The Happiness Patrol is a story is best described as
average. It has some quite interesting political messages in these three
episodes it is always forgotten because of the Kandy Man. It’s annoying that
after all the good work done in Remembrance of the Daleks, that its that stupid
Kandy Man creature that undermines it. This wouldn’t be so bad but it’s a monster
that is put out of action by lemonade and a hot poker. No one takes it
seriously and as a result I don’t take it seriously. The main threat from these
three episode has always been Helen A and that is where the story is rescued.
The Fifi puppet looks quite good in this episode. It’s
mobility is impressive given that it appears very little money was spent
elsewhere. I know I was a bit critical in previous episodes but it suddenly
made sense in this episode. It’s death was something that was going to have
more of an effect on Helen A than on the viewer.
Helen A tries to leave in the shuttle but Gilbert M has
beaten her to it. She doesn’t do much in the first half of the episode but
Sheila Hancock shows us why she’s a great actress in the latter half of the
episode. Helen A’s attempt to justify what she had done to the Doctor was a
nice scene but it came way too late in the episode. It’s hard to not find
something nice in Helen A’s desire to find somewhere that is happy all the
time. Her sadness at the death of Fifi’s perhaps the nice way to end her time
in the episode and it is perhaps the most that she deserves after what she has
been doing.
The Doctor singing is something rather amusing. This is
something that works well in this episode but I think that had this happened in
the twenty-fourth season then I would be saying that it just adds to the
problem but the idea that singing and music is helping in the uprising. Not one
bullet was fired but the Doctor was still able to make change happen.
I remember a few years ago this story being part of a news
feature on Newsnight about this story and its political satire. Watching this
story hasn’t been a happy experience but it wasn’t as bad as I have thought of
it in the past. I am not sorry that this story is over but I think that I have
been harsher on this than I should have been. Still not convinced on the Kandy
Man design though.
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