'Doctor Who: The Happiness Patrol' (1988)

After a particularly heavy week, it's finally annual leave time. Go me! :o) Most of the week is going on keeping the kids entertained so I'm not too sure what the blog will look like over the next few days. Lets see, shall we...?

In the meantime, today saw the kids at Dover Castle (with friends) so after a half successful attempt at sleeping in, thanks downstairs neighbour, I thought I'd catch up on a little 'Doctor Who'. I've still got a few that I haven't watched, yet, but I thought I'd finish off the 'Ace Adventures' box set and watch 'The Happiness Patrol'...

On the planet Terra Alpha, bright fluorescent lights and garish candy striped colours abound. The population constantly display happy smiles. There's no sadness on Terra Alpha. Anyone feelng remoely glum disappears and quickly. Having heard disturbing rumours, the Doctor and Ace arrive to topple the entire regime overnight.

But they haven't reckoned on the varied punitive measures enforced by colony lead Helen A. There are many delicious ways to vanish on Terra Alpha – you can be hunted down by the omnipresent Happiness Patrol or mauled by Helen A's ravenous pet, Fifi. But an especially unlucky few will find themselves in the sweetie factory manned by Helen A's psychotic henchman, the Kandy Man...

Lets get one thing out of the way before we get onto the story itself. When 'Doctor Who' gets it right, the end results are awesome stories that will stay with you for years. When 'Doctor Who' gets it wrong though... Well, the results still stay with you, for years, but for entirely different reasons than awesome stories. Results like the Kandy Man. There, I said it.

Psychotic? Not at all, slightly waspish at best and easily defeated by a basic knowledge of chemistry, well within the Doctor's means then. At least Fifi had a menacing snarl, the Kandy Man is not only anti-climactic but also looks like a heated copyright discussion waiting to happen with Bassett's Sweets. Not a villain to hang a whole story off then, not at all.

It's a bit of a shame then that the Kandy Man takes up a lot of the attention (in a negative way) because the actual story is a fairly decent one. The Doctor on a mission to bring down an oppressive regime is one thing (and not exactly original, he does it all the time) but bringing down a regime that just wants everyone to be happy? That's a little different, isn't it? Not really, the Doctor is all about letting people choose their own path and something like Helen A's powerbase would have his ears pricking up right away. The Doctor and Ace arrive on Terra Alpha because he had heard rumours about what was happening and he wanted to deal with it (which always makes me wonder, who told him?) So not different at all then but what this situation does do is give us a dark, gloomy dystopia that really brings out the darkness in the Doctor himself. You can hear it in his voice, he's doing the right thing but you can't help but wonder what else is going on, in his head, while he's doing it.

The story also asks us to consider whether it's possible to be truly happy if you can't be sad every now and then and it's an interesting question to round the story off on. I'd agree with it myself, you need a basis for comparison, but would be interested to see if you feel differently. Leave a comment either way ;o)

People talk about political undertones to the story but I never saw it back then and to be honest, I wasn't looking particularly hard for it today. 'The Happiness Patrol' doesn't do itself any favours with the Kandy Man but is still an entertaining chase down dark streets and sewer pipes with noirish mouth organ playing and a Doctor who is a force for change rather than being dropped in the middle of something and having things happen to him. If I had to choose between 'The Happiness Patrol' and 'Paradise Towers', I'd choose this one and that's saying something (given my soft spot for 'Paradise Towers'). Not bad for a lazy Saturday :o)