“Have a nice death!"
The Happiness Patrol is perhaps one of the most peculiar tales in Doctor Who. The story gradually gained a reputation as a gay rights allegory then, twenty-two years after broadcast, became the focus of press outrage over alleged BBC bias, before being name-dropped by the Archbishop of Canterbury in his Easter sermon the following year.
So this Black Archive asks: is The Happiness Patrol queer? Is it really political? Why did it take so long for the press to complain? And what does the story really say about happiness?
Mike Stack is currently an Associate Lecturer in Social Sciences at Birkbeck, University of London.
