More so than any other serial from the final two years of the programme, The Happiness Patrol can be held up as evidence by those who would either champion or deride Cartmel era Who.

On the prosecution bench we have Justin Richards and Verity Lambert who will tell you that The Happiness Patrol is so devoid of merit that fans are forced to assign political meaning to it as justification; it is evidence of Doctor Who straying too far into the realm of camp.

On the opposing bench are Cornell, Topping and Day who proclaim this to be a Doctor Who serial for and of its own generation; a joyful anarchistic satire that we should all take to our hearts.

Who's right? Well they both are really, as I'll try to illustrate.

In the case of the prosecution let me say this first and foremost, the design on this serial is a shambles. It is possible to say that the artificial sets, gaudy costumes and theatrical makeup are there to reinforce the serial's underlying message about the paucity of Helen A's ideology, but really... it's bollocks, isn't it? As a Doctor Who fan you get used to ignoring the programme's budgetary limitations, but here there's no reason for it. The Kandyman looks amazing - a pat on the back is due to Dorka Nieradzik - but for God's sake, if she can produce that costume within the design budget then why does everyone else fail so spectacularly.

Stand up John Asbridge. Doctor Who is NOT art house cinema, a genre even less popular with the general public than science fiction. There are not going to be a load of pipe smoking critics commenting on how 'Fritz Lang' the whole thing looks, or how the design ethic is sympathetic to the underlying message. Doctor Who is a piece of populist entertainment watched by a mostly passive television audience that is not going to take too kindly to a set design that wouldn't look out of place in the theatre, no matter how well intentioned it might be. I can believe that there were a LOT of people who switched on only to last as long as it took for Georgina Hale's mad be-wigged harridan to cock her red and yellow stripey gun.

Take a bow Richard Croft and poor Dorka. Before the dowdy painted backdrops of Terra Alpha stand the gaudy colours of the Happiness Patrol themselves. It's like lurching from one extreme to the other between each celluloid scene. Instead of complimenting the design they simply undermine it further, looking as they do extremely silly.

And last but not least a round of applause for Chris Clough. There's another one of those - probably - apocryphal tales about poor old Chris. Apparently he wanted to shoot it in black and white at weird angles but was vetoed by JNT. In all honesty, does anyone believe that this man has the ability to do any more than point and shoot in a by the numbers fashion? More likely, this approach would have made the final product even less watchable than what we do have.

When Verity Lambert, a woman who can justifiably speak with a lot of authority about television, stuck the knife into the McCoy era on 'The Story of Doctor Who' last Christmas, it was accompanied by a clip from The Happiness Patrol and my heart sank. It felt like an attack on Sylv and Sophie and theirs is a corner I will fight to my dying day. For the reasons outlined above, The Happiness is a very easy target - it looks silly; the people in it are dressed silly; oh look, there's Bertie Bassett, isn't he silly?

But if that's all you've got, then bring it on. Because Doctor Who fans know that deep down, 95% of the programme looks silly.

And so to the defence, or as Justin Richards might say, to read meaning into sh*te in the search for justification.

I'll leave the deep and meaningful discourse on cottaging and gay rights to far more informed commentators than myself. I'm sorry, chaps, but I was still a slip of a boy in 1988 and I have every reason to believe that any such allegory will have gone well over my head. Having read other reviews and insights I think that anything I have to add will seem trite at best so I'll concentrate on the frippery instead.

I am happy to argue that Happiness Patrol is more evidence of Doctor Who spreading its wings in a narrative sense and looking to tell more complex and involving stories, a move that is more successful the following season after this imperative filters down to the writers proper, but can be seen here, Remembrance and Greatest Show. Proof, if any were needed that the upward curve (despite a couple of blips) from the tail end of season 24 is continuing.

I call Sylvester McCoy to the stand. This was the last serial of season 25 to be recorded and it shows. 99% of the time he's on screen, he's excellent; seeking out trouble, wanting to speak to Helen A and the Kandyman almost as soon as he's identified them. It seems odd that the Doctor makes straight for the bad guys at the outset, having spent the 24 previous years seeking out the oppressed and giving them a leg up. It's more evidence of the seventh Doctor's increasingly proactive nature; next year his plan will have been set in motion before he leaves the TARDIS rather than the vague "rumours" and knockabout planning here.

