"You see, I make sweets. Not just any old sweets, but sweets that are so good, so delicious that sometimes, if I'm on form, the human physiology is not equipped to bear the pleasure."
Episode 152: The Happiness Patrol.
Companions: 7th Doctor and Ace.
Air Date: 2nd to 16th November 1988.
The TARDIS arrives on the planet Terra Alpha where the Doctor and Ace discover a society in which sadness is against the law - a law enforced with considerable zeal by the brightly uniformed Happiness Patrol. The planet is ruled over by Helen A with the aid of her companion Joseph C and her carnivorous pet Stigorax named Fifi. The penalty for those found guilty of unhappiness is death in a stream of molten candy prepared by Helen A's executioner, the robotic Kandyman, and his associate Gilbert M. The time travellers help to foment rebellion amongst the downtrodden population and the subterranean Pipe People - the planet's original inhabitants - and Helen A is overthrown.
This is the worst story in Doctor Who from the 1980's. It really is just so bad. The whole look of the sets, the acting, the plot and then there is the utterly ridiculous Kandyman. The whole combination is just a bad surreal dream sequence that should never have been.
The whole story is meant to be a take on the age of Margaret Thatcher though personally I don't see it. However it can be seen perhaps, as how governments try to control their population but you have to look hard to see it.
The most infamous issue with this story is the character of the Kandyman - a half robot half confectionery creature with psychotic issues. This for me really was a low point in the show back then. This sort of figure might have worked in the old black and white days but by the late 1980's the show had progressed past such things.
I am afraid I don't have a single good thing to say about this story and I recommend avoiding it.
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