The Happiness Patrol

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The Happiness Patrol is the second serial of the

The serial is set on the Earth colony world Terra Alpha. In the serial, the alien time traveller the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) starts a rebellion against the planet's ruler, Helen A (Sheila Hancock), a woman who seeks to eliminate all unhappiness on the planet.

Plot

The Seventh Doctor and Ace visit a human colony on the planet Terra Alpha, to investigate its strangely joyful facade. There, they discover that a secret police force known as the Happiness Patrol are roaming the streets, hunting down and killing so-called 'Killjoys'. Their leader is Helen A, who governs the colony and is fanatically obsessed with eliminating unhappiness. Also in her employment is the Kandy Man, a grotesque, sweet-based robot created by Gilbert M, one of Helen A's senior advisers. After discovering the Patrol painting the TARDIS pink, much to Ace's disgust, she and the Doctor are arrested by Patrol member Daisy K. The Doctor is suspected of being a spy while Ace is taken to be recruited to join the Happiness Patrol.

While in the Waiting Zone, The Doctor and Ace meet an unhappy guard, Susan Q, and Earl Sigma, a wandering harmonica player. They become allies to the Doctor and Ace after they escape, along with the native inhabitants of Terra Alpha, the Pipe People. They work together to overthrow the tyranny of Helen A by supporting public protests of unhappiness, encouraging the people to revolt, and attempting to expose Helen A's population control programme to Trevor Sigma, an official galactic census taker.

The first to be disposed of is Helen A’s pet Stigorax, Fifi, a rat-dog creature used to hunt down the Pipe People, as it is crushed in the pipes below the city when Earl causes an avalanche of crystallised sugar with his harmonica. Then they destroy the Kandyman in a flow of his own "fondant surprise" which had previously been used to execute the Killjoys. Realising that she cannot defeat the Doctor, Helen A attempts to escape the planet in a rocket, only to discover that the rocket has already been commandeered by Gilbert M and Joseph C, her husband. Angry at their betrayal, she tries to flee, but is stopped by the Doctor. He tries to teach her about the true nature of happiness, as he believes that it can only be understood if counterbalanced by sadness. Helen A, refusing to listen to the man who helped topple her regime, sneers at him and says she'll do it all over again. But when she discovers a dying Fifi emerging from the sewers, she rushes over to it and collapses into tears. Knowing that she has finally felt some sadness of her own, the Doctor tells Ace, "'Tis done," and they leave Helen A to mourn.

As the TARDIS is being repainted its natural blue color, the Doctor and Ace bid farewell to Susan Q and Earl, who plans to repair the damage caused by Helen A by singing the blues. The Patrol finishes painting just as they leave. Before leaving Terra Alpha and the colony behind them, the Doctor says to Ace, "Happiness will prevail," hoping that the people and Helen A will now understand what it's like to be truly happy.

Production

Working titles for this story included The Crooked Smile.^[

Helen A was intended to be a caricature of then British Prime Minister

UK miners' strike (1984–1985).^[4] Most of this element was eventually toned down.^{[citation needed}

]

In the story, the Doctor sings "As Time Goes By", sung by Dooley Wilson in Casablanca. John Normington played Morgus in The Caves of Androzani, and later appeared in "Ghost Machine", an episode of Torchwood. Lesley Dunlop previously played Norna in 1984's Frontios and Harold Innocent would go on to appear in the 1993 radio serial The Paradise of Death.

Broadcast and reception

Episode	Title	Run time	Original air date	UK viewers (millions) [5]
1	"Part One"	24:51	2 November 1988 (1988-11-02)	5.3
2	"Part Two"	24:48	9 November 1988 (1988-11-09)	4.6
3	"Part Three"	24:25	16 November 1988 (1988-11-16)	5.3

Bassett's complained over the similarity between the Kandy Man in this story and their trademark character. The BBC agreed not to use the Kandy Man again.^{[citation needed]}

Radio Times reviewer Patrick Mulkern awarded The Happiness Patrol a full five stars and described it as a "clever and funny satire" and praised the acting and political commentary.^[3] DVD Talk's John Sinnott gave The Happiness Patrol five out of five stars, calling it a "minor masterpiece". He commended the irony, social commentary, and McCoy's acting.^[6] Authors Graeme Burk and Robert Smith included The Happiness Patrol in their 2013 book Who's 50: The 50 Doctor Who Stories to Watch Before You Die.^[7] For GamesRadar+ in 2015, Will Salmon included The Happiness Patrol among "The strangest Doctor Who stories", describing it as an "infamous Sylvester McCoy story" that "is actually rather good, but there's no denying its peculiarity [...] There's lots of interesting stuff going on beneath the surface of this story: anti-war speeches, Orwellian oppression and protests against Section 28. There's little doubt that, nearly 30 years later, it's still one of the most iconoclastic Doctor Who stories ever. And one of the oddest."^[8]

In his book Doctor Who: A British Alien?, which explores the series' use of science fiction allegory and metaphor, Danny Nicol questioned the serial's claimed anti-

gay subtext to the story: "there's entrapment over cottaging, the TARDIS is painted pink, and the victim of the fondant surprise is every inch the proud gay man, wearing, as he does, a pink triangle."^[10]

The story ends with Helen A's husband abandoning her and leaving with another man.

rave culture.^[12]

Commercial releases

In print

The Happiness Patrol

ISBN		0-426-20339-9

A novelisation of this serial, written by scriptwriter

Graeme Curry, was published by Target Books in February 1990. Adapting his scripts rather than the televised version, Curry's book includes scenes cut during editing and his original envisioning of the Kandy Man with a human appearance, albeit with powdery white skin and edible candy-cane glasses. An unabridged reading of the novelisation by Rula Lenska

was released by BBC Audiobooks in July 2009.

Home media

The Happiness Patrol was released on

Doctor Who DVD Files

in Issue 119 on 24 July 2013.

References

1. releases
   follow The Discontinuity Guide numbering system.
2. ^ BBC – Doctor Who Classic Episode Guide – The Happiness Patrol – Details
3. ^ ^{a b c} Mulkern, Patrick (17 September 2012). "Doctor Who: The Happiness Patrol". Radio Times. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
4. ^ ^{a b} Adams, Stephen (14 February 2010). "Doctor Who 'had anti-Thatcher agenda'". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 14 October 2012.
5. ^ "Ratings Guide". Doctor Who News. Retrieved 28 May 2017.
6. ^ Sinnot, John (19 May 2012). "Doctor Who: The Happiness Patrol". DVD Talk. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
7. ISBN 9781770411661
   .
8. ^ Salmon, Will (15 September 2015). "The strangest Doctor Who stories". GamesRadar+. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
9. ISBN 978-3319881133
   .
10. ISBN 0-426-20442-5
    .
11. ^ Williams, Rowan (24 April 2011). "Archbishop of Canterbury's 2011 Easter Sermon". archbishopofcanterbury.org. Retrieved 6 May 2012.
12. ^ Sidwell, Marc (21 August 2014). "Who's back: The Doctor is the unexpected freedom fighter our civilisation still needs". City AM.
13. ^ DWM 433
14. ^ "DVD Schedule Update". Doctor Who News. 5 March 2011. Retrieved 9 October 2013.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Seventh Doctor.

• The Happiness Patrol at BBC Online
• Script to Screen: The Happiness Patrol, by Jon Preddle (Time Space Visualiser issue 42, January 1995)

Target novelisation

• The Happiness Patrol title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database