And then there's the scene on the balcony with the snipers. It's the antithesis of the cafй scene in Remembrance; there it was the Doctor's decision to be made, here it's the snipers. Interestingly of course, we don't know the decision that the Doctor is agonising over in Remembrance - the destruction of Skaro - but he does go through with it, bringing the moral dilemma that troubled Tom Baker in Genesis to an end by wiping out his nemeses. But here he turns the tables; we have always seen the Doctor face down injustice and cruelty before, but never has he done it with such cold detachment. Sylvester is clearly furious here, and his anger proves to the snipers that they are better human beings than they thought they were. Of course, this Doctor did look Davros in the eye and end his life (or so he thought) but that's just part of this incarnation's moral ambiguity, and you know what - I like it.

As a side note, it's interesting to note that as Cartmel was realigning the Doctor's position on the psychological scale by asking what drives this character to seek out monsters and destroy them, Tim Burton was doing the same to Batman, but that's a discussion for another day.

I call Sophie Aldred. "I want to make them very, very unhappy!" Constrained by the pre watershed nature of the programme, Ace the character is incapable of expressing herself with the colourful Saxon metaphors that she needs to carry the necessary weight, but all credit to her - like Sylvester, I think this is her best performance of the season.

David John Pope, next to the stand, please. I've already covered the Kandyman from a design perspective so I'll avoid retreading the same argument here by singling out the actor behind the liquorice. The Kandyman wouldn't be half as much fun without Pope playing him like a cross between surly mass-murdering psychopath and surly teenager. Pope keeps it dead straight and is matched for every line by Harold Innocent as Gilbert M, their bickering hinting at a shared history that remains frustratingly unexplored on screen.

And finally, I call Sheila Hancock. Regardless of her thoughts on the role today, she puts in a great performance here. As much a victim of her ideology as her citizens, she's caught in an unfulfilling and loveless relationship with Harold C to the extent that the only creature she has feelings for is her pet, Fifi. The camera pan as she cries over Fifi's body is majestic and had the programme ended here it would be proof positive that the newfound maturity and confidence of season 25 were here to stay. That Doctor Who could end on an emotional climax rather than a narrative one would have realigned what the programme was capable of, but instead we get a typically trite coda. Oh, well. At least we can take heart that twelve months later, shorn of Clough's less than dynamic direction, Curse of Fenric can pull off what Happiness Patrol cannot.

So, in summing up, Happiness Patrol is a rather schizophrenic serial where the truly awful sits alongside the triumphant. Derided for being camp and tacky, what Happiness Patrol really demonstrates is that although the BBC design teams are still stuck in a inescapable nosedive, Cartmel is championing a script and narrative ethic that if not 100% successful, is still full of promise.

The learning curve continues.

Having re-watched this recently after a couple of years, it is a cracking way to introduce Turlough, bring back the Brigadier and encompass all the plots/ subplots in a good story.

Although the story has some weaknesses including the bizarre costumes for Mawdryn and the gang plus all the time line nonsense, which mucks up continuity, the pluses outweigh the negatives. 

Turlough is extremely well acted by Mark Strickson and is a shame that the potential in this story isn’t really enlarged upon until his final story. Peter Davison too excels as the Doctor with breathless enthusiasm – especially in parts three and four where he is willing to give up his remaining lives to save his friends. 

Although Nyssa and Tegan are bound by the TARDIS, they are effective in their roles and helpful as a plot device in the Doctor’s decision to help Mawdryn. 

And then there is Nicholas Courtney who is brilliant as the Brigadier and nice to see him mellowing as a schoolteacher and not as the baffoon he did during the later Pertwee stories. 

Peter Grimwade does write a very complicated story, which is very different to most of the stories surrounding it. It is a million times better than his last story (Time-Flight). However you do just think the Black Guardian is pure evil and can kill and destroy if he wants. So why doesn’t he just kill the Doctor himself? 

This is on the other hand a minor detail and does not really deter from a really good story, which is sometimes a forgotten gem in Davison’s era. 8/10

In an attempt to vent some frustration, (I’m feeling slightly down at the moment) I come to review the utter, utter crap that Warriors of the Deep is.

I say utter, the script is actually adequate. That is that the ideas and plot are adequate. The dialogue is shite. It could have been the next Earthshock. At least if it had a semblance of the atmosphere conveyed by Earthshock it might become somewhere near tolerable.

The problem is that in every way Warriors of the Deep appears on screen, it fails. The re-dressed Silurians and Sea Devils look truly, truly dreadful. The Sea Devils have been hibernating for many years but it looks like they’ve slept badly and awoke with pains in their necks. Why the f*** else would they walk around with their cheeks touching their shoulders? I don’t want to mention the Silurians’ voices but feel obliged to point out their particular crappness too.

