The Black Archive #68: The Happiness Patrol
“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?