Tony examines the great dictator.
When Steven Moffatt
launched Series 9 of on-screen Doctor Who with a two-part story that involved a
philosophical discussion of Davros, his origins, his nature and the possibility
of his redemption in a universe where definitions of good and evil are no
longer rigid, not only was it seen as a staggeringly original move, but the
showrunner was careful to frame his story and its discussion so as not to
disturb a single thread of the Big Finish four-story epic that was I, Davros,
which had shown us, in as much detail as I, Claudius, the youth, the steps
along the path to the dark side and the eventual apotheosis of Davros, creator
of the Daleks. I, Davros was a masterwork, released in 2006, the year after
Doctor Who made its triumphant return to the screen, and it gave eighties TV
Davros Terry Molloy the chance to put flesh on Davros’ psychological bones.
But three years earlier, and
before the show returned to TV, Molloy faced off against Sixth Doctor Colin
Baker in a story simply entitled Davros, one of three unconnected stories
challenged to take a deeper look at key villains in the show’s history from a
different angle.
The set-up is simple –
Davros has been thought ‘dead’ for over a hundred years. Humanity’s perspective
on the Daleks and their creator has shifted somewhat, especially given the fact
that the impetuous pepperpots of death immediately turned on their creator
almost every time they worked together, and Davros spent a lot of time in
between those engagements in suspended animation, entirely unable to influence
their development. Now, humanity is filling up the galaxy and needs a genius du
jour to help them develop the technology to cross intergalactic space, and
especially to solve the problem of galactic famine.
Humanity needs a hero.
Davros could be it. He’s offered the chance for ‘redemption,’ and, encouraged
by the idea of humanity’s aspiration to greatness and in particular by one
woman’s interest in what made him the man he is, he seems enthusiastic to take
it.
The Sixth Doctor, always
something of a hothead, argues passionately that ‘Daleks can’t change their
bumps,’ that Davros is the way he is because he’s made his choices, because
he’s a scorched-Skaro philosopher who cannot accept the idea that his bleak
view of the universe can be wrong. He’s evil because he’s evil, essentially,
and for Davros there can be no such thing as redemption, because he cannot
envisage any higher authority that could grant him such a thing.
Davros was written by
Lance Parkin, and it mostly takes the form of a series of conversations between
Molloy’s Davros and other characters – Baker’s scornful, spiteful Sixth Doctor;
Bernard Horsfall’s businessman, Arnold
Baynes, who offers Davros his redemption in the eyes of humanity by virtue of
humanitarian action; Wendy Padbury’s Lorraine Baynes, Arnold’s wife and the
pro-Davros historian who wants the story of his life straight from his
age-blackened lips; and Eddie de Oliveira’s Willis, an anarcho-syndicalist
journalist who’s come to pen a destructo-piece on Baynes and gets way more than
he bargained for. In between the conversations though, which rehearse the
arguments of Davros’ youth on a planet at total war, we get glimpses, snatches
of his memories, played out for us by a full cast, and the Parkin vision of
Davros’ youth plays directly into I, Davros three years later – in fact, we had
to double-check the release dates to make sure the dream sequences were not
simply re-used recordings from the I, Davros series. Whether they were in
production at the same time and the four-episode Davros biography was simply
released at a later point or whether the I, Davros scripts were in development
and were available for use for Davros, we’re not sure, but what’s certain is
that the memories Davros replays for us in this release go forward to form part
of his ‘official’ biography – including the shocking truth about the real
genesis of the Daleks, and what Davros did to the only woman to ever threaten
his psychopathic self-isolation. We also learn a lot about what it’s like to
be Davros from Parkin’s script. We learn of the physical pain, which torments
his every moment and drives him endlessly, relentlessly to survive, not to let
himself be beaten by it, and not to take the easy way out, whatever that means
– the simplicity of death or the complexity of a cloned, pain-free body to
replace the eternal life sentence in which his genius is trapped - and we learn
his psychology, that has that scientific, black-and-white ruthlessness and
applies it to every living thing in the universe, including himself, for all he
skews the ruthlessness in his favour by virtue of his ego. There can only be
one supreme scientist of Skaro, and it will be him. There can be only one
supreme power in the universe, and it will be him, but within that paradigm,
he’s quite capable of analysing himself, his strengths and frailties with
psychopathic clarity – the same clarity with which he judges the universe of
his inferiors.
The tragedy framed in
Lance Parkin’s script is that redemption could have been a possibility for
Davros if he’d only encountered a different Doctor at this point in his life –
he honestly admits to considering it, to hoping for it even, and maybe the
Fifth Doctor, or the Seventh, or the Eighth, might have given him the benefit
of enough doubt to allow him to take the small steps of trust in a new
direction that could have led Davros onto a new path (a motif used in The
Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar, where the Twelfth Doctor’s
compassion leads him to give Davros the benefit of that doubt). But it’s the
Sixth Doctor, his judgment, his scorn, his certainty that Davros, alone among
all organic creatures in the universe cannot change, cannot ever make atonement
for what he’s done to the universe, that acts like the devil on Davros’
shoulder, that convinces him that he is in fact what the Doctor says he is,
that he is incapable of change. And, as in Genesis of the Daleks, when Davros
makes his move in this story, without a Dalek anywhere to be seen, it’s still
ghastly and breath-taking and pulse-pounding. Even after everything we learn
about Davros in this audio, and that’s a lot, when he makes his move to achieve
power here, it’s still shocking. We still don’t entirely see it coming,
and there’s a brutality to it that punches us in the face. Parkin cleverly
lulls us into Davros’ confidence, shows us the young Davros, unscarred,
unmutilated, a Davros flirting with the idea of love, and then slams us against
the wall of expectation with the reality of Davros now, a Davros for whom other
people are nothing but pawns and players, pieces on the board of his game of
universal domination. It’s clever writing, because when a villain has returned
time and time again, it’s tempting to think we know how things will go when
they appear, so by subverting all those expectations and letting us into the
world of the younger Davros, and indeed, the older Davros considering mending his
ways, to be punched in the face with the sheer brutality of his ultimate nature
makes him a fresh evil again, making Davros, the story, something that will
remain special as the decades roll on. It’s also something that plugs directly
into on-screen Davros and the future development of the character at Big Finish
– we learn here about the way in which Kaleds were fed in their cities and
bunkers, and how Davros, faced with the intellectual problem of galactic
hunger, could have devised his Great Healer plan from Revelation of the Daleks.
There’s mention made here of the beginnings of a sensory illusion that makes
its presence felt in The Davros Mission and in Terror Firma. There’s even a
plan outlined here that eventually surfaces as a crucial plot element in The
Curse of Davros.
Clearly, from the names
we’ve already mentioned, there’s some top flight Who talent in Davros – Molloy
and Baker are on blistering form, their conversations very much a precursor to
The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar’s intimacies between the Time
Lord and the Kaled. Bernard Horsfall is in full command of his performance
here, convincing as a man who rules his own empire, but one who’s not stupid
enough to be unnecessarily dogmatic or rigid. Padbury turns in a very different
performance to her usual Zoe, part corrupted historian, part schoolgirl crush.
It makes for a closed-in, claustrophobic environment, in which the mesmeric
personality of Davros can work its magic, poisoning everything it touches with
its shocking reasonablenesss.
Davros is a very special
audio story. If it’s in your collection, play it again today. If not, it’s the best
£2.99 you could spend. Get it now.
No comments:
Post a Comment