Davros vs. The Doctor: The Ending Approaches…
John Hussey provides a handy catch-up on the story so far.
As we approach the broadcast of ‘The Witch’s Familiar’ we as Whovians ponder over the final battle between the Doctor and Davros. What will the outcome be? I thought I would use this time to look back and recap the build-up to this final encounter, from the creation of the Daleks to the rebirth of Skaro.
The Genesis
It’s fair to say that this was the very start of the Last Great Time War. The Time Lords’ fear brought about the act to kill their great enemy at their birth, sparking the foundations for the inevitable war.
Davros was revealed to be the creator of the Daleks. His mind became twisted and warped by the thousand-year war against the Thals. He believed the final hope for his people, the Kaleds, was to advance their radioactive mutations and genetically engineer them to become the superior race. He removed every single emotion apart from hate, whilst giving them the programme of supremacy; to dominate all over life-forms in the known universe.
The Fourth Doctor was eventually captured by Davros and forced to reveal every single defeat the Daleks made in the future in order to become the perfect creature. These recordings were later destroyed. The Fourth Doctor later challenged Davros in order to try and find some compassion in the scarred Kaled. This led to the brilliant scene of the Fourth Doctor comparing the Daleks to a virus that could destroy all forms of life and asking Davros if he would use. The insane Kaled instinctively said yes and felt such power would set him above the gods.
The mission to prevent the Daleks creation challenged the Doctor’s code of honour and believed that killing the Daleks would make him no better than them. He didn’t feel he had the right and compared his actions to killing a child that he knew would become a great evil. The Fourth Doctor simply couldn’t do it. Davros finished off his reign of terror by having most of the Thals exterminated, despite using them to destroy his own people after they opposed him, and then finished off the remaining resistance within the Kaled Elites. By this point, however, the Daleks had become aware of their power and ability to survive and therefore no longer needed Davros. They killed his remaining followers before firing at him after he panicked and tried destroying the Kaled bunker.
The Movellan War
Fast forward to 1979 and Davros made a return during the season opener of Season Seventeen. The Fourth Doctor had had many adventures and new companions since the last time he set foot on Skaro. Now the Randomiser, a device build to keep the TARDIS’ location hidden from the Black Guardian after his defeat in the previous serial, brought the Doctor back to the Daleks’ home-world once more.
The Daleks were now at the height of their Empire, after a minor entombing thanks to the Doctor’s actions at the end of ‘Genesis of the Daleks’. Despite their great power and threat the Daleks were caught in an unwinnable war against the Movellans. This turned out to be caused by a simple stalemate. Both races were robotic creatures that operated through logistic thinking. This meant that the races couldn’t counteract the other.
This desperate situation led the Daleks to think outside of the box and seek out their creator, who was left behind in the ruins of the Kaled city. Davros awakened from death after his secondary life-support system rebooted itself, bringing his vital organs out of suspended animation. It is believed that Davros became fearful of his own life after the Fourth Doctor told him about his creations during the interrogation and made precautions in order to protect himself should his creations decide to turn on him.
Due to the Daleks having lost their sense of origins they no longer knew how to operate like rational thinking beings, lost in their purpose of conquering and unable to understand emotions. They wanted Davros to return this knowledge to them. The Movellans attempted a similar strategy by forcing the Fourth Doctor to aid them in their quest to lift the impasse. In the end both races were destroyed in the battle, with the Daleks ultimately blown up after the Fourth Doctor activated the bombs attached to them prematurely. Davros was left to the mercy of the Dalek’s prisoners before being frozen by the Fourth Doctor for his transfer to prison in order to stand trial for his crimes.
The Movellan Virus
There was yet another gap between encounters. This time round the Doctor had regenerated into his fifth incarnation and we had moved to the next decade. The Daleks returned in 1984 (minus their brief cameo in the 20th Anniversary serial ‘The Five Doctors’) in order to once again locate their creator. This time round they needed him to discover an antidote to a deadly virus that the Movellans created to win the war.
Their search led them to a space-prison where the evil genius had been placed in suspended animation for a further 90 years. Upon his release Davros began making his own stratagems in order to create a superior Dalek race after finally learning from his mistakes. He understood that he made a mistake in leaving them without an understanding of emotions, making them lesser than their enemies. He felt with the understanding of emotions brought back to them he could make them better killing machines.
The Fifth Doctor saw this as his best opportunity to prevent the Daleks, after failing in his first attempt. He reflected upon his poor decision and didn’t want time to repeat itself. Upon pointing a gun at Davros’ head, the Fifth Doctor doubted his ability to become executioner after the evil genius spoke of his morality and backed down. Davros then initiated a civil war after taking control of several Daleks and Dalek Duplicates. The Fifth Doctor ended the battle by releasing the Movellan virus. One of the Dalek Duplicates managed to free his mind from Dalek influence, with help from the Fifth Doctor, and destroyed the prison and the Dalek ship. Davros was thought to be on-board after the Movellan virus affected him.
The Great Healer
A year later, 1985, Davros returned to face the Sixth Doctor in perhaps his darkest narrative. ‘Revelation of the Daleks’ saw him at the height of his power after he became known as “the Great Healer” on Necros. He took control of the funeral home Tranquil Repose and started converting the noblemen in suspended animation into new breeds of Daleks. These Daleks had the ability to reproduce at will. Davros also used the lesser people in suspended animation to create a new kind of protein, essentially turning them into food to save the nearby starving systems. This kind gesture was merely to keep them living until his Dalek army was ready to invade them.
