By Roy Mathur, on 2026-01-28, at 23:16:27 to 00:27:21 GMT, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show
While no day is uneventful at Royenstein, it's been quite a week. Mum had sudden onset eye pain on 2025-01-20, an emergency appointment was arranged and... took a week to materialise.
I went for my first ride since just before Christmas on the afternoon of 2025-01-24, which was great, then was reduced to tears, slamming my finger in a drawer that evening, which was not. My finger has almost recovered, so I went for another ride this afternoon. The day ended well with pie and delightful cupcakes, thus I welcome you to the first continuation of my chronological classic Who revisit of the year.
In other news, I improved two pens and fixed my walking stick, but I caught another glimpse of my santa reflection... pah! A note on sound, the first 12 min 40 sec is recorded with a Shure SM58, then I switch to a Shure SM7B.
Notable Cast: Seventh Doctor: Sylvester McCoy, Companion: Ace: Sophie Aldred, Helen A: Sheila Hancock; renowned British actress, though I know her best as the real-life spouse of John Thaw
Director: Chris Clough, also Terror of the Vervoids, The Ultimate Foe, Delta and the Bannermen, Dragonfire, Silver Nemesis
Writer: Graeme Curry
Producer: John Nathan-Turner
Location: BBC Television Centre, Shepherd's Bush, 1998
Broadcast: Story 149, serial 2, season 25, following Remembrance of the Daleks (598), 3 x c. 25 min, 2--16 Nov 1988
Media: Target novelization by Graeme Curry 1990, VHS 1997, DVD 2012, 2013, BBC iPlayer since 1 Nov 2023
The UK no. 1 single was Enya's Orinoco Flow.
The Doctor is accused of spying and Ace is press-ganged into matriarchy Terra Alpha's sinister Happiness Patrol death squad of dictator, Helen A, who murder Killjoys; anyone who isn't happy all the time.
They escape prison (Waiting Zone) and are helped by rebellious Happiness Patrol woman, Susan Q and Earl Sigma, a medical student supporting himself while travelling the galaxy by playing the blues harmonica.They join forces with native non-human Pipe People, during a popular human uprising, but are set upon by a vicious Stigorax, Fifi, Helen A's wolf-like and implacable predator. The Doctor tells Earl to play a note on his harmonica that makes a resonance causing a rockfall that kills it. The Doctor also destroys Helen's A's robotic henchman, the Kandyman, by melting him in hot fondant.
Helen A tries to escape, but her husband and the regime's mad scientist have taken her ship. Unrepentant, she tries to slip away in the streets, but breaks down when she finds her dying pet.
The streets are so flat and shiny from caster-scarring that there is no mistake that this is an entirely studio-based set. It all looks very cheap.
The evil Muppet-like Stigorax isn't bad and I like the diminutive, goblin-like primitive Pipe People, especially endearing is how they adopt Ace's, "wicked", but the Kandyman is possibly the worst ever Who creature design. I can't believe that someone came up with this third-rate demented Bertie Bassett. It is at least so iconic a villain, that it makes the Thatcher-parody story even more specifically British Sci-Fi.
The bright uniforms, mask-like makeup of the Happiness Patrol, their eagerness to perform summary executions, and the forced cheerfulness in the midst of so much death reminded me of Squid Game.
There is a scene in which the Doctor and Ace make the slowest quick getaway on vehicle I have ever seen.
"Happiness prevails", must be stolen from 1982--85 V for Vendetta's fascistic, "England prevails", which, subsequently in the mid-to-late 2000s, was purloined in my own #VillainyPrevails Twitter hashtag.
What should be a vicious satire of Thatcher's 80s Britain, thanks to bad camp villainy and cheap production, becomes a silly an farcical pantomime. However, it is mercifully only a fast-paced three-parter.
In Howe, Walker, and Stammer's Handbook: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Production of Doctor Who, page 713, Sylvester McCoy, interviewed by Paul Travers for Doctor Who Magazine No. 154 1989, says, "The Happiness Patrol was slightly disappointing, because it was done in a studio. I think it was a bit over-ambitious...Trying to create a planet...doesn't work. You have to suspend a lot of disbelief."
According to IMDB Graeme Curry's scriptwriting credits are sparse and this is his only Doctor Who script, though he has an uncredited cameo as a tourist at Windsor Castle in Silver Nemesis.