left, right and centre by the people they're calling). Helen A is every self-help "guru" who charges ridiculous amounts of money to give people who are feeling mentally down or broken bad advice like "man up and be the best version of yourself". Helen A is every innane, target obsessed beaurocrat who thinks that a patronising smile and false condescending behaviour will keep people in line. Helen A is just as relevant a villian now in 2024 as she was back in 1988, perhaps even moreso.

Helen A does have one redeeming point to her personality though - her love for her pet Fifi. Fifi is an alien dog/Werewolf type hybrid creature that Helen A utterly dotes upon. At the end of the story Fifi is killed and Helen A weeps over her dead pet - perhaps feeling a genuine emotion for the first time in her life. Finally Helen A learns the value of sadness - that true happiness can't exist without it, "Two sides of the same coin" as The Doctor correctly puts it. That we are able to feel sympathy for Helen A this late in the day after all the atrocities we've seen committed in her name is testament to both the quality of Hancock's performance and the intelligent writing of the script.

Finally we get the Kandyman (David John Pope) who is quite possibly one of the campest villains ever to appear anywhere. He's basically a psychotic robot made out of sweets. With his high pitched screeching voice and his hair trigger temper tantrums the Kandyman is a comedy grotesque. Some Who fans absolutely HATE the character, believing him to be the physical embodiment of everything that was wrong with 80's Doctor Who, but many other fans (myself included) think he's absolutely great. He's like a spoilt child stomping around his kitchen. He's also responsible for some pretty gruesome deaths - his main method of execution is the "fondant surprise" where his victims are basically drowned in boiling hot liquid sugar. The Kandyman is an example of dark, twisted genius - he's the sort of villain you'd expect to crop up in a 2000AD comic strip (and I mean that in the best possible way).

SFX - we get some nice creature designs in this story. Apart from the Kandyman, we also get The Pipe People (the indigenous species on Terra Alpha who have been forced to live underground by the human colonists). They look like a cross between Yoda and the Tusken Raiders - theres something very Star Wars-esque about them...

Best of all though is Fifi who is an amazingly lifelike piece of animatronic puppetry. Fifi is especially impressive when you consider she was made on a late 1980's BBC drama department budget. She manages to be both hideous and somehow adorably cute at the same time. This "appealing" side is absolutely essential for the audience to share Helen A's sadness at Fifi's passing. Fifi is a bit of a triumph for the BBC'S visual effects department all told.

VIOLENCE - There are quite a few executions in this story. We see several Killjoys shot by the Happiness Patrol's "Fun Guns" (which are just guns given a quirky name).

We also get to see one unfortunate Killjoy fall victim to the "fondant surprise" (which is a really gruesome idea). Eventually the Kandyman becomes trapped in his own sweet tubes and succumbs to the fondant surprise himself. Poetic justice in action.

RATING - The Happiness Patrol is a great story. You can watch it either as a biting satire, a darkly camp fantasy or as a comic book style romp. Or all of the above. It's very nearly perfect Doctor Who and is only let down by the slightly stagey looking sets. The story was filmed entirely on a studio set but what it really needed was some film noir style outdoor city street shots, but this is only a small criticism and in no way detracts from what is a very enjoyable slice of 80's Who.

4 and a half fake smiles out of 5. Watch it and make yourself happy (but only after you've been sad).

VHS/DVD ART -