Just finished watching this story on DVd, not seen it since it was origionaly broadcast. God it was awfull ! From the obvious anti government (Thatcher) messages to the awfull acting by Sylvester and others, the forced inclusion of a black "blues" singer who jarred dreadfully within the context of the story, not to mention the awfull Fifi prop that never looked more than a rubber pet. As for the Candyman - God what were they thinking off. Bertie Bassett with a silly squeaky voice. Truly a dreadfull piece of Dr Who.
What do others think.

The Anti Thatcher stuff is one of the most interesting parts of the episodes. Gives it an extra layer and science fiction should never shy away from satire when it can be done well. The argument is how well was it done? Not brilliantly but a good attempt.

I don't see how the 'blues singer' was shoehorned in.

The Kandyman was very scary for kids of a certain age including me. It seems to be one of those accepted fan opinions that it was awful. Nope. I have spoken to many my age who grew up watching this who found it terrifying. Certainly more affecting than something like Silver Nemesis.

Its not great TV. Its certainly not great Who. But its mad enough to be an interesting curio as evidenced by its prominence in that Newsnight report last year.

Had I realised it was supposed to be an anti-Tory polemic I might have been a lot more sympathetic.

But at the time it just made me feel despair at how low my once-favourite programme had sunk. The interesting thing about the McCoy era is the attempt to blame it all on the production and writing and to ignore his utterly dreadful performances. They were more like two notes (spluttering indignation and faux playfulness) than one but both registers were equally unconvincing.

I thought the ideas were really quite well thought out. I loved the way Helen gets dumped (from orbit!). The production design - right down to the painfully studio-bound go karts trying to be cars - was just a mess. I think they would have been better off just shooting it 'in the round' and be done with it.

As I said in another thread, I tend to watch that story and put this 'Sergio Leone' filter over the proceedings. Once you tune out the visuals and just soak the story in, it starts to work

McCoy definitely got better as time went on, but especially in Time and Rani, it's very painful to watch. Having said that, I don't think that anything was actually right about the show at that point. It's hard to choose a good production. There are just a few who are noticeably less flawed than the others I mean, just what the frick was McCoy supposed to be doing during that cliffhanger in Dragonfire? At the time I was like "WTF?? What the hell was he doing there?" I had to rewind it a few times and I still can't figure it out. Then there is the pantomime space monster lit like like Shooting Stars. I could see that they were trying to ape 'Alien' but the whole thing is just so pathetic that it literally hurt to watch it. Then, when the whole 'CBBC' vibe had been established, suddenly this guy's face melts off. Great effect but time and place guys!

If I don't stop now, I'll never finish ranting about the McCoy era.

I think it's a pretty bad episode but then I think McCoy's episodes are pretty bad in general. It's a shame because I like the idea of McCoy as the Doctor and the look of him as the Doctor but his acting was often too campy for me, the acting of the people around him was generally not very good, the scripts weren't very good and the background music was too loud and obtrusive.

Regarding "The Happiness Patrol", I liked the dog-like creature the best and I think the woman being upset over the creature dying was the only good scene in the episode.

I can't either but thank goodness Wonder-Clara was there to save him.

Great -thanks for the useful feedback about the Happiness Patrol. I've never seen it before and from what I've viewed so far of McCoy's portal of Who, was erring on the side of "one of the few not to own" from the original series. Now this is a definite: "hire from the library to view only" type stories.

I'm getting close to owning all of the available stories up to Davison's last one, but beyond this deciding to purchase only a handful of the 6th & 7th's (the ones I feel worthy of owning). After seeing both the Twin Dilemma & Paradise Towers I made the call -these stories are so bad I refuse to own them. And I'm sure, from what I hear, many of the 1st and 2nd season of the 7th Doc also fall into this category.

I saw The Happiness Patrol on transmission when I was 10. My dad has never liked Who, but I convinced him to watch one of the episodes with me. It just so happened it was the one with The Kandyman... Never have I felt so embarrassed by the show! Needless to say, this stupid character only reinforced my dad's opinions. For that alone it warrants the title of my least favourite story ever.
There's just so many duds in the last five years of classic Who. The only dvds I own from that era (The Two Doctors and Silver Nemesis) came as parts of box sets, otherwise I would never have bought them.

I would recommend giving Remembrance Of The Daleks a go, it hasn't any of the Silliness of the rest of the era and is a very traditional story and even for the McCoy Era isn't that bad. Even if it's just to watch Ace beating up a Dalek with a baseball bat it's worth it!


Bad choice of story to pick to show your Dad!

It's a real shame about this story as I feel if it had been shown in an earlier era the idea behind it would have been done some justice. I think it's so badly executed on screen that the underlying moral message to the story which The Doctor tells Helen A in the last episode is mainly lost.

Which is a real shame.

It's almost as if fate wanted to stop my dad from appreciating anything Who-related! There's been a couple of other times I've got him to watch the show with me and the episode was not a particularly strong one again. lol

[quote=daveyboy7472;70753698]I would recommend giving Remembrance Of The Daleks a go, it hasn't any of the Silliness of the rest of the era and is a very traditional story and even for the McCoy Era isn't that bad. Even if it's just to watch Ace beating up a Dalek with a baseball bat it's worth it!

Yeah, ta, I've seen that one & already got it. Remembrance is not a bad one & I managed to pick it for $1 (brand new -true story) from a website that I think misquoted some of the prices for a few of the Who DVD's during a sale (after a day they were corrected). Also I have Silver Nemesis (usual story -only because I wanted Revenge of the Cybermen).

Time & the Rani sounds like another real clunker (one to avoid). What about Delta & the Bannermen, Dragonfire & Timelash? I don't know much about them (aside from being not great). Anybody feel any of these are worth having in your collection (if you are not trying to own every last release)? I'd only consider buying one of them at a bargain price (maybe not quite to the $1 level).