The acting is terrible. In every way. The regulars put in admirable performances but their jokes fall flat. “What have you been eating?” Oh tee hee, my aching sides! Davison in particular acts his heart out but with crap lines can you be anything other than crap? Mark Strickson does the best with his script but it’s a shame Turlough has suddenly become a heroic, gun-toking Prince Charming as opposed to the unlovable coward he usually is. Tegan is as Tegan as ever. Enough said.

All the guest cast make me fume. Ginger tosser annoys me. What a completely inept character he is. One finds it difficult to feel sorry for this young idiot, when really we should be. Ingrid Pitt is equally diabolical. She exudes little to no menace whatsoever and her kung-fu with the Myrka is perhaps the definition of unforgivable.

Ah, yes, the Myrka. Well a pantomime horse was always destined to fail but did it have to fail so acceptingly awfully? Could no-one have said “Guys, shall we turn the lights down?” No. Obviously not. In fact, everyone involved in the production decide “Let’s paint all the walls bright white and shower the sets with light before letting an unconvincing rubber pantomime horse stagger about like a drunkard and ask our audience to take it seriously.” Well, in the words of Blackadder there was only one thing wrong with their plan…it was bollocks.

I want to stop writing this. I really want to. The story isn’t even ‘so bad it’s good.’ It’s beyond that. It’s dire, dire television and god-awful Doctor Who. To think that this was a season-opener too! Jeese-Louise! My heart bleeds!

I can see why Eric Saward commissioned it. On paper one can imagine how magnificent it could have looked, but the end result…

Too awful to even waste another word on …

It’s rare in Doctor Who for one of the Doctor’s companions to get the best line. But it’s Turlough in Warriors of the Deep that has a throwaway line that is actually one of the few outstanding ones, asking what it is that makes humans think “a futile gesture is a noble one.” I think this line sums up a worthy effort in the history of the program, even if it is a set of episodes some fans just can’t stand. 

Fans tend to hammer on about how the Silurians or Sea Devils looked wrong or walked too slowly (doesn’t that add menace, to be slow but unstoppable?). And they tend to complain that darker sets would have worked better, and hidden some of the flaws in the design, like a giant foam horse called the Myrka we’re all supposed to be afraid of because it can electrify you on contact. I can really only agree with the second part, that a story about a sea base invasion should have had darker, more claustrophobic sets. But you’d think Doctor Who fans would be used to imperfect sets by now. And while fans, ironically enough, allow mild inconsistencies to ruin their enjoyment of the show, it has to be remembered that most people don’t care. 

Here’s the biggest flaw as I see it: there are too few sympathetic characters. I don’t know what it was about the fifth, and in many ways most civil Doctor, but somehow he was increasingly dropped in situations where he and companions were the only people around that didn’t have closed minds and hostile attitudes. In a story that’s going to leave the viewer with a huge body count, and the Doctor left standing to say “There should have been another way,” (the second best line), the viewer needs a reason why the human race or the invaders should have been saved. The Doctor pays lip service to the idea that the Silurians are an ancient and noble race, but we only see them plodding through corridors killing everything in sight. And among the humans, there are a couple of sympathetic characters (mostly Maddox) but we can’t be said to really get to know them. Writers do this time and time again: introduce characters and fail to give them a single really human idiosyncrasy or memorable characteristic (something that isn’t clichй), then expect viewers to care when they’re killed. We feel for Maddox, as someone young and forced to perform horrible things, but he’s relegated to a mostly passive role. Vorshak the base commander does little more than act dense, threaten the Doctor, and finally die. And since he’s the example of a human from this era we see most often, I think it’s arguable that if he’d been better written, or performed by an outstanding actor rather than a wooden one, it would have gone a long way to save this story. We’d have had a reason to care if the earth goes boom. Even the Silurians spend the entire story reaching the bridge, then just swagger around and absolutely refuse to change their minds about provoking war. 

As the Doctor, Davison is absolute class, he’s like someone desperately trying to bail out a rowboat. After the death of Adric he’s willing to literally pounce on anyone about to go after his companions, and starts a scrap with some guards at the end of episode one. But everyone else seems to have decided they’re in a crap story. Even Janet Fielding as Tegan delivers a line to the Doctor about how billions could die as though she’s mildly annoyed. It’s a shame, because I don’t think every Doctor Who story tackled something like this, and perhaps it’s because fans can see the heights the story aspired to that they’re so frustrated and attack it with such venom. I love the idea of the Silurians employing the Myrka, a giant plodding organic creature, as their main weapon. And the idea they need send nothing more than the equivalent of a horse to wipe out most of the human population does suggest that they have fairly amazing powers we’ve not seen, and add to the tragedy of it all. Yes, I think it’s simultaneously a flawed production and a flawed script, but it’s still worthy Doctor Who. Finally, I think this story is an excellent candidate for a special edition on DVD, with perhaps darker corridors, and a Myrka that has an unearthly glow and throws off the occasional bolt of electricity, not just a bright flash when it sends people to the other side. I write this quietly and desperately knowing that I shouldn’t care about such things, but I do.

