Production code 7L

First Transmitted:
1-02/11/1988 19:35
2-09/11/1988 19:35
3-16/11/1988 19:35

Cast
Sophie Aldred : Ace
Tim Barker : Harold V.
Rachel Bell : Priscilla P.
Jonathan Burn : Silas P.
Mark Carroll : Sniper
Lesley Dunlop : Susan Q.
Ronald Fraser : Joseph C.
Ryan Freedman : Wulfric
Georgina Hale : Daisy K.
Sheila Hancock : Helen A.
Mary Healey : Killjoy
Although identified only as 'Killjoy' in the closing credits to Part One, the character played by Mary Healey is named Daphne S, as confirmed by the poster at the conclusion of Part Two.
Annie Hulley : Newscaster
Harold Innocent : Gilbert M.
Sylvester McCoy : The Doctor
Philip Neve : Wences
John Normington : Trevor Sigma
David John Pope : Kandy Man
Tim Scott : Forum Doorman
Richard D Sharp : Earl Sigma
Steve Swinscoe : Sniper

Crew
John Asbridge : Designer
Don Babbage : Studio Lighting
Perry Brahan : Visual Effects
Andrew Cartmel : Script Editor
Chris Clough : Director
June Collins : Production Associate
Richard Croft : Costumes
Graeme Curry : Writer
Dominic Glynn : Incidental Music
Ron Grainer : Title Music
and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, arranged by Keff McCulloch
Lynn Grant : Assistant Floor Manager
Dick Mills : Special Sounds
John Nathan-Turner : Producer
Dorka Nieradzik : Make-Up
Scott Talbott : Studio Sound
Trevor Webster : Studio Sound
Jane Wellesley : Production Assistant

Plot Outline from Wikipedia

Having heard the rumours of untoward happenings, the Seventh Doctor and Ace visit a human colony on the planet Terra Alpha where they find unhappiness to be an illegal act. In a perverse society ruled by the vicious and egotistical Helen A, the Happiness Patrol is a secret police force which hunts down killjoys and eliminates them. It also resprays the TARDIS pink as a more joyous and appropriate colour than blue. The disappearances also worry Trevor Sigma, the official galactic censor, who is visiting Terra Alpha too to discover where so many of the population have gone – 17% at the most recent count.

The Doctor and Ace have a brief period of incarceration to find out more about the society of Terra Alpha, encountering unhappy guard Susan Q who becomes a firm ally. Both split up, with the Doctor encountering another visitor to the planet, Earl Sigma, a wandering harmonica plays who stirs unrest by playing the blues. (Sigma is the Alphan designation for non-Alphan off-worlders and the Doctor is soon known as ‘Doctor Sigma’ – similar to his Academy nickname of ‘Theta Sigma’.) Earl and the Doctor venture to the Kandy Kitchen at the heart of the planet’s governance system, where they discover rebels drowned in fondant surprise, which is the favoured method of execution of the Kandy Man., a grotesque sweet-based equivalent of a robot. Kandy Man was created by Gilbert M, one of Helen A’s senior advisers, is an immoral and sadistic killer.

The Doctor and Earl effect an escape and end up in the candy pipes below the colony, where dwell the native inhabitants of Terra Alpha, now known as Pipe People. They want to help overthrow the tyranny of Helen A. The Doctor returns to the surface and now starts actively subverting the government system – supporting demonstrations in favour of unhappiness and stirring up the drones to revolt; preventing snipers removing malcontents; and even challenging Helen A face to face to end the monstrosity of her government.

Ace and Susan Q have meanwhile been scheduled to appear in the late show at the Forum, where the penalty for non-entertainment is death. The Doctor and Earl rescue them both and the four head off to Helen A’s palace for a final showdown while a revolution takes full effect outside the palace walls. The first to be disposed of is Helen A’s pet Stigorax, Fifi, a rat-dog creature she used to hunt down the Pipe People, which is crushed in the pipes below the city. Then the Pipe People destroy the Kandy Man in a flow of his own fondant surprise. Gilbert M and Joseph C, the consort of the leader, use the opportunity of the disorder to slip away. Helen A tries to flee too but is challenged by the Doctor about the true nature of happiness, which can only be understood if counter-balanced by sadness. This is a notion she understands only when confronted with the remains of Fifi. The revolution is complete and the Doctor and Ace slip away – but only once the TARDIS has been repainted blue.

Analysis by Cuisle

I am a Doctor Who fan. I aim to find something good in every episode. Some of them are harder to do that for.

I remember The Happiness Patrol in its first run for all the wrong reasons. First and foremost the ridiculous Kandyman monster which looked like Bertie Bassett's malevolent twin - and seriously, did the sweet company not have reservations about that? If you ask anyone what they remember of the McCoy era, they will tend to remember the Kandyman and cringe.

I feel much the same about the Happiness Patrol women with their candy-floss hairsdo and pink hairdresser outfits. They look ridiculous especially in hindsight when those hairstyles aren't even in fashion.

That aside, the premise is not a bad one. It is Orwell repackaged. What happens when people are controlled to such an extent that not being happy is against the law? The Happiness Patrol seeks them out.

Of course, The Doctor isn’t going to stand for that. And he and Ace set out to right the wrongs. Ultimately, that is what any Doctor Who story is about. He rights what is wrong and leaves people better off for it. Yes, as Clive the conspiracy theorist of the 2005 season would have it, death and carnage sometimes happens. But for those that survive their world is a better place when The Doctor has finished his work. A happy ending is what we want and demand from him.

And this he does with a vengeance. The Doctor realises that the way to fight the Happiness Patrol is actually to BE happy, en-masse. He gathers a group of the workers and ‘drones’ and has them laugh and party in the street. The Patrol don’t know what to do and joyful rebellion spreads through the planet. A simple solution but it took his genius to come up with it.

The Kandyman, of course, is killed in the time honoured tradition of the fairy tale creature he is. He is burnt up in his own oven. But he was not really the ultimate Bad Guy on Terra Alpha. The real Monster was Helen A, a woman in the Cruella De Ville mode of wickedness who as well as enforcing happiness keeps the men of the world subjugated. The Patrols are all female. Even her own husband is an archetypical hen-pecked wimp. Sheila Hancock plays the smiling malevolence to the full and she actually comes off much better at it than you might realise at first glance. She could be compared with Maureen Lipman as the smiling, friendly but malevolent face of 1950s TV in the recent Idiot’s Lantern. In both cases the fear factor was engendered by the evil beneath the smile. This is actually a difficult thing to pull off and it TAKES a veteran actress of their calibre to do it, and a veteran actor like Ronald Fraser to be the henpecked worm that turns in the end, taking Helen A’s escape capsule and leaving the planet with the creator of the Kandyman. Less charitable critics have speculated at a sexual connotation in two middle-aged men escaping from a powerful woman together. I think that’s maybe taking things too far!

On the whole, watching it a couple of times and picking up on the nuances, Happiness Patrol is not as bad as it seemed watching it the first time. One point that was missed by most viewers, I expect, was the thing about all aliens being called ‘Sigma’. The Doctor mentions – for maybe the third time in the whole 26 seasons that his college nickname was Theta Sigma. Which marks him as the ‘alien’ everywhere he goes. And that was something that was played upon in these Sylvester McCoy stories. McCoy is the least alien of all the Doctors, looking like an amiable college professor or a favourite uncle. But the writers wove into his character enough of the alien and strange to make people think a bit more laterally and not take him for granted.