The Happiness Patrol

At the age of ten, when 'The Happiness Patrol' was first broadcast, I hated it. I'd just seen Daleks and I was looking forward to Cybermen and in the interim I got a Bertie Bassett monster armed with social commentary and metaphor that went totally over my head. Sixteen years on however, 'The Happiness Patrol' is easily one of my favourite stories of the McCoy era, a richly textured story sparkling with wit and a delightfully surreal monster. Doctor Who for adults? Perhaps not. But Doctor Who for me, certainly. 

'The Happiness Patrol' is riddled with political allegory and can be interpreted in a number of ways. On the one hand, Helen A is, famously, an obvious nod to Mrs. Thatcher, due largely to Sheila Hancock's performance, and The Discontinuity Guidedescribes the Kandy Man as "capitalism itself, killing with sweeties". It also takes a swipe at colonialism, with the native population of Terra Alpha not even qualifying as second-class citizens, but instead dismissed as "vermin". These are perfectly valid interpretations, but 'The Happiness Patrol' can also been interpreted (and indeed has, by a small but growing number of fans) as an attack on communist states that have developed into fascist dictator ships over time. Thus, we have a police state, in which dissent is punishable by death, with undercover agents whose job is to encourage dissenters so that they can be identified and disposed of and there are state executions and an underclass of workers who are forbidden from entering the cities. There are designated areas for tourists. Helen A at times seems to be a response to the argument that the revolutions in Russia and China were initially welcomed by the majority of the people in those countries but gave way to tyranny later in Helen A's attempt to justify her actions to the Doctor when he contemptuously asks her about the "Prisons, death-squads, executions?", to which she replies "They only came later". 

All of this is just the tip of the iceberg; the society presented by writer Graeme Curry in 'The Happiness Patrol' is fascinating. In a series littered with stock megalomaniacs there are interesting hints as to what motivates Helen A; she expresses genuine anger at the "killjoys" and tells that Doctor that she only wanted people to be happy. She seems to mean this, and so we are presented with a woman whose frustration at failing to achieve her aims caused her to become a ruthless dictator. There is some dialogue that, when considered in any depth becomes chilling, as she states, "If they're miserable, we'll put them out of their misery. After all, it's for their own good". This is delivered not as the self-justification of somebody who revels in suffering, but as the firm unwavering opinion of somebody who really believes it. Later, she talks to a wounded Fifi alone and it becomes clearly that she really can't stand miserable people, it isn't just a façade that she hides behind to maintain her power. The Doctor's complete failure to make her understand how utterly terrible her actions have been is deeply disturbing, and as such I find the denouement one of the most satisfying and emotional of any Doctor Who story to date as Helen A is finally made to see the error of the ways by her discovery of Fifi's corpse and her bitterness and anger gives way to almost palpable grief as she weeps over it. Hancock's performance is outstanding throughout, but in that final scene it is astonishingly powerful. 

Another interesting aspect of 'The Happiness Patrol' is the propaganda on display, from the obvious (the "lift music", the posters) to the relatively subtle, such as the refusal of Helen A to call a prison a prison, preferring instead the term "waiting zone" and glossing over her actions with phrases such as "We have controlled the population down by seven percent". And in the midst of this oppressive society, there is some interesting characterisation. There are some characters, most notably Georgina Hale's loathsome Daisy K and Rachel Bell's Priscilla P (who describes herself as a fighter but who is of course simply a killer), who thrive within the system, eagerly enforcing the rules laid down by Helen A. Interestingly, they are also confined by them, either because these rules are so deeply ingrained or because they in turn fear the consequences to breaking them, as demonstrated when they prove unable to kill the seemingly happy Doctor and drones in Episode Three. It is worth noting that undercover agent Silas P is doing rather well for himself until he tells Helen A, "I'm aiming for the top". She icily replies "not quite the very top, I hope" and he looks terrified; shortly afterwards, the Happiness Patrol seem awfully quick to kill him when he makes a very small mistake… Then there are those who have rebelled against the system in one way or another, most of whom end up dead prior to the Doctor's intervention. More interesting than either of these however are those characters who have chosen to live within the system rather than dying by it, but who clearly do not share Helen A's philosophies. These range from the Kandy Man, who is essentially a psychopath given free reign to kill people whenever he wants because Helen A needs a state executioner, to Lesley Dunlop's Susan Q. Susan Q especially interest me, because she obviously hates and fears Helen A and the Happiness Patrol and finally rebels against them. This raises an interesting question; she obviously joined the Happiness Patrol in order to survive in this society, but prior to her decision to make a stand, just how many people has she helped to make "disappear"? It isn't a question addressed in the story, but it is there nonetheless and it adds considerable to the underlying darkness of the story. 

