Day 674: The Happiness Patrol Part 3

As the story comes to a conclusion, we consider the tragic tale of Helen A. She took charge of the colony with an aim to make everyone happy, which she did by making unhappiness illegal, and filling everything with cheap and cosmetic views of happiness, not the pure happiness that is the very stuff of life itself, which can only really be experienced in contrast to unhappiness. And it's this lack of understanding that proves to be her downfall.

The Doctor plans a demonstration of all the unhappy people, known as Killjoys, to start publically laughing and partying. The Happiness Patrol are uncharacteristically unhappy due to the fact that they aren't able to start killing people because they don't have a reason to. Instead, they arrest each other, as they have become the unhappy ones in their society. This all sets off a chain of dominos as factories all around the planet begin to revolt against their horrific society. And ironically, these people who are revolting are the happiest that they've ever been in their lives, grinning as they finally take control of their own society, for the good of all Terra Alphans.

Contrast this with Helen A, who is getting more and more peeved as the episode progresses, realising that her entire way of life is flawed, and that she will never succeed. Her husband leaves her, taking with him her escape shuttle and one of her henchmen. The villainous Kandyman, who acted as her executioner, is killed in a sea of molten candy running through the pipes that he tried to escape through. And finally, as she goes on her last rant to the Doctor about how her happiness will prevail, she is greeted with the sight of her dead demonic dog, Fifi. Faced with this sight, she breaks down in tears, feeling truly sad for the first time. And whilst we might empathise with her, there is also the fact that we know this is what she truly deserves: to feel a wide breadth of emotions such that happiness can truly be felt, instead of being plastered around you as some sort of sick joke.

Day 673: The Happiness Patrol Part 2

In the middle of The Happiness Patrol, something quite extraordinary happens. Within less than two minutes, the Doctor manages to disarm two snipers without fighting them whatsoever, instead through talking with them and pointing out the graveness of the act that they are about to commit. It's an amazing scene, mostly due to the performance of Sylvester McCoy, who delivers the lines with as a calm force, effectively destroying them with the power of words. It's also a scene that is definitive for the Seventh Doctor, showing him as someone who doesn't go for a route based in action, but instead one based on manipulation of his opponents, such that they will do want he wants them to. But above all of that, it's a really well done scene, and goes to show that even in the dying days of the programme, good things could still be produced.

Day 672: The Happiness Patrol Part 1

The Happiness Patrol is an interesting little story. It concerns the Doctor and Ace arriving on a human colony, Terra Alpha, where it is apparently illegal to be unhappy. Thus, te colony is filled with fake smiles and false happiness, whilst a garish secret police perform executions based around sweets and jokes. This is obviously not a nice place to live, so the Doctor decides to overthrow their entire government over the space of one night.

It's a story that feels as if it's completely new and different, despite drawing on the same themes as previous adventures. We still get the Doctor and Ace being captured, we still get the main characters meeting up with locals in order to form some sort of resistance to fight the tyranny present in the world, but it's all done with a motivation that is is their main goal for the story, not as a secondary goal whilst they try to save the Universe or fix the TARDIS or some other plot element. Take, for instance, the start of the story where the Doctor and Ace meet up with members of the titular Happiness Patrol. The Doctor and Ace don't try and run away, or fight them, instead they look for excuses to be arrested by them, because they recognise that this process is an element of the story that will eventually lead to the government being overthrown. It also helps that the story is only three parts long, as it lends the adventure a sense of swiftness that helps the illusion that the entire revolution will take place in one night. It all certainly makes for an interesting story, and I'm looking forward to the remainder of the adventure.