The Happiness Patrol Part One

The one where the TARDIS is painted pink...

I love some of the working titles of Doctor Who stories, many of which I prefer to the ones that made it to screen. I like the ones that conjure a feeling or atmosphere, rather than the more pulpy titles evocative of those creaky old Saturday morning serials, or sensational comic books. Planet of Giants does what it says on the tin, but I much prefer Death in the Afternoon, which makes it feel like more of a murder mystery (although there is no mystery!).

But there are so many to choose from: Is There a Doctor in the Horse? (The Myth Makers); Secret of the Labyrinth (The Masque of Mandragora); The Vampire Mutations (State of Decay); Invasion of the Plague Men (The Visitation). But it's during the McCoy era where some of the juiciest alternative titles can be found: Strange Matter (Time and the Rani); Flight of the Chimeron (Delta and the Bannermen); Storm Over Avallion (Battlefield); The Bestiary (Ghost Light); Wolf-Time (The Curse of Fenric); Cat-Flap (Survival). But my favourite of them all is probably The Happiness Patrol's divine working title, The Crooked Smile. Doesn't it just say it all, and so artfully? I so wish they'd stuck with that.

I remember after the breath-taking start to the season with Remembrance of the Daleks, my 12-year-old self was desperate to know what the next story was called (no internet in those days, kids!) so I nipped into my local newsagent to flick through the Radio Times (we didn't buy TV magazines in our house, we just used the free Saturday supplements). When I read that it was called The Happiness Patrol, my heart sank. That sounded weird. Crap, even.

The story opens with a lovely crane shot from dependable director Chris Clough slowly zooming in on a lone woman wandering along a twilit street. The problem is, it doesn't look a lot like a proper street, it looks like a set. It's one of those stories where Doctor Who tries to pretend it's outdoors, when it's actually in a studio, which happened a lot in the 1960s. With those stories, you just accept the limitations they were fighting, but by the late 1980s, studios trying to be outdoor locations is something you only expected from kids' TV, or comedy sketch shows.

Luckily in the case of The Happiness Patrol, the theme of the story works in its favour, but that doesn't really help the lay viewer accept what they're seeing. The design itself is wonderful - the balconies, the giant faces in the walls and on corners, the Dickensian street lanterns etc. It's a designed world, but with a skewed artifice which works in its favour. This is a very strange world, and the falseness feels part of it. Perhaps the polished black studio floor could have done with looking a bit more street-like, but designer John Asbridge has done a remarkable job of creating a world which is believable, yet also slightly unconvincing at the same time!

The sad woman has given up on life, and is unconcerned about being "caught" by whichever authority is after her. A seemingly sympathetic stranger dressed like he's in The Third Man offers her a secret place where she can indulge her depression in safety, but it turns out he's actually an undercover copper, an agent of something called the Happiness Patr- OH MY GOD WHO ARE THEY!?

You expect a bunch of policemen, perhaps soldiers, or at the very least men in uniform. What you don't expect - perhaps the very, very last thing your imagination could ever be humanly capable of - is a gang of what look like drag queens dressed in mini skirts, high heels, and bright pink fright wigs, caked in make-up and wielding giant multi-coloured super-soaker water pistols. The lead tart raises her fun gun and smiles: "Have a nice death!" before executing the horrified killjoy. As opening scenes go, it's certainly left field.

As we see more of this world - an Earth colony called Terra Alpha - we learn just how outrageously camp it is, at least aesthetically. It's a world where the population is instructed to be happy, where sadness and depression are discouraged and punished, where it's illegal to wear dark clothes, walk in the rain without an umbrella, or listen to slow music. Sadness is strictly not allowed, leading everybody to either be happy, or at least pretend to be (hence, the crooked smile).

The uber-camp pink and showy aesthetic of the Terra Alphan authorities comes across as ridiculous in a supposedly mature family sci-fi show. I remember back in 1988 I squirmed in embarrassment at the Happiness Patrol, who felt like something the Two Ronnies would dream up. This did not feel like the same show that had just given me Daleks battling on the streets (the real streets) of London. Of course, now I'm a far more ancient 46, I can see what's being done here, the juxtapositions and connotations much clearer and obvious to me. But as a 12-year-old, I was horrified.

And then the Doctor and Ace arrive, planning a future visit to see the dinosaurs in the Cretaceous era (something expanded upon in Doctor Who Magazine's 1990 comic strip Train-Flight! and prose story Living in the Past). The dynamic between Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred is so instant and gratifying, there's not been chemistry like this between lead actors since Tom Baker and Lalla Ward. It's a joy to watch them bounce off one another, the Doctor asking whether Ace likes this colony world. "No," she says. "No, neither do I," he agrees, and goes on to explain that he's heard disturbing rumours about Terra Alpha, and he plans to get to the bottom of it and stop it. Has the Doctor learnt nothing? He's actively seeking out trouble with the sole purpose of interfering, even if it is for the good. This Seventh Doctor feels untouchable, able and allowed to do whatever he wants, whether that's to interfere in the affairs of other worlds and people, or dabble with ancient Time Lord technology. His two trials obviously meant nothing to him (thank goodness!).

