10 Classic Doctor Who Moments That Really Haven’t Aged Well
4. The Satire The Happiness Patrol (1989)
The Story The Doctor and Ace find themselves on Terra Alpha, a planet where unhappiness is illegal. The Moment The satire and social commentary. Why It Hasnt Aged Well In the last few years it has come out that, in the late 1980s, the writers of Doctor Who emphatically tried to put a lot of social commentary and subversive content into the programme. This was something that had been done occasionally in the past but was either only practiced by one or two writers such as Sontaran creator Robert Holmes, or done with a degree of subtlety that stopped Doctor Who from preaching to its audience. The Happiness Patrol turned that practice its head by effectively being built on unflinching criticism of the Conservative government and Margaret Thatcher. It has also been viewed by some as a gay rights allegory in part because of its overtly camp design, but largely because of the plot point of the Terra Alphans hiding their unhappiness to fit in with violently enforced societal norms. While the idea of unhappiness being a stand-in for homosexuality is open to interpretation, the political satire is far more blatant with overt themes of classism being woven into the story through the Terra Alphans having a letter instead of a surname, which denotes their societal status. The story's political agenda is also taken further with a group of oppressed underground workers called the Pipe People (representing both coal miners and the working class in general) being recruited by the Doctor to help topple dictator Helen A, who was written as a deliberate caricature of Margaret Thatcher. The satire of The Happiness Patrol has aged badly because it was fundamentally a product of its time, and because contemporary satire and politically motivated writing doesnt age well. The shots taken at the Conservative government in The Happiness Patrol may have hit home with audiences in 1989 but in the two-and-a-half decades since then, society has changed dramatically and the messages written into the story have lost a lot (if not all) of their relevance.
JG Moore is a writer and filmmaker from the south of England. He also works as an editor and VFX artist, and has a BA in Media Production from the University Of Winchester.