The penultimate story of the Davison era, Planet of Fire is an fairly entertaining four part romp which wasn’t as good as it could have been. However it does execute it’s main agendas competently (the reappearance of the Master, the exits of Turlough and Kamelion, and the introduction of an new companion Peri), but it cannot be regarded as one of the highlights of the Davison era. 

The location overseas filming on Lanzarote is nice if slightly bland, although it is clearly obvious that the locations on Sarn quite clearly appear to be the same as those of Earth. 

The adventure starts off in the vein of most mid 80’s serials, with lengthy scenes inside the TARDIS, with the Doctor still distressed about the events of Resurrection of the Daleks, and Turlough being disturbed by an distress signal of Trion origin, an recurring theme throughout this story, with Turlough being forced at the near end to finally stop running from his people. 

Another recurring theme is Kamelion and the Master’s usage of the robot throughout the story as an slave. 

You don’t know why the Master is forced to use Kamelion until later on at the cliff hangar to episode three, with the big payoff as the rogue Time Lord is seen miniaturized inside an control box of his TARDIS. The interior of the Master’s TARDIS is disappointing, clearly being the same version of the Doctor’s but painted black instead of white. 

I also found the plot fairly tiring and confusing at times, the natives of Sarn appear to be shallow and rather dull people, being led by Timanov, an pompous and fanatical religious leader. 

It is also unclear whether newcomer Peri is actually in fear of her step father Howard, whom appears as one of Kamelion’s guises throughout the story. 

Nicola Bryant does make an very good debut as Peri, and her infamous Bikini scene in Part One is in context, and adds much needed drama and increases the tempo of an slow episode when she is seen to be drowning, and Turlough has to go out and rescue her, one of the first times on the series where we get to see this normally cowardly and selfish character risk his life to save another. 

Another observation for me is that in this story the 5th Doctor really lacked the strength and presence of the 3rd and 4th Doctors, and a lot of the time it is Turlough who is the commanding authoritative figure. Mark Strickson for mine puts in one of his best performances as Turlough whom finally faces up to his destiny and becomes an real leader for the first time, helping the survivors and his brother Malkolm return to Trion. 

Another performer who excelled in this story was the late Anthony Ainley, easily giving his best performance as the Master since Logopolis with an classy and menacing performance as the Kamelion-Master for most of the story, and I do agree with the sentiments that the 80’s Master looked far better in a business suit than that silly penguin outfit he was forced to wear so often. 

With all those elements taken into account, this story should have come across as exciting and fast paced, but sadly due to an number of factors, the thinness of Peter Grimwade’s script (I think it lacked enough substance to sustain it for the four episodes) and the rather drab and uninspiring direction by Peter Moffat (just compare the direction of Planet of Fire to the following story The Caves of Androzani and see what I mean !!!) and some bland acting from some of the extras (although Peter Wyngarde is superb as the fanatical Sarn elder Timanov) and the general impression I get is one of disappointment. This story had the potential to be so much better, I think too much was made of the natives of Sarn worshipping Logar and the concept of the natives worshipping technology was covered far better in Face of Evil.

It’s saving grace however is the nice and fitting departure of Turlough, and contains one of the best performances of the series of the late, great Anthony Ainley, and is an great tribute to his considerable acting talents.

Mawdryn Undead has long been one of the most popular stories of the Davison era of Dr. Who. Its success lies partly in the way that it takes themes and characters that are very familiar to anyone who has watched the series for a number of years, and combines them with some fairly radical departures from the norms of the series plotting and characterization. 

One of the most obviously familiar elements of the story is the presence of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. It seems very natural, that in a story made for the series 20th anniversary season, a character who has played such a big role in the programme’s history should return, and it is a return to form as well. This Brig is very clearly the intelligent military man of the early Pertwee stories, not the frankly daft blunderer of The Three Doctors (what were you thinking of Bob and David?). That said, this is no return to UNIT’s glory days, as we discover the Brig teaching maths in a school, and suffering from amnesia brought on by some kind of nervous breakdown. Courtney plays both versions of the Brig very well here, and his vulnerability over his missing memories is very touchingly played, reminding us that any display of emotionalism must be hard for this old soldier. Some have said that the inclusion of the Silver Jubilee crates a problem with dating the UNIT stories. I have always assumed that they were contemporary, and so, to my mind, this doesn’t present a problem. 