The pair set out to get arrested so they can get to the heart of what's going on. "Something very nasty is happening here," says the Doctor, "and we've got to put a stop to it, quickly." What gives him that right though? "Isn't this going to be dangerous?" asks Ace, to which he replies simply: "Yes." The fact she doesn't flinch at this and merely asks "how do we start?" is the perfect example of how their relationship works. The teacher and the pupil, travelling the universe righting wrongs and saving lives.

The Doctor and Ace try to get arrested by cheeking the Happiness Patrol, who have rather wonderfully painted the dark blue TARDIS bright pink (the ship's second defacement this era). As off-worlders, they should have been issued with badges at customs, but while Ace has badges - "She's got badges"* - the Doctor does not. They are duly arrested and taken to the Waiting Zone, which is definitely not a prison ("miserable places").

McCoy is wonderful in these scenes, maintaining that brooding presence (aided by Don Babbage's fantastic night-time lighting) but never forgetting his Doctor's innate sense of fun. "Hold the two bananas and nudge. Never fails," he suggests to Harold V on his fruit machine, a suggestion that amusingly fails. But that steel is never far from the surface, and I love the way the Doctor's attention is casually drawn to Waiting Zone guard Priscilla P. He notices her, fixes her in his sights and nonchalantly approaches her, his target drawn. He has the measure of her pretty quickly, and obviously has little patience with Happiness Patrol policy. He's sized the situation up astutely, and focuses on his game plan.

There's some lovely banter about the poor construction of Helen A's prize joke, but plenty of background as to what's going on, and the "routine disappearances". Harold V says there are three ways to disappear on Terra Alpha: a late show at the Forum, a visit to the Kandy Kitchen, and "something else", which turns out to be a form of execution involving not bullets or electric chairs, but something called the fondant surprise! Victims are smothered or drowned to death by gallons of liquid fondant. It's an unconventional way to die - unconvincing, you might argue - but the scene where supporting player Cy Town (playing Harold V's brother) is executed, looking for all the world like the proud moustached gay San Franciscan, is disturbingly dark because it's so ridiculously silly.

I love the juxtaposition of the surface aesthetic and the underlying darkness of this story. It looks outrageously camp and silly at times, but when you think about what's happening, and why it's happening, it's really dark. The people are being suppressed and oppressed, banned from free expression. Basically, the art of being human has been outlawed, so no wonder the Doctor wants to free the colonists, to let the "killjoys" be sad or maudlin if they want. A woman is riddled with bullets for wearing a dark coat and refusing to be happy (we don't know why, maybe she's lost someone: "I don't care any more, let them find me"), while a man simply searching for his missing brother, and who tried to contact "the outside world", is electrocuted. Priscilla P dishes out the James Bond-esque quips ("I think he got a buzz out of that"; "Rather a shocking experience") which not too long ago were coming out of the Sixth Doctor's mouth. But here, Ace shows her disgust and anger - the proper way to react to such sick comments - and the Doctor harnesses her anger. "I want to nail those scumbags," she says. "I want to make them very, very unhappy." And McCoy growls: "We will, Ace. We will." And my god do you believe him.

Thoughts:

• I love Dominic Glynn's score, laced with harmonica and piano to reflect the blues theme of the story (both the musical genre and the way sad people feel), but there's a jaunty playfulness too, reflecting Terra Alpha's surface aesthetic. It's in the quieter, more introspective moments where it works best though, particularly the beautiful scenes between Ace and Susan Q...
• Sophie Aldred and Lesley Dunlop's scenes together are stunning, written and played so eloquently and movingly. We hardly know Susan Q at all at the start of the scene, but by the time she's afforded Ace her "disappearing act", we understand her completely. We sympathise with her, because Dunlop is such a heartfelt actor but also Graeme Curry is feeding such strong dialogue. Underscored beautifully by Glynn, these moments between Ace and Susan are among my favourites of the 1980s.
• The Waiting Zone break is a bit naff thanks to the really rubbish go-karts, which drive at such a pathetic speed that an anaesthetised sloth could catch it up. The go-kart really undermines what is a nicely written routine involving the Doctor and Ace turning Priscilla P's smugness against her by defusing the booby-trapped vehicle.
• Doddery old Joseph C watches a video he's found in his wife Helen A's desk, entitled "Routine Disappearance No. 499,987". So the executions are filmed for future "enjoyment" by dictator Helen A, turning people's deaths into video nasties (and there have been almost half a million of them!). Hints of Vengeance on Varos, but done with a much lighter touch.
• What is that little creature we see peek out of the sewers? As much as we've learnt about Terra Alpha so far, there's much more to come yet, it seems.
• I'm pleased by the casting of a black actor in a principal supporting role, in the form of Richard D Sharp's Earl Sigma. Earl is a psychology student on vacation who's got stuck on Terra Alpha and needs a way to escape. It's great to have a non-white actor in a supporting role who isn't a baddie, and is actually an ersatz 'companion of the week'.
• The editing is frustratingly choppy, a disappointing hallmark of the McCoy era, always trying to up the pace and come over as fast and furious, like a comic strip. It'd be nice to have longer flowing scenes, rather than have them chopped into bits, like the scene between Aldred and Dunlop. It creates mood and engenders empathy in the characters, but if you're zipping from scene to scene in an effort to pretend you're busy, you lose the connections a little.

