The Happiness Patrol

Dear Gary—

The Happiness Patrol puts a gun to your head and forces you to be happy, but no one is. That’s about it in a nutshell, and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. I’ve watched it several times through. One time I think it is just silly, over the top camp; I mean, the pink hair, the toy guns, the Kandyman for goodness sake. And the next time I think it actually works; I mean the pink hair, the toy guns, the Kandyman for goodness sake.

The Happiness Patrol is putting a gun to my head and forcing me to be happy, but am I happy?

Yes and no. And I think that answer means that it is doing its job.

The pink hair, the toy guns, and the Kandyman are all the smiley face sticker slapped on top of the mournful harmonica underscoring the show. “There are no other colors without the blues.”

To begin our rainbow colored tale, the Doctor and Ace land on Terra Alpha, an Earth colony of which the Doctor has “been hearing disturbing rumors.” Evil rumors that the Doctor is determined to investigate. I guess after the joke of a trial he recently underwent, the Doctor now feels as though he can meddle with impunity. And I have to wonder, what water cooler is he hanging around that he is picking up these rumors?

“Too phony; too happy,” is Ace’s assessment of the place. Phony, yes, but happy? They are sitting in an empty street with Muzak droning away. Nothing about this place says happy. Even the pink clad patrols laying down the happiness law are grim faced and dour. Barely a smile is cracked and nowhere is there the sound of laughter. The subtle tones of Earl Sigma’s wailing harmonica is more apropos of the place; Terra Alpha was made for the blues; Helen A’s insistent pink cloud of cheerfulness fosters the dark grim underbelly of life like no other.

Maybe that is the real problem with The Happiness Patrol. Maybe what Terra Alpha needs is not the melancholy strains of the blues or the monotonous tones of elevator music, maybe what it really needs is the lively sound of a rousing polka to stir some true joy in the hearts of its citizenry. The relentless nature of Helen A’s happiness veneer teaches nothing but sorrow to her people; Terra Alphans have no knowledge of actual pleasure; their life is one of constant suppressed pain.

That is the story of Helen A. But it is a story untold. Earl’s study of psychology could gain much from an analysis of Helen A. Something in her past has brought her to this point, whether it was a loveless marriage or a lost child. There is a deep well of grief that is feeding her current desire to force a happy face on life. However we are not privy to this sadness; we only get the end product and can only guess as to the weary road that led her there.

A deeper exploration of The Happiness Patrol would have been a different story. Instead we are handed the sugar coated bitterness of life on Terra Alpha and its denouement.

The depressed Daphne to begin our serial sets the mood; the undercover Silas P establishes the ground rules; the “Have a nice death” Daisy K exposes the hypocrisy. This is life under Helen A on Terra Alpha.

 “Happiness is nothing unless it exists side by side with sadness,” the Doctor tells Helen A. The only trouble with that statement is that Terra Alpha is already riddled with sadness. It is happiness that is foreign to them. Citizens are told to be happy but are given nothing to be happy about; they are punished for being miserable which only serves to heighten their despair. Helen A and her subjects have lost the meaning of happiness. The Doctor gives them back the blues, but all they have been doing of late is indulging their blues under the mask of a smile; painting over their blues with a layer of pink. The blues are deeply ingrained in them; their society is built on the blues.

Susan Q personifies it best:  “But I did wake up one morning and suddenly something was very clear. I couldn’t go on smiling; smiling while my friends disappeared; wearing this uniform and smiling and trying to pretend I’m something I’m not; trying to pretend that I’m happy. Better to let it end. Better to just relax and let it happen. I woke up one morning and I realized it was all over.”

Susan Q is singing the blues. She and Earl should make quite a team.