Mawdryn Undead also sees the return of Valentine Dyall as The Black Guardian. Dyall’s portrayal of the character is quite entertaining, but The Black Guardian is, essentially, a pantomime villain, spending much of his time snarling at Turlough and threatening death and destruction at every possible opportunity. I’m almost tempted to boo and hiss every time he appears on screen. The rather strange choice of costume (“this is an ex parrot”) doesn’t help. In the hands of a less charismatic actor, this would all be very embarrassing, but Dyall somehow rises above the limitations of role and apparel, to give a performance that is, at times anyway, quite scary. The much discussed issue of why The Black Guardian can not be seen to intervene directly to destroy The Doctor is one I can not attempt to answer definitively, but perhaps it would incur the wrath of The White Guardian. 

Having dealt with the return of two previously seen characters, it’s time to talk about Turlough. Personally, I like the character, and I like Strickson’s performance. This is one of the areas where Mawdryn radically departs from the norms of the series. Of course, we’re used to seeing companions becoming caught up accidentally in the Doctor’s affairs, and deciding to stick around ( cf. Jamie, Sarah, Leela etc. , etc. ) , and companions who are kidnapped or unexpectedly removed from their own time ( Ian, Barbara, Tegan ) , but there has never been a companion who became involved with The Doctor because he was trying to kill him! He is also one of the few companions that it is hard to feel real affection for. Usually, the occupants of the Tardis are a pretty pleasant bunch. Strickson, in the opening moments of this serial, establishes Turlough as a sneaky, cowardly, cold young man, and, although his time with The Doctor mellows him a little, these essential traits remain in place until he leaves, under something of a cloud really, at the end of Planet of Fire. During this serial, Strickson starts the process of taking turlough from his starting point as a quite unpleasant individual to someone who begins to appreciate the values and actions of someone like The Doctor. Stickson’s performance is one of the joys of Mawdryn Undead. Of course, it was this dwelling on the interaction of characters in the Tardis crew that lead Andrew Cartmel to describe this era of the show as “Neighbours with roundels”, which I can’t help feeling not only ignores one of the things that made the early Hartnell series so compelling, but also seems a bit hypocritical from the man who gave us the Grange Hill with explosives character of Ace. At least in the Davison years, character development wasn’t done with a sledgehammer.

The plot of Mawdryn Undead also deals with a theme that is very familiar to long time fans of the series, that of scientists using their knowledge for questionable ends. We can see this theme in evidence in stories such as The War Games, The Brain of Morbius, Robot, Invasion of the Dinosaurs etc., etc. . . . Here, immortality is the goal sought by Mawdryn and co., and this is the first of two occasions in season 20 that immortality is seen as something craved by villains, the other occasion being, of course, The Five Doctors. However, Mawdryn is not a straightforward villain, and, rather like Omega in Arc of Infinity, we do feel some sympathy for him. This traditional bad scientist plot is given a twist by a quite surprising use of The Doctor’s ability to time travel. Tegan and Nyssa become stranded in 1977, while The Doctor is in 1983, both parties encounter The Brigadier, and it the eventual meeting of these two versions of The Brigadier that causes the release of energy that provides the plot’s resolution. This makes time travel central to the plot, rather than simply being the device by which The doctor and his crew enter the story. There have, of course, been stories where time travel has played a role in the plot ( The Chase, Earthshock, Pyramids of Mars, etc. ) , but in Mawdryn it plays a very central role, explaining The Brigadier’s breakdown, and providing the resolution. Given the unpredictability of The Tardis when piloted by the Fifth Doctor, it also raises the possibility of The Doctor being separated from his companions permanently, especially as it went with them and not him! 

Any mention of time in this story will inevitably lead into the long standing argument over whether this story plays fast and loose with the UNIT continuity by showing a Brigadier who has retired from the organization by Summer1977 at the latest. I have to say, I don’t think this argument can ever be resolved, as, when it comes to dating the UNIT stories, there is a lot of contradictory evidence in the series as a whole ( not least of all Sarah’s claim in Pyramids of Mars that she comes from 1980 ) . I am content to accept that the majority of the evidence tends to suggest that the UNIT stories were more or less contemporary, and that Mawdryn Undead doesn’t really present a problem in continuity terms. 

All in all, this is one of the best stories of the Davison era, and I would be very surprised if it doesn’t remain a firm favorite with fans for many years to come.