Sheila Hancock is wonderful as Helen A, giving her that necessary cheery exterior undercut by a fierce underbelly. You believe this woman's a tyrant beneath the surface, that she takes no prisoners (or if she does, they are executed). Hancock's presence and delivery is masterful, such as when a proud Silas P says he's "aiming for the top", and Helen A's smile hardens: "Not quite the very top, I hope, Silas P?" Casting Hancock - who looks like Margaret Thatcher painted by Andy Warhol - was genius, as she has the screen presence and experience to deliver the goods. She does not send the material up one iota (which would have been very easy to do) and instead treats it as seriously as it deserves. She may look like a velveteen prom queen, but do not be fooled: this woman has a dark side.

I sometimes write in these reviews about what I call WTF moments, those scenes where something happens, or someone walks on and your jaw hits the floor, or you can't quite believe what you're seeing. It's a Zarbi, the Garm, Alpha Centauri or a Monoid. But none of them hold a candle to the Kandy Man, revealed in a surprisingly low-key manner by Clough halfway through the episode. We've heard that he conducts experiments in his Kandy Kitchen, making sweets, and that nobody who goes there ever comes out. We might imagine a mad professor type, like Kerensky or Kettlewell, or an evil genius like the Shadow or Sharaz Jek.

What we get is a giant thing made of sweets, like a jumbo Bertie Bassett with spinning eyes, a pimply blue head, a hard-boiled stripy torso, yellow and black abdomen, feet like marshmallows and limbs made of sherbet and rock. In short, he is Bertie Bassett, a character designed in 1926 as the mascot of Bassett's liquorice allsorts sweets. We all know this completely nuts monster design led to a strong letter from Bassett's complaining about the Kandy Man's likeness to Bertie, but the BBC claimed the similarity was purely coincidental (really?). As a compromise though, the BBC vowed that the Kandy Man would not appear in Doctor Who again (a pretty hollow promise for a one-off villain who gets destroyed at the end!).

The Kandy Man may be Doctor Who's ultimate WTF moment. Look at him! It's a shame his reveal isn't given more oomph by Clough, but just the look of him alone is enough to stop the viewer in their tracks. The Kandy Man is magnificent (as a kid I thought he was more fun than scary, but his short temper and towering size may have spooked a few younger fans), played with real personality by David John Pope. I like how his lugubrious aide Gilbert M moans to himself about the Kandy Man's temper ("They don't know his moods, he's terrible when he's roused"), and when faced with disappointment, the Kandy Man refers back to his temperamental nature. "I can feel one of my moods coming on!" he says, his arm raised threateningly over Gilbert.

The cliffhanger sees the Doctor facing up to the might of the Kandy Man, who warns that he likes his "volunteers" to die with smiles on their faces. It's an utterly crazy end to a truly oddball episode, but while some may balk at its camp trappings, this is a very serious story, with serious issues at its heart. It's not camp and silly in a Time and the Rani way, or daft like The Chase or The Horns of Nimon. It's using the camp aesthetic to tell a serious story (not unlike Nigel Kneale's The Year of the Sex Olympics), and while I fully understand some viewers might find it hard to get past the surface silliness - assassins dressed like tarts, scientists that look like giant talking sweets - at least it has an intent, and something to say. Too many Doctor Who stories have nothing to say for themselves, but The Happiness Patrol is a stylish, stylised stab at social and political comment, shrink-wrapped in shiny cellophane. What a tasty confection!

* I like to think this is a sly nod to David Bowie's 1966 track She's Got Medals, a song about a cross-dressing girl called Mary who passes as a boy called Tommy and joins the Army, only to turn deserter prior to a bombing raid and return to life as a female, called Eileen. In the song, "medals" is a slang term for testicles, and I definitely reckon Ace has balls!

First broadcast: November 2nd, 1988

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The scene between Ace and Susan Q is beautiful.
The Bad: I do wish John Asbridge had done something better with the studio floor.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★☆

Ace says "Professor": 31

NEXT TIME: Part Two...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part Two; Part Three

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site.

The Happiness Patrol is available on BBC DVD as part of the Ace Adventures box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Adventures-Dragonfire-Happiness/dp/B0074GPGN4