Daisy K and Priscilla P of the pink brigade are another matter. These two do not sing the blues, nor do they embrace the pink. These two sneer their way through life. They seize the opportunity to inflict pain and suffering, whether under the guise of Helen A’s illusion of bliss or not. “I’m glad you’re happy,” Priscilla sarcastically says in the end to a disgruntled Daisy, echoing her mantra under Helen A’s reign. Neither has learned a lesson; neither knows true happiness or true sorrow. They are more of an angry purple (along with the surly box office worker in the Forum).

Joseph C is a case study in himself; he is colorless; emotionless. I can very well imagine that he is the reason Helen A has turned to the pink side.

And let us not forget the Kandyman. The kaleidoscope of a Kandyman. This has got to be the most bizarre villain ever conceived. Why he was made is a puzzler in itself. The back story of Gilbert M and his twisted creation would make for some wonderful storytelling. As it is, the Gilbert M/Kandyman symbiosis is enthralling. “You need me and I need me.”  “I need you and you need you.” At least they are both agreed.

The Kandyman’s high pitched screams for Gilbert when he gets stuck in the lemonade are hilarious; then Gilbert arrives.

Gilbert: “It’s quite simple. Created as you are out of glucose based substances, your joints need constant movement to avoid coagulation.”

Kandyman: “What do you mean?”

Gilbert: “You’re turning into a slab of toffee. I saw this at the planning stage, and then I realized what the solution was.”

Kandyman: “What’s that?”

Gilbert: “I’ve forgotten.”

Put these two on the Forum stage and they’ll have the audience rolling in the aisles.

For all of the “happiness will prevail” sloganeering, however, Helen A, her Happiness Patrol, and the Kandyman are all about death. Shootings, ‘disappearances,’ Fondant Surprise, sweets that kill; they are not out to make anybody happy; they are out to destroy anyone who is not. They are executioners not doctors.

Enter the Doctor and Ace.

Ace acquits herself well in this serial. She makes believable connections with those she meets and expresses the appropriate moral outrage and grief over Harold V’s death (“I want to make them very, very unhappy”) and again when Susan Q is taken away for execution.

The Doctor is most impressive as well, and very much a Doctor in control. “I ask the questions,” he tells Trevor from the Galactic Census Bureau, turning the roles around and taking complete command. And his handling of the snipers is masterful:

Doctor: “You like guns, don’t you?”

Alex: “He’ll kill you.”

Doctor: “Of course he will. That’s what guns are for. Pull the trigger, end a life. Simple isn’t it?”

David: “Yes.”

Doctor: “Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

David: “Yes.”

Doctor: “A life killing life.”

Alex: “Who are you?”

Doctor:  “Shut up. Why don’t you do it then? Look me in the eye, pull the trigger, end my life. Why not?”

David: “I can’t”

Doctor: “Why not?”

David: “I don’t know.”

Doctor: “No, you don’t, do you.”

Armed with nothing but words the Doctor disarms.

Then, after holding his clown-like persona in check for the bulk of the serial, the Doctor lets loose: “Today the Doctor and the drones are having a ball!” And just like that he turns the Happiness Patrol on itself, the only killjoys in the square.

Finally he has his last word with Helen A. Joseph C has left Helen, fled in the escape shuttle to start a new life with the fun loving Gilbert M. Helen is down and out, defeated, deposed, and now ditched. But she carries on, suitcase packed and ready to leave on the next flight. The Doctor is not there to stop her; he knows she can never escape because she is really running from herself. She is defiant; “I always thought love was overrated,” she tells the Doctor; but then she sees her beloved Fifi wounded and dying; Helen A has reached her breaking point, and her sobs are heartbreaking.

 “Happiness will prevail,” the Doctor says as his final word, leaving behind the grieving Helen, the bickering Daisy and Priscilla, and the wailing blues of Earl’s harmonica. Yes, sadness and happiness need each other, but Terra Alpha is already one deep well of sorrow; I can’t help thinking that what this planet really needs is a good belly laugh. (I am reminded of Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels.)

I send this out, Gary, with a belated and mournful ‘happy birthday’ . . .