Enough subtext; 'The Happiness Patrol' works on a purely aesthetic level too, proving enormously entertaining. The Kandy Man has proved to be a rather controversial creation over the years, but I think that it's quite superb. The idea of a psychotic robot made out of confectionary is weird and disturbing, a nightmare creation akin to the Child Catcher from Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, and the decision by the designer to make him resemble a monstrous Bertie Bassett is highly amusing, even if it did nearly result in the BBC facing a lawsuit. Beyond his outlandish appearance however, he works well as a character, because he is a charismatic psychopath with lines like "sweets that are so good, so delicious, that if I'm on form, the human physiology is not equipped to deal with the pleasure". His scenes with the Doctor are especially good, as he threatens, boasts and bargains with him at different points, culminating in the scene in which he is trying to decide whether to kill the Doctor or Ace first; when the Doctor points out that he is vulnerable to the poker that Ace is brandishing, he cheerfully announces, "I have to bow, however reluctantly, to your logic" and turns on the Doctor instead. He's also incredibly unstable, his temper flaring up without warning, which of course allows the Doctor to trick him into sticking himself to the floor with lemonade. The character wouldn't work nearly as well if not for the body language of actor David John Pope who brings the Kandy Man to life with a variety of expressive hand gestures and manages to make it look as though the character's feet really are stuck fast in Episode Two. 

The presence of Harold Innocent's Gilbert M also helps the Kandy Man's characterisation, as the pair bicker like an old married couple Incidentally, Gilbert built the Kandy Man to house the mind of a friend, whose "bones" he brought with him from Vasilip, and the novelisation confirms that they are old friends; additionally, it seems to be the death of the Kandy Man, more so than the collapse of the regime, that catalyses Gilbert's decision to leave. Fans have tried to find homosexual subtexts in 'The Happiness Patrol' for years - could they have been looking in the wrong place? Regardless of this hypothesizing, Gilbert is another fine character, brought to life by Innocent's acting, and is another example of a character who has clearly chosen to live within the system without really seeming to believe in it; he gleefully joins in the Doctor's mockery of the Happiness Patrol in Episode Three and quickly departs when everything goes wrong. Ronald Fraser's Joseph C, a character that is probably as much influenced by public opinion of Dennis Thatcher as Helen A is by Maggie, joins him. A browbeaten quiet man who is party to Helen A's atrocities but seemingly ignores them (he seems to find the fondant surprise execution in Episode One a mild diversion without being either troubled by or really concerned with it), more concerned with entertaining guests, he shows neither hesitation or remorse at abandoning Helen A, presumably pleased to be free of his domineering wife. 

The production of 'The Happiness Patrol' nicely complements both script and performance. Most of the sets are drab and obviously studio bound, and Chris Clough's direction is as flat and uninspired as usual, but ironically this actually helps to enhance the claustrophobic and oppressive feel of Terra Alpha. The sole exception to the drabness of the sets is the Kandy Kitchen, a complex set with pipes and wheels that briefly makes me wonder what Doctor Who directed by Tim Burton would be like. There is also a superb score from Dominic Glynn, which is by turns sinister and dramatic and, appropriately enough, incorporates some nice blues stings, especially at the end.

And finally, there are the regulars. Sophie Aldred gives one of her better performances here, and although she gets saddled with the usual crap dialogue ("I wanna nail those scumbags. I want to make them very unhappy") it is kept to a minimum. Ace also gets a reasonable amount to do, showing anger at Helen A's regime without seeming too petulant or childish in the process, which is usually a problem whenever the character is called upon to show emotion. McCoy however, is for the most part brilliant. He conveys utter contempt whenever the Doctor speaks with Helen A, from the moment that he greats her with the acerbic "It's no pleasure, I assure you" to their final confrontation as he watches her veneer of happiness shattered by Fifi's death. This is the Seventh Doctor at his proactive best, as he proves the catalyst for massive social change and the collapse of a dictatorship, easily demolishing the mechanisms of Helen A's power with very little difficulty. As he says in Episode Three, "I can hear the sound of empires toppling". He also gets some nice moments such as when he exploits Trevor Sigma's obsession with bureaucracy to extract information from him, but his finest moment in the story is undoubtedly the scene with the snipers, as he confronts them and forces them to face the reality of what they do, as he invites one to look him in the eye and end his life. This works not because it simply assumes that killing is bad (following on directly from the, erm, explosive climax to 'Remembrance of the Daleks' it would be especially jarring if it did), but because it sees the Doctor confronting another couple of people who do what they have to in order to survive in Helen A's Terra Alpha, but who do so by not thinking about the consequences of their actions. That, for me, is why the scene is so powerful, not just because the Doctor stops the snipers from killing the drones, but because he makes them question their actions ("That's what guns are for. Pull a trigger. End a life. Simple isn't it?… Why don't you do it then? Look me in the eye. Pull the trigger. End my life" "I can't" "Why not? "I don't know"). 

Unfortunately, there is one flaw in 'The Happiness Patrol', and ironically enough it is McCoy. Although I've alluded to the limitations of his acting before, I've not yet had cause to elaborate, until now. Superb as he is for most of the story, there is one scene that is so bad, so cringe-worthy that it suddenly interrupts my enjoyment of 'The Happiness Patrol' like a smack in the mouth. During Episode Three, McCoy is required to portray the Doctor's fake happiness to confuse the Happiness Patrol and he performs the scene in truly diabolical style; he delivers his lines badly, guffaws unconvincingly and is generally embarrassing to watch. For that brief moment, I suddenly understand why so many fans dislike his Doctor, and it is so disappointing given the rest of his performance here. Bad as it is though, it isn't enough to ruin the story and 'The Happiness Patrol' remains a story that I'm happy to recommend.