Doctor Who Ace Adventures
DragonFire / Happiness Patrol
AVAILABLE ON DVD JUNE 7TH 2012
Taken
from the polarising Season 24; Dragonfire represents both the
best and the worst that the 7th Doctor’s tenure has to offer.
Perhaps the first thing you’ll notice about the episode is the
completely uneven tone. Hardened criminals and aliens gather at Ice
World’s seemingly only working bar to drink milkshakes but Kane (the
stations resident despot) murders people in graphic ways with no thought
for the little ones. We can’t show people drinking alcohol; it might
take time from their killing sprees. There is a large element of
pantomime in this story; people have to deliver large chunks of
expeditionary dialogue without pausing for breath like they are trying
to throw up a very wordy hairball. Yet there are things to like here
too, Kane’s face melting still looks pretty cool and the section where
the Doctor tries to distract a guard by engaging in a philosophical
discourse owes a lot to Douglas Adams and is actually pretty funny. I
have mixed feelings about Ace who gets introduced in this episode.
Obviously I had a huge crush on her when I was 15 but she’s a lot more
annoying now and she spouts this terrible pseudo profane dialogue.
People get called “Toe rags” and “Bilge rats” with alarming regularity.
Still she’s better than Mel; just not that much.
Mel is
here too and I know that the official line in Doctor Who circles is that
she got a hard deal and she’s really a fantastic actress and people only
didn’t like her because of her reputation. Bollocks. She just can’t act.
In fact she is such a bad actress famous comments have been made about
it. Noël Coward said of her after watching a play in which she appeared
and in which a horse had defecated on the stage, "If they had shoved the
child's head up the horse's arse they would have solved two problems at
once."
The
“horse” in this case is the Dragon. I guess it would be negligent to
write a review about Dragonfire without mentioning the infamous
scene where the Doctor carefully climbs over a precipice only to dangle
from his umbrella for no apparent reason. A literal cliff-hanger as it
were. And yes it’s still here and yes it still makes no sense. And the
fact that at the time the BBC refused to comment and the writer said
that the explanation would be in the novelisation doesn’t help. It is
explained here sort of; apparently it made sense in the script but the
explanation for it didn’t make it to screen.
And
whilst I love the Kane melting scene he’s a very compliant villain who
conveniently decides to commit suicide as soon as there’s a slight crimp
in his plans.
All in
all not the worst story but certainly not the best and its obvious
deficiencies are not made up by its moments of brilliance.
Video: Video quality is consistent of a program of this age but
seems fine.
Audio: Has obviously been cleaned up and doesn’t suffer from any of
that annoying clipping that plagued early releases of Sylvester McCoy’s
stuff. Stereo Only.
Special Features:
Sophie Aldred what the hell are you wearing? Just kidding that’s not
what it’s called but it should be. Fire and Ice is a
retrospective on this story. Sophie is seen here sporting bright red
knitted bobble hat and a strange bright red knitted cardigan. She also
talks about her debut story but I have no idea what she said because I
was too distracted by her outfit.
The
Doctors Strange Love: What this again? Who are these people? I don’t
care what you think about Doctor Who. Go away!
Deleted and extended scenes: Yeah, like this needs to be longer.
The
Big Bang Theory: Have we really run out of things to say about
Doctor Who? If this feature is anything to go by, yes, yes we have.
Marvel as the world’s most uncharismatic man takes us though some of the
explosive highlights of the last 50 years and then sucks all the fun out
of them by talking about OH&S.
The
Happiness Patrol.
One of
the “Oddball” stories from season 25. The Happiness Patrol has
always divided fans. Some love it; some hate it and the truth is, as
usual, somewhere in between. The Happiness Patrol deserves
neither the derision that its haters pile on it nor the fanatical love
that its supporters seem to have for it.
The
Doctor and Ace arrive on a planet that the Doctor has been hearing
rumours about. It turns out that it is a dystopian nightmare, a place
where everyone is forced to be happy all the time, where an hint of
sadness is met with execution or “disappearance.” In many ways it’s the
classic Doctor Who story. The doctor arrives on a planet and discovers
something gone wrong, undertakes to fix it and his companion gets into
trouble and needs rescuing. But The Happiness Patrol is both more
and less than that. There is some good atmosphere, some good dialogue
and it looks like it’s going to be a good creepy story, right up till
the point where the “Candyman” arrives. Silly doesn’t begin to cover it.
It might be perfectly legitimate in a sci-fi show to have a robot that
is made of candy that looks like the Bertie Basset mascot after all in
an infinite universe everything has been built. Should such a creature
come after me I might run, I might even be scared but I’d also be
sniggering. Over lit and under directed; The Happiness Patrol
will never be a classic episode but it has some good moments.
The
bit where the Doctor talks about guns and their philosophy to someone
pointing a gun at him is pretty good. Ace is much better here but
there’s some terrible acting not the least of which comes from
Sylvester. Sometimes he’s great but sometimes he’s just mugging for the
camera. At three episodes The Happiness Patrol could hardly be
accused of outstaying its welcome but there is little incentive to go
back and sample its’ charms. The lingering memory of the story is of it
being a hot mess, the sewer dwellers might have seemed like a good
addition to the story but they are just too much and have too little to
do as well as not looking very good. There’s just too much going on.
Video: Video Quality is consistent of a program of this age but
seems fine.
Audio: Has obviously been cleaned up and doesn’t suffer from any of
that annoying clipping that plagued early releases of Sylvester McCoy’s
stuff. Stereo only.
Special Features:
Happiness Will Prevail: The makers of this serial don’t seem
delusional about how good this story is, (well apart from Andrew Cartmel
obviously) but they are viewing this mess through rose coloured glasses
that’s for sure. Apart from that, it’s a fine retrospective.
Deleted and Extended Scenes: See comments regarding similar in
Dragonfire.
When Worlds Collide: A vaguely interesting documentary about Doctor
Who’s political leanings through the years featuring some of your
favourite Doctor Who alumni; Terrance Dicks, Barry Letts, Bob Baker et
al.
Scores
Dragonfire
Feature: 4.5/10
Audio:
6/10
Video:
6/10
Special Features: 6/10
Overall: 5/10
The
Happiness Patrol
Feature: 5/10
Audio:
6/10
Video:
6/10
Special Feature:7/10
Overall: 6/10
