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Happiness will prevail
Nov. 12th, 2024 11:08 amSo Sunday was the next episode of Doctor Who season 25, the new special edition of The Happiness Patrol.
The premise is that the Doctor lands on a planet, only something is wrong. Unhappiness is criminalised enforced, resulting in cruel punishments. The Doctor being the Doctor decides that this needs to end, tonight.
Almost immediately we see what’s been added to this new version. New effects have been added to elevate the sets, making the locations feel bigger so it feels more like an actual city. There’s also new establishing shots of certainly locations and deleted scenes added back in (I’m less sure which those are since I’ve only seen the ep once before a long time back).
What I find interesting is that this world has a rebel movement, called killjoys (I wonder if it inspired those killjoys) and yet unlike some episodes that are similar, they don’t become the focus. Sure the doctor meets a few and riles up a crowd of demonstrators, but that’s about it.
What’s also interesting are the villains of the piece. Leading them is Helen A, the colony’s leader and she’s a pretty unique villain. She’s always almost softly spoken, but her words are laced with malice (even as she sentences people to a ‘fondant surprise’). Then there’s the patrol themselves which have the wildest hair (a big of pink and purple) and almost all of them are women who are gloriously sarcastic.
And finally there’s the Kandyman who is a man made of sweets (no I’m not kidding) and hike he looks a little ridiculous he oddly fits in with the world and clearly has a sadistic glee in what he does. (And also there’s Helen A’s animal fifi which is a gloriously well made puppet)
What works less well is the pipe people, who are natives of the planet before the colonists arrive. They kinda feel almost tacked on and don’t look too great either.
But overall I think it’s a really good, fun episode. And I love that the mantra of Happiness will prevail, instead of being something positive, is twisted into something almost malicious and threatening. Like the doctor says happiness and sadness are two sides of the same coin, one can’t exist without the other.
***
Other things now.
My Chemical Romance have made an insta post teasing… something. Is it a new song? A new album? A tour? No one sees to know, but Mikey at least posted it to his story last night too. What do I think it means? I’m not sure. But it means something.
The other day I had the Odeon code come for 40% of a selected film on Amazon, so I used it yesterday. The choice I narrowed it down to was between Thanksgiving and Tarot and I went for the latter. Do I know much about it? Not really, but I know it has creatures designed by the guy that made sire head which made me instantly curious. I’ll have to watch it (and Spree) soon.
Also yesterday I went back on Echoes of wisdom to chip away at it though I’ve not done too much, just a bit more on Eldin (namely helping the goron elders) but not much more. The new goron leader is so cute though I wanna give him a hug.
After watching the Who ray special features I watched the next J-Horror Rising film (thoughts late!) which was carved the slit mouthed woman which was pretty good.
Annoyingly the past few days my head has been feeling hazy. I can’t exactly put into words what that means (hazy feels the closest I can get) but it’s not helped that it’s been joined by headaches and a lack of being able to settle to sleep, which… ugh.
It’s really annoying and is starting to make my focus feel off as well as rile up MNy anxiety which isn’t exactly great. Bleh.
Today’s plan is wait for the food shop to come this afternoon, then it’s new Multiversus and Magic Arena stuff, plus Squidcraft 3 starts (with a lot of people including Seapeekay, woo!) and then I wanna watch the other j-horror on disc 3, Persona. Maybe I’ll get some writing in too if my focus comes back.
The premise is that the Doctor lands on a planet, only something is wrong. Unhappiness is criminalised enforced, resulting in cruel punishments. The Doctor being the Doctor decides that this needs to end, tonight.
Almost immediately we see what’s been added to this new version. New effects have been added to elevate the sets, making the locations feel bigger so it feels more like an actual city. There’s also new establishing shots of certainly locations and deleted scenes added back in (I’m less sure which those are since I’ve only seen the ep once before a long time back).
What I find interesting is that this world has a rebel movement, called killjoys (I wonder if it inspired those killjoys) and yet unlike some episodes that are similar, they don’t become the focus. Sure the doctor meets a few and riles up a crowd of demonstrators, but that’s about it.
What’s also interesting are the villains of the piece. Leading them is Helen A, the colony’s leader and she’s a pretty unique villain. She’s always almost softly spoken, but her words are laced with malice (even as she sentences people to a ‘fondant surprise’). Then there’s the patrol themselves which have the wildest hair (a big of pink and purple) and almost all of them are women who are gloriously sarcastic.
And finally there’s the Kandyman who is a man made of sweets (no I’m not kidding) and hike he looks a little ridiculous he oddly fits in with the world and clearly has a sadistic glee in what he does. (And also there’s Helen A’s animal fifi which is a gloriously well made puppet)
What works less well is the pipe people, who are natives of the planet before the colonists arrive. They kinda feel almost tacked on and don’t look too great either.
But overall I think it’s a really good, fun episode. And I love that the mantra of Happiness will prevail, instead of being something positive, is twisted into something almost malicious and threatening. Like the doctor says happiness and sadness are two sides of the same coin, one can’t exist without the other.
***
Other things now.
My Chemical Romance have made an insta post teasing… something. Is it a new song? A new album? A tour? No one sees to know, but Mikey at least posted it to his story last night too. What do I think it means? I’m not sure. But it means something.
The other day I had the Odeon code come for 40% of a selected film on Amazon, so I used it yesterday. The choice I narrowed it down to was between Thanksgiving and Tarot and I went for the latter. Do I know much about it? Not really, but I know it has creatures designed by the guy that made sire head which made me instantly curious. I’ll have to watch it (and Spree) soon.
Also yesterday I went back on Echoes of wisdom to chip away at it though I’ve not done too much, just a bit more on Eldin (namely helping the goron elders) but not much more. The new goron leader is so cute though I wanna give him a hug.
After watching the Who ray special features I watched the next J-Horror Rising film (thoughts late!) which was carved the slit mouthed woman which was pretty good.
Annoyingly the past few days my head has been feeling hazy. I can’t exactly put into words what that means (hazy feels the closest I can get) but it’s not helped that it’s been joined by headaches and a lack of being able to settle to sleep, which… ugh.
It’s really annoying and is starting to make my focus feel off as well as rile up MNy anxiety which isn’t exactly great. Bleh.
Today’s plan is wait for the food shop to come this afternoon, then it’s new Multiversus and Magic Arena stuff, plus Squidcraft 3 starts (with a lot of people including Seapeekay, woo!) and then I wanna watch the other j-horror on disc 3, Persona. Maybe I’ll get some writing in too if my focus comes back.
