Doctor Who – The Happiness Patrol

Doctor Who - The Happiness Patrol
Doctor Who – The Happiness Patrol

“The Happiness Patrol” is an adventure of the twentyfifth season of “Doctor Who” classic series which aired in 1988. It follows “Remembrance of the Daleks” and it’s a three parts adventure written by Graeme Curry and directed by Chris Clough.

The story

The Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and Ace (Sophie Aldred) arrive on Terra Alpha, a planet where everyone is happy. Everywhere you can hear lively music and people wear clothes with bright colors. However, it’s very easy to realize that behind the appearance of happiness there’s a police and secret agents who watch and punish whoever express negative emotions.

The Doctor and Ace are held in a waiting area because there are no prisons on Terra Alpha and discover that the people accused of spreading misery mysteriously disappear. The Doctor must face the regime of happiness imposed by the leader Helen A and the Kandy Man, one of her closest collaborators.

Extras

This DVD contains a good amount extras. There are typical contents such as production subtitles, the Radio Time Listings, a promo of the “Doctor Who” DVDs to be published soon and a gallery of pictures from this adventure.

There are comments in the adventure alternative audio track by protagonist Sophie Aldred, writer Graeme Curry, director Cris Clough, script editor Andrew Cartmel and composer Dominic Glynn moderated by da Toby Hadoke.

Happiness Will Prevail. A documentary about 24 minutes long about the creation of the story of “The Happiness Patrol”.

Deleted and Extended Scenes. A series of scenes cut in part or completely from the final version. There are more than 23 minutes of material to demonstrate how much has been cut during the editing stage.

When Worlds Collide. A 46-minute documentary about the relationship between “Doctor Who” and politics. An interesting analysis of the political contents present in several adventures of the series.

Isolated Score. The option to listen to the soundtrack composed by Dominic Glynn in a separate audio track.

[ad name=”AmazonDVDDoctorWho468″]

Writer Graeme Curry had won a screenwriting competition and was advised to send his work to some script editors. Among them there was Andrew Cartmel, who invited him to propose some ideas for “Doctor Who” and after some time Curry proposed a story set on a planet where it was illegal to be unhappy. Cartmel approved it and together the two of them developed an adventure that included a satire on the government led by Margaret Thatcher.

“The Happiness Patrol” was the last adventure of “Doctor Who” twenty-fifth season to be produced and the budget was limited even by the standards of the classic series. The shooting was done all in studio in sets that reproduced in a very unconvincing way the colony on Terra Alpha.

Considering the theme of this adventure, the fact that the environment looks fake can make sense but it’s purely coincidental and for director Chris Clough it wasn’t easy to have quality shooting. To give the story a noir tone he proposed to shoot it in black and white but producer John Nathan-Turner vetoed the idea.

Another major problem in the production of “The Happiness Patrol” was that the material shot was far too much and several cuts had to be made during the editing stage. In various moments, that breaks the narrative flow of the story and of some of the scenes only a kind of summary is shown. In retrospect, it would’ve been better to leave out of the plot the part concerning the natives of the planet Terra Alpha, who in the end are useless.

Despite these flaws, “The Happiness Patrol” offers a witty story about hypocrisy and superficiality. On Terra Alpha it’s important to show happiness and it’s irrelevant what’s behind that facade. The bright appearance of the patrols who watch over the happiness of the colony is the symbol of the regime. Of course, those guardians of happiness are definitely over the top but they perfectly represent a world in which the government determines that everything’s alright even when the reality is the opposite.

Actress Sheila Hancock plays the leader Helen A using Margaret Thatcher’s mannerisms and this was one of the points of controversy for “The Happiness Patrol” because it focused the satire on the British Conservative government. Many years later it’s easy to watch this adventure without recognizing Thatcher’s parody but I think this helps to improve the judgment about it because you can see in it different governments with authoritarian tendencies hidden behind a facade friendly towards the citizens.

Overall, I think that “The Happiness Patrol” is a pretty good adventure but I understand why some “Doctor Who” fans hate it. The story has a potential that I think hasn’t been fulfilled​properly and that’s why there are fans who have a negative view of it. The DVD is in my opinion a good product with high quality extra definitely targeted to the show fans.

In Region 2 nations, this DVD is part of the “Ace Adventures” box set, available on Amazon UK. The two adventures therein are not memorable but the extras are really good so it can be an interesting purchase for fans of “Doctor Who”, even when it is on special offer.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *