The Happiness Patrol

Three episodes
Aired between 2nd November 1988 and 16th November 1988

Written by Graeme Curry
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Chris Clough

Synopsis

On Earth Colony Terra Alpha, the worst crime you can commit is to be sad. There are strict police patrols that roam the streets looking for offenders (called the Happiness Patrol). They are backed up by undercover officers, trying to root out the malignant people they call "killjoy's". The whole show is run by a female dictator known as Helen A.

The Doctor and Ace go to Terra Alpha upon hearing rumours of its brutal regime and a whole host of "disappearances". Wandering the streets, they come upon Trevor Sigma, a human who is conducting a census of the population. They are shortly after met by the Happiness Patrol who arrest the Doctor for being a spy, recruit Ace into the police force and they paint the TARDIS pink to brighten it up.

Whilst being held in a waiting area by a guard called Priscilla P, the Doctor meets a man who used to write terrible jokes and is sentenced to death. He says better to die by the Happiness Patrol than by Helen A's secret - the Kandy Man. He is allegedly an evil scientist who experiments on victims.


Indeed, the Kandy Man is responsible for devising public executions of the most heinous people, and is fond of drowning them in strawberry fondant.

Ace soon makes a friend in young member Susan Q and convinces her to let her go.

She finds the Doctor and they escape in a motorised Go Cart, but it's not long before Ace is recaptured. The Doctor then meets a blues harmonica player called Earl Sigma, who helps him get to the Kandy Man's kitchen.

He finds that the Kandy Man is actually a robot made of sweets but is evil nonetheless.

The Kandy Man finds them and ties them up but before he can carry out a devilishly tortuous death using sweets, the Doctor tricks him into melting his feet to the floor with lemonade. This allows the Doctor and Earl to escape into a pipe that carries the fondant.

It's here that they meet a race of sub human creatures known as the pipe people.

 It's not long before the Doctor  befriends them and they take him to where Ace is being held with Susan Q (who has been arrested for treason).The pipe people distract Priscilla P and Ace and Susan escape.

Earl departs, helping to cause rebellion elsewhere in the city.

As the Doctor, Ace, Susan and the pipe people move through the tunnels, Helen A's pet - Fifi is sent in after them.

The dog like creature is soon subdued with a can of Nitro 9.

The Doctor eventually meets Helen A and doesn't like what he sees - Susan Q's imminent execution via the fondant tube. He leaves again and goes back to the Kandy Kitchen. He makes a deal with the Kandy Man to divert the fondant in return for unsticking him, which he holds up at least until the deed is done. The Doctor simply sticks him to the floor again once the Kandy Man starts to act menacing once more.

Having thwarted their own execution, Ace and Susan are brought to Helen A and told they will audition for the Happiness Patrol publicly. The implication being that if they're not sufficiently good (or funny?) enough, they will "disappear".  The Doctor sees their audition posters.

He effectively rescues them with the help of Priscilla P who is fed up of not being in the patrol and being overlooked by Helen A.

The Doctor, Ace and Susan escape back into the tunnels and soon find out from the pipe people that Fifi is on the loose again. Earl meets them and the Doctor gets him to play his harmonica loud to attract the dog, but also causes a cave in of crystallised syrup, killing the beast.



They get back to Helen A's HQ via the pipe to the Kandy Kitchen (and hound the Kandy Man into it via the uses of a roaring oven) before moving on. The pipe people divert the fondant, killing the evil bertie basett.

With revolution all around her, Helen A prepares to flee, but her husband and Trevor Sigma have stolen the escape shuttle and go without her.  She is eventually subdued and confronted with the emotions she has lacked when she finds out that Fifi is dead.

With the regime disbanded, the Doctor forces them to paint the TARDIS back blue and he and Ace set off for another adventure.

Trivia

• This story came about from throwing ideas about as the writer had absolutely not a single idea in his head about what to write. It was Andrew Cartmel who gave the prompt of a planet where everybody was forced to be happy, and things went from there.

• There's no denying it. The Kandy Man was heavily inspired by Bertie Basset from the Bassets Liquorice All-sorts sweets.  Needless to say, the company did not appreciate their mascot being made to look like a serial killer. The BBC got off light though, with them just promising not to do it again.

• The original version of the Kandy Man however wasn't even going to be like that. He was a human being and more like a joseph Mengele type criminal insane scientist.

