The Happiness Patrol's unhidden meaning

The Happiness Patrol is one of those rare serials which encapsulate much that defines Doctor Who. It embodies its highs as well as its lows: a great plot, monster and design work; occasional poor performances and lacklustre action scenes. More importantly, it embodies the show’s whole ethos.

That’s what makes it so odd that so much that has been written about The Happiness Patrol misses the point by a country mile. We should strip away all our pretensions of what these three episodes could be, what they might have been, and what they patently aren’t.

The Happiness Patrol is not an unsubtle satire on British politics of the 1980s in any meaningful sense. Sheila Hancock may have been consciously imitating Margaret Thatcher, but one impersonation doesn’t make a political allegory.

And, tempting though the notion is, nor does the serial pass comment on issues of gay rights. Its story about the repression of a perceived underclass could equally be interpreted as commenting on the persecution of any other political, religious or social group. Similarly, with the displacement and starvation of the Pipe People, and use of the term ‘townships’, we could read a Mutants-style condemnation of colonialism into the story.

It’s fun to dig beneath the surface of Doctor Who stories, finding the meanings we want, but how often do we miss the wood for the trees? We look for a subtext and stop enjoying the story. The Happiness Patrol is a good yarn with some fun villains and can be enjoyed on that level alone.

That said, I’m not a member of the “it’s only a TV programme, it doesn’t mean anything” camp, and I don’t deny that the story has something to say. In fact, The Happiness Patrol is about something more profound, and more directly relevant to all our lives, than any po-faced political fable, though a fable it is.

The fable isn’t hidden and requires no interpretation; it’s there on the surface. The Happiness Patrol is about joy and grief, smiles and tears, contentment and loss. It really is about happiness.

It’s an example of a Doctor Who story perfectly pitched for the younger end of the audience range. Childhood is a time when the subtle nuances of emotion are not yet understood, when joy is good, sadness bad. Tears are for pain and upset, smiles for happiness, with none of the ambiguities of the adult world. What is Helen A if not a child obsessed with the simplistic world of fairy tales, trying to make herself the princess of the kingdom in which everybody lives happily ever after?

It goes without saying that The Happiness Patrol has one of the greatest, and most appropriate, conclusions the series has every shown, as Helen A mourns for her pet, Fifi. The woman who used death as tool to repress sadness and enforce happiness finally discovers that death brings grief, and that happiness means nothing without sadness. Helen A moves out of the artificial fairytale world and into one that is infinitely more real and complex.

The Happiness Patrol doesn’t need to end with Helen A’s death, nor even her imprisonment, as would be traditional in Doctor Who. The depiction of her experience of grief is enough to show how wrong she has been. It’s simple storytelling, but undeniably powerful.

Images © BBC

This is an updated version of an article originally published in Pabic Moon in October 2010