Davros planned his actions carefully and lured the Sixth Doctor into a trap. He even toyed with the Sixth Doctor by erecting a statue of him in the Garden of Fond Memories, making the Time Lord believe he would die during that incarnation. The encounter between the Sixth and Davros was grim, with Davros holding the upper hand and almost defeated his arch- nemesis. The Sixth Doctor, however, did get one up when Davros’ hand was shot off by an assassin to which the Time Lord made a joke about afterwards.
Another civil war broke out when some of the workers of Tranquil Repose opposed Davros by contacting the Supreme Dalek. Skaro Daleks then arrived on Necros and destroyed the Necros Daleks. They then gave Davros the ultimatum of being exterminated or standing trial. Davros was then taken back to Skaro but not before promising his return. The Sixth Doctor expressed his eager anticipation.
The Hand of Omega
Another minor gap occurred, with Davros making his last return during the Classic era in 1988 during the opening serial of the 25th Anniversary season. This time round Davros was kept to the side-lines until the final moments of the narrative. Before this the Daleks had engaged in the final acts of the Dalek Civil War. The Renegade Daleks served under the Supreme Dalek whilst the Imperial Daleks served under Davros.
At some point between ‘Revelation of the Daleks’ and ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ Davros had managed to escape his fate of death during his trials and convinced the Daleks that evolution would bring them greater power. The Supreme Dalek was opposed, leading Davros to become the new Dalek Emperor and brought about advancements to the Daleks.
As Emperor, Davros decided to gain the power of the Hand of Omega, the prototype Stella-manipulative device, in order to grant the Daleks mastery of time. The Renegade Daleks tried to accomplish the same goal but were eventually defeated by the Imperial Daleks and their trusty Special-Weapons Dalek.
Davros had a minor confrontation with the Seventh Doctor. The Seventh Doctor taunted Davros and manipulated his actions in order to initiate the final phase of his plan. Davros was ultimately tricked into using the Hand of Omega to destroy Skaro and finally the Daleks. The manipulative Time Lord put forth the final chain reaction that created the Last Great Time War. Davros managed to escape the Dalek ship before it was destroyed.
The Last Great Time War
The Time War caused many damaging repercussions within Doctor Who’ mythology, ones that affected even the Doctor. Having given up his title of “Doctor”, the War Doctor fought in the War for centuries against his great enemy the Daleks. Davros too, under unknown circumstances, joined the War in an unknown role. Despite the War Doctor’s best efforts to save Davros he was killed by the Nightmare Child during the first year of the War.
The War Doctor continued to fight and was ultimately thought to have ended the lives of both the Time Lords and the Daleks. This event was changed during the conclusion of ‘The Day of the Doctor’ and Gallifrey was saved rather than lost. Despite this, the War Doctor and his consecutive incarnations were left to believe that the Time War’s conclusion remained the same in order to keep the timelines in balance.
The Reality Bomb
Davros finally made his debut in the revived series in 2008. Dalek Caan, the last survivor of the Cult of Skaro, returned to the Time War in order to rescue Davros from the Nightmare Child. This cost Dalek Caan its mind, having had all of time poured into its head. Davros went about rebuilding the Dalek race with his own cells. The new Supreme Dalek had Davros and Caan, known as the abomination, thrown into the Cage on-board the Crucible.
The Supreme Dalek then used Davros to create the Reality Bomb, a device that could break down the structure of every living creature across reality. By stealing 27 planets, including Earth, the Daleks could create the conductor to activate the weapon. The Tenth Doctor was shocked by his survival and felt guilty about being unable to save him. Davros eventually tortured the Tenth Doctor through showing him and his companions who he really was; a creator of death.
Donna Noble, through Dalek Caan’s manipulation of the timelines, managed to prevent the Reality Bomb after she became half Time Lord, half Human. Davros questioned Dalek Caan’s actions, to which the maddened creature informed its creator that it saw the Daleks for what they were and wished to put an end to them. The Meta-Crisis Doctor, a side-product of Donna’s transformation, then acted upon himself to fulfil Dalek Caan’s wishes. This left Davros mortified and decided to name the Doctor ‘the Destroyer of Worlds’. It was then thought that he died when the Crucible was destroyed. This was the last time we saw Davros. Or so we thought…
The Last Night
As we discovered in last week’s narrative, ‘The Magician’s Apprentice’, Davros somehow survived the Crucible and is now dying. On his last night he wants the Twelfth Doctor to atone for his sins. The sins being him betraying Davros as a child, leaving him to the mercy of the Hand-mines after the Time Lord learnt his name. Now the Twelfth Doctor must face Davros one last time and try and save his two friends, the Master and Clara Oswald, from certain doom at the hands of a newly fledged Dalek Empire derived from every single Dalek in existence.
Conclusion
The Doctor and Davros’ battle has raged for decades and this Saturday a conclusion will finally be made. Will the Doctor be willing to kill Davros as a child in order to save his friends? Who knows? What I can say is this will be a battle to the death and all bets are off. It will certainly be interesting how far Davros will go to make a point and how far the Doctor will go to win the day.
For more battles between Davros and the Doctor check out Big Finish. Davros encounters the Sixth Doctor in ‘Davros’, ‘The Juggernauts’ and ‘The Curse of Davros’. He also encounters the Eighth Doctor in ‘Terra Firma’. There is also the boxset I, Davros to consider which is Big Finish’s own interpretation on the evil creators origins.