• One thing older viewers may find familiar is Helen A. The actress played her as a satire of Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister at the time. Her ruthlessness and her befuddled husband in the background are all giveaways. Cartmel and others have tried to play this down over the years, but the actress gets really defensive if anyone challenges this and insists she was told to play it like that

• The story was originally intended to be filmed in black and white to add to the Noir feel, but it was decided against

The Review

This story harks back to the olden glory days of Doctor Who with an intriguing concept and almost childlike simplicity. Indeed, the concept is quite good with very sinister overtones coming into the fray as if you're not happy you will be made to disappear in a ruthless and merciless way, whilst at the same time that sickly sweet appearance that everything is fine is emphasised by the use of pinks, smiley faces, and the Kandy Man's fondant.

This is yet another story that should work, and most of the actors give it a try. Kandy Man, as much as he looks like a fool, is pretty menacing because he's so unrepentant evil. Helen A, and Earl are also great. It's unfair to pick on some actors for letting the side down, so instead I will say that a few of them played it as camp as could be, and that detracted from the show.  To help them along, the fact that the city streets were just the slick black studio floor, and the low budget gave us pathetic go carts that couldn't outrun a snail...it destroyed credibility.

The end result for me was frustration. It was a good idea poorly executed. The Happiness Patrol wanted everyone to laugh and smile, but this show has made us do so at their expense, with only some of the sinister being left intact to even vaguely grab my attention.

Rating

6 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

4 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

The Savages

The Macra Terror

Enemy of the World

The Sun Makers

The Beast Below (Doctor Who, Series 5)

Remembrance of the Daleks

Four episodes
Aired between 5th October 1988 and 26th October 1988

Written by Ben Aaronovitch
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Andrew Morgan

Synopsis

The Doctor takes Ace to London 1963 and specifically Coal Hill School, the very school where his Granddaughter Susan attended and Ian and Barbara worked.

He is being rather mysterious about their business there when he finds a strange van spying on the school - it turns out that it's a secret part of the Military Countermeasures Unit. They are tracking what sounds like a hostile alien in a junk yard.  That junk yard is none other than Totters Lane (see An Unearthly Child). The alien turns out to be a Dalek.

The military officer in command - Group Captain "chunky" Gilmore doesn't listen to the Doctor.

His people start getting killed until the Doctor takes matters into his own hands and blows up the Dalek with some of Ace's Nitro-9.

Once it's dealt with, he goes with Ace back to the school where he finds evidence of the Daleks mucking about. He explains that there's two different factions of Daleks, trying to get their hands on an artefact he planted the last time he was here. He wants the "right" faction to get hold of it as it's a sort of trap.

In the basement of the school, they find an Imperial Dalek transmat which the Doctor disables, but the Dalek engineer is around to try and start it up after it's killed the Doctor. Ace runs out of the basement but the schools Headmaster turns out to be a Dalek agent. He knocks Ace out and blocks the doorway, trapping the Doctor. He in turn can do nothing but watch as the Dalek begins levitating up the stairs.

Ace recovers just in time to incapacitate the headmaster and free the Doctor.

Meanwhile, the gutted wreck of the Renegade Dalek in the junkyard is taken away by a group of men led by Mr Ratcliffe. It turns out he is a former fascist and is now a renegade Dalek agent. He talks to a mysterious Dalek figure in his headquarters who is working the Dalek battle computer. Together they make plans to secure this artefact - the Hand of Omega.

The Doctor and Ace meet back up with the Countermeasures gang. The Doctor goes off and leaves Ace at the boarding house whilst he recovers the Hand of Omega. It looks like a coffin shaped box and is left at an undertakers. After using it's energy to charge Ace's baseball bat, he summons it to follow him and he buries it (with the help of a blind priest) in a cemetery.  Little does the Doctor know that he is being spied on by double agent - Mike Smith - a guy Ace is becoming fond of.

Mike smith tells Ratcliffe and the Renegade Daleks that he's found the Hand of Omega and they ultimately get it.

Meanwhile, Ace goes back with the Doctor and the countermeasures bunch to the school. She retrieves her boom box which she left accidentally but comes up against an Imperial Dalek and is forced to batter it with her energised bat.

She legs but is cornered by some more Imperial Daleks. She tries to load a rocket launcher she acquired but doesn't have time. Thankfully, the Doctor scrambles the Daleks mechanics with a radio wave gun he rigged up based on a previous encounter (see Planet of the Daleks).

They go back up to the school classrooms but see that a Dalek shuttle has landed.

Elsewhere, the Renegade Daleks retrieve the Hand of Omega. They have a street battle with the Imperial Daleks and are ultimately defeated after a big Special Weapons Dalek turns up.

Back at the school, the Doctor zip lines down onto the shuttle and disables its defences (and the Dalek Pilot). They go and find the renegade Dalek base and figure out that the mysterious controller is actually a school girl, taken over by the Daleks and plugged into their battle computer for her ingenuity and human instinct.  Thankfully the girl is away so they disable the Daleks Time Controller and leave.

