Happiness will prevail!
The Happiness Patrol is the second story of season 25. It stars Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor and Sophie Aldred as Ace. There is dramatic music right from the start, fading in as soon as the title music is over. We are in the dark streets of Studio 8 at the BBC Television Centre, where Silas P and the Happiness Patrol are already busy entrapping an unfortunate manny who gets shot by their pewpewpew guns only because she has a sad. This quickly and neatly establishes that the Happiness Patrol are the baddys in much the same way as we get to know the Federation are the baddys in the first episode of Blakes 7.
The TARDIS arrives, and the Doctor tells Ace (and us) he has already heard "disturbing rumours" about this place, called Terra Alpha. The Doctor tells Ace it is "an Earth colony, settled some centuries in your future." I should hope so, otherwise that means there are Earth colonies already. Get the tinfoil cathats everybody, it's conspiracy theory time!
They meet Trevor Sigma, "on official business from Galactic Centre," who asks them questions but refuses to answer theirs, so the Doctor can't help himself but troll Trevor into answering a question.
The Happiness Patrol paint the TARDIS pink and the Doctor likes it. The Doctor and Ace get arrested for not having the right badges, but for a change this is all part of the Doctor's plan which was to try and get arrested. (It is not clear if the Doctor had any further steps to his plan worked out but I suspect not.)
Speaking to another prisoner, they find out lots of other silly things that are illegal: wearing dark clothes, listening to slow music, reading poems (unless they're limericks), and "walking in the rain, if you're on your own and don't take an umbrella."
We see another manny getting executed by the Kandyman by being drowned in "fondant surprise", which is a very Shakespearean death reminiscent of Clarence's murder in Richard iii.
On the subject of the Kandyman - however did they get away with it at the time? Watching this now, it was surely a lawsuit waiting to happen? I mean, just look at this:
Mrs Thatcher, played by Sheila Hancock, is the main baddy in charge of Terra Alpha. She electrics the manny that the Doctor and Ace had been talking to, so he had obviously given them enough exposition to be going on with. Mrs Thatcher has a pet doggy, but it is not a cute doggy, it is a grumpy looking doggy because Mrs Thatcher is a baddy.
The Doctor and Ace escape on a very, very slow moving go-cart. It makes the buggy from Day of the Daleks look positively zippy by comparison. Ace allows herself to be recaptured by the Happiness Patrol so the Doctor can get away, and we don't see much of their chasing him because the Happiness Patrol would all have to run extra slowly so as to not catch up.
Ace meets a member of the Happiness Patrol who is not happy really, and she lets Ace get away. Sadly Ace then gets captured again in the very next scene she is in.
The Doctor meets Silas P from earlier but, before he can entrap the Doctor like he did the manny from the start of the episode, the Doctor is rescued by Earl Sigma. Then the Happiness Patrol arrive and shoot Silas P instead. They must have a quota.
The Doctor and Earl Sigma escape into the Kandy Kitchen where they are caught by the Kandyman and his henchmanny Gilbert. The Kandyman menaces them and that is the end of the episode.
The Kandyman is very kreepy, especially his googly eyes - he is a terrific parody of a kute kharakter, and on top of that his spelling is worse than a lolcatz!
The Happiness Patrol is obviously a very sophisticated story working on multiple levels, so it is difficult to pass judgement on part one in isolation. Since there are only three parts it has to get a move on - the world building is done quickly and broadly, and even though entire characters exist solely to give exposition to the Doctor and then get killed off to show (or to reinforce what has already been established) how evil the baddys are, it nevertheless manages to achieve both a memorably distinctive visual style and a politically charged message at the same time.
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