Great script terrible execution.


There was a plan at one point to do it as a film noir, in black and white - shame they didn't follow through with that.

That sums up what I think more or less exactly. It's utter garbage, made all the worse by the fact that they'd had Season 24 to sort out the problems and that by this point every story should have been a gem. In fact I hate all the stories in Season 25, but this one more than the others. No, maybe I loathe this one and Silver Nemesis just about equally. I'd like to go somewhere to get the minutes of my life back that I wasted watching them.

The Happiness Patrol was bad, but Paradise Towers was much worse! The show had become a parody of itself!

I grew up watching these episodes, I basically retreated into a "Doctor Who Shell" for many years, didn't tell anyone I was a Doctor Who fan, didn't even watch the RTD reboot for a few years for fear it would be much the same.

All good since then thankfully, just going through the classic back catalogue now, almost at the end of Hartnells' time ...

Time and the Rani is in turns terribly painful to watch, and cruely amusing. Watching Sly's first scenes (the spoons, the delivery, the pretend tripping over himself) are literally painful.

Then you have Kate pulling off a deliciously evil piss-take of Bonnie Langford. I remember watching it with my hand on my mouth thinking "How is Bonnie going to walk onto the same soundstage as this woman after this?" The tetrap costumes were great. The ending... I won't spoil it as you probably wouldn't believe it if I told you. It's probably one of P & J's worst scripts.

Rememberance has a few problems. 1 - rice pudding 2. The Thals.

The effects, especially the monsters, were quite good during this time. It's kind of a shame that the Beeb were so determined to run the show into the ground. If they had put someone fresh in charge, it probably would never have been 'rested'.

I think that the vampire one (can't remember the title and can't be arsed to google it) was quite good. I remember it kind of fell apart at the end due to a throwaway brilliant monster (still looks great today) and some very Star Treky plotting about god-like aliens playing chess. I remember being pleasantly surprised by Nicholas Parsons. After seeing the appalling performances that Ken Dodd and Richard Briers turned in, we were all dreading any further 'big name' casting.

During this time of the show, we all learned to keep our fandom as a very guilty secret. It was a member of our group who opined that during the McCoy era it was "Less embarrassing to be caught masturbating at a Royal Garden Party than to admit to being a Doctor Who fan".

[quote=Mr Seta;70754132]
To be honest though stories aren't great but I would always suggest you watch them and see what you think for yourself. What one person likes or dislikes may not be the same as you, you need to have your own opinion.


Couldn't agree more.

Well I like it.

Think it's a very good script and I was just the right age (and political persuasion!) to get and enjoy the subtext. Admittedly it suffers from being the completely studio bound Season 25 story, but think the direction is pretty good considering, and the soundtrack is unusually strong for this era.

Sheila Hancock is great and Sylvester has some good scenes. ("You like guns, don't you..." scene with the snipers, for example.) Not going to claim it's a misunderstood classic (it's not!) but it was a brave attempt at something different and am really rather fond of it.

I watched it again recently too. Didn't mind it too much

I think sometimes stories that fall into the category of 'bad' doctor who can be more fun then 'good' doctor who.

You might not take them seriously, but at least their fun....

It is one of my favourites. I wasn't a Thatcher fan.

Happiness Patrol is no worse than the rubbish MOFFAT has given us since Silence in the Library (his one true great story).

Happiness Patrol was also supposed to be filmed in Film Noir (like black and white) but there was a decision from the BEEB hierarchy to change it to regular colour at the last minute.

I am campaigning for the Kandyman to come back to NUWHO, I think it would suit NUWHO better than the classic series.

I can imagine Tennant and Donna in Happiness Patrol easily.

I think u are right that it was a clever script and actually the supporting cast are for the most part very good on the themes within the script of oppression that dominates. I think what does. let it down is being totally studio bound which doesn't give any a sense of a huge city. The Patrol vehicles crawl along when you need a sense of menace. I do like the KAndyman though with the deceptive childlike nature he shows and the Candy kitchen. Sylvester is okay but he still rolls his rrr when he talks which can be annoying at times as I can't take him seriously then. Still fond of this one. Definitely not a clunker but it needed more work thinking about how it could look more like something from 1984 the film.

Well given that the content was completely at odds with the aesthetic of film noir, the very possibility that they thought this was an option merely confirms that the production team had lost the plot. In fact probably the only mildy positive thing you could say about the travesty of a story is that the garish and tawdry production is a pretty good match for the sensationalist plotting.

Given that the Kandyman was clearly based on Bertie Bassett, the most appropriate tribute to the Happiness Patrol would not be to resurrect him but to base a new Who villain on a modern sweet. I am sure they could construct one out of Haribo. Then you could get a modern day clown to play the Doctor- say that Justin bloke off Justin's House on kids telly. Then they could cut the production budget to 10p. And then they could cancel the show again.

Woo Hoo- Happiness Patrol rules.

I can imagine it being very moody and the scenes with Earl Sigma (had to Google that, I'm not that sad!) playing his harmonica benefiting enormously from some noire lighting.

It might also add to the satire element to have the thing in b&w. The Patrol would paint everything to look 'happy' and there would be no visible difference on a monochrome display that they had done anything to improve the place. Dramatic lighting would make the place look more depressing and stark and reinforce the comedic effect of 'making it happy'. Some inky shadows may just hide the stageyness of the sets. Double win there!

Also, it could be argued that if you had dramatic lighting, then there would at least be SOME drama in the production!!!

On the down side, you are entrusting the same team who shot Dragonfire to light this. Maybe the BBC showed some wisdom on the show after all