With the Daleks closing in, the Doctor and Ace return to the school and warn the Countermeasures lot. They catch Smith out in a lie and Gilmore detains him.  Not for long though. He eventually escapes to the Dalek base and sees that the base is being attacked by Imperial Daleks. He and Ratcliffe steal the reactivated time controller, but are chased by the Dalek girl. She kills Ratcliffe and goes to find Smith.

The Imperial Daleks finally victorious, take the Hand of Omega back to their shuttle and from there, to the Mothership waiting in Orbit.

The Doctor with the help of the countermeasures team, gets in touch with the mothership and is confronted by the Emperor Dalek - A.K.A. Davros himself.

It turns out Davros is intending to use the Hand of Omega to convert Skaro's sun into a source of limitless power, therefore putting themselves on equal footing with the Time Lords.

The Doctor taunts Davros into unleashing the Hand against Earth, but to Davros' surprise, it instead flies to Skaro and causes a supernova, destroying the planet.  It then flies back and hits the mothership before returning to Galifrey - a course it seems that the Doctor had all programmed into it.

Davros manages to escape in an escape pod just before the mothership is annihilated).

Ace finds and follows Smith. She confronts him, but the Dalek girl turns up. She kills Smith and is about to finish off Ace.

As this is happening, the Doctor seeks and finds the Supreme Dalek - the last of the Renegade faction. He convinces it that all its soldiers are dead and it's failed. In response it commits suicide, disabling the Dalek girl as she is about to kill Ace.

At Smith's funeral, Ace and the Doctor make their exit. She asks him if what the Doctor did in terms of manipulating the Daleks into destroying their own world was ultimately good. He says that time will eventually tell, as it always does.

Trivia

• This story has been confirmed to be the first act in what is known as the Time War. It sparks a fatal feud between the Time Lords and the Daleks that will come back to haunt the Doctor's ninth incarnation onwards (see Rose). 

• Many cite this story as the first to dispel the myth that the Daleks cannot get up stairs. Keen eyed, sharp minded Doctor Who fans however will remember that the very first instance of this was Davros himself levitating in Revelation of the Daleks.

• This story is the first one to have the visible "skeleton effect" when a Dalek energy weapon hits its victim. This will become the standard effect for all Dalek weapons from this point on

• As a bit of an inside joke, Aaronovitch hinted that Bernard Quatermass would be in this universe and would have helped out if he was available. It also heavily suggests that the TV in the boarding house is about to show the very first episode of Doctor Who

• The original battering of the Dalek and blowing up with a rocket launcher was supposed to have been done by the Doctor, but Sylvester pointed out the Doctor's hatred of weapons, and so suggested Ace do it instead.

• It's sad to say, but this is the final time that we see series stalwart Michael Sheard appear n the show (boo hoo). He's had a few good roles, but ultimately was also well known as an imperial officer in Empire Strikes Back, of course the wig-wearing deputy headteacher in Grange Hill, and ultimately Adolf Hitler in The Last Crusade.

• The battle of the Daleks took an unexpected turn when the Special Weapons Dalek turned up. It was a routine scene to be shot, but the special effects guys built a bigger charge for its shot and ended up drawing attention of just about every police and fire service officer in London after the explosion went off (it was still around the time of IRA bombings)

The Review

Remembrance of the Daleks is very much a mixed bag. On one hand, it carries with it a deeper narrative and promise of a darker plot that the Doctor is up to, it shows lots of nostalgia (good and bad) both to an England of the past as well as the shows history, has cool Dalek action scenes, and has the return of Davros in it.  On the other, it has stupid effects (more of the Dalek transmat and the time controller being a static electricity ball), a few bits of clunky acting including Ace getting kneed in the groin, and is a bit daft when it comes to the Hand of Omega stuff.

On balance, the good outweighs the bad, but it does leave a jarring feeling inside when you try and consider why exactly the Hand of Omega would supercharge a baseball bat (and why the Doctor would want to), as well as why Davros is crying when the Hand of Omega causes Skaro's sun to go supernova when if he used it how he wanted, that would have been the result anyway!

If you watch this mainly for the rock 'em sock 'em Dalek action and people vaulting over school desks or flying into corrugated metal sheets, then this is an amazing effort, just try to ignore the gaps in logic and the wobbly trundling outdoor Daleks and you'll have a great time.

Rating

8 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

6 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• An Unearthly Child

• Evil of the Daleks

• Revelation of the Daleks

• Silver Nemesis