I have already watched and reviewed the whole of the McCoy era before, in 2017-18, so for more in-depth reviews from a yonger, more innocent (lol) version of me, you can click the links - or get your thumbs to do it for you if you are a cat.
I last reviewed The Happiness Patrol in 2017, when Theresam A was the Prime Minister of the mannys of the UK. Now it is Keir S, which shows that not much has changed in eight years.
The Kandyman remains one of the least likely Doctor Who baddys to ever return to the TV series, although unlike the others at the top of the list that is because we live in a much more litigious world nowadays than in the carfefree 1980s of myth and legend, and not because of the use of outdated racial stereotyping and/or blackface or yellowface that would get you cancelled right away.
As good as The Happiness Patrol is, it is easy to see why viewers in 1988 did not rate it as highly as it deserves - those watching at the time didn't know that they wanted an allegorical attack on the politics of Mrs Thatcher, because they were mostly either young mannys or kittens who didn't understand the allegory, or else die-hard fans pining for the era of Talons of Weng-Chiang, who didn't appreciate it.
Any casual viewers might have thought that an entirely studio-based TV drama that did little to hide the fact that it was a TV studio, or that everything in the colony took place in about four locations, all a 30-second stroll from one another, was the sign of a dying show with a miniscule budget. Well, I mean, it was those things, but that is missing the point that as an allegorical TV play it manages to turn those crippling limitations into positive virtues.
If you view it in that spirit, I think you'll find that happiness prevails.
Silver Nemesis, as I found when I reviewed it in 2018, is harder to defend. Despite being only three parts long, its first part is padded with the Doctor and Ace running away from security mannys at Windsor Castle simply so that the Cybermannys can turn up in time for the cliffhanger, while the second and third parts see characters wander into scenes when they are required for some plot or dialogue reasons, and then wander out again until the next time they are needed.
The story is partially saved by the brilliantly intriguing and mysterious baddy Lady Peinforte, and her henchmanny Richard, who are by far the most successful component of the story, largely thanks to the actors playing them who transcend the limitations of their scripted dialogue.
Richard, for example, is convincingly disturbed by the sights of what is, to him, 350 years in the future, until he is confronted by a problem he can recognise and deal with - being threatened by two thugs. His line
"Money. say you?"
is followed by a cut to another scene, and when we next see the thugs they have been overpowered (off-screen) and hung upside down from a tree. Viewers are left to infer exactly what it was Richard did to them.
Lady Peinforte, on the other paw, manages to convey the unseen backstory between her and the Doctor, as well as her own non-existent past, through subtle expressions and hinted at turns of phrase. The scene in the car with Mrs Remington is pure padding, an unnecessary but enjoyable way for Lady Peinforte and Richard to get from one plot-relevant scene to another, but gives us lines like this that raise the overall quality of the episode and provide insight into Lady Peinforte's character:
Lady Peinforte: "Dorothea Remington did bribe away my cook."Mrs Remington: "Oh, now, let me see. Yes, there was a Dorothea. She died in sixteen..."Lady Peinforte: "...twenty-one. It was a slow poison."
My review from 2018 already explained why Survival is the greatest Doctor Who story of all time (in a word: cats!) so I don't have much more to add, except to say that it is still the best, but now that it is available on blu-ray it is even more obvious that it is the Master in part one, which is supposed to be a surprise for the cliffhanger but really, really isn't.
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