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Davros () is a character from the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. He was created by screenwriter Terry Nation, originally for the 1975 serial Genesis of the Daleks. Davros is a major enemy of the series' protagonist, the Doctor, and is the creator of the Doctor's deadliest enemies, the . Davros is a genius who has mastered many areas of science, but also a who believes that through his creations he can become the supreme being and ruler of the Universe. The character has been compared to the infamous dictator Adolf Hitler several times, including by the actor Terry Molloy, while Julian Bleach defined him as a cross between Hitler and the renowned scientist Stephen Hawking.
Davros is from the planet Skaro, whose people, the , were engaged in a bitter thousand-year war of attrition with their enemies, the Thals. He is horribly scarred and disabled, a condition that various spin-off media attribute to his laboratory being attacked by a Thal shell. He has one functioning hand and one Cybernetics eye mounted on his forehead to take the place of his real eyes, which he is not able to open for long; for much of his existence he depends completely upon a self-designed mobile Life support chair in place of his lower body. It would become an obvious inspiration for his eventual design of the Dalek. The lower half of his body is absent and he is physically incapable of leaving the chair for more than a few minutes without dying. Davros' voice, like those of the Daleks, is electronically distorted. His manner of speech is generally soft and contemplative, but when angered or excited he is prone to ranting outbursts that resemble the hysterical, staccatissimo speech of the Daleks.
Cast in the role of Davros was Michael Wisher, who had previously appeared in several different roles on Doctor Who and had provided Dalek voices in the serials Frontier in Space, Planet of the Daleks and Death to the Daleks. Wisher based his performance as Davros on the philosopher Bertrand Russell. In order to prepare for filming under the heavy mask, Wisher rehearsed wearing a paper bag over his head. Friedlander's mask was cast in hard latex, with only the mouth revealing Wisher's features; make-up artist Sylvia James shaded the mask's tones and blackened Wisher's lips and teeth to hide the transition.
In the serial Destiny of the Daleks, Davros is played by David Gooderson using the mask Friedlander made for Wisher after it was split into intersecting sections to get as good a fit as possible.Information text from the Destiny of the Daleks DVD When Terry Molloy took over the role in Resurrection of the Daleks, a new mask was designed by Stan Mitchell.
In 2023, Julian Bleach, who played the character in four episodes of the revived series, reprised the role of Davros for a minisode aired during Children in Need, informally titled "", in which Davros is depicted as non-disabled and without . In an interview for , executive producer Russell T. Davies said that this is how Davros will be depicted in future appearances, to avoid contributing to harmful tropes of disabled villains in media.
The decision to portray Davros as an able-bodied character received a divisive reception from fans.
Davros quickly becomes obsessed with his creations, considering them to be the ultimate form of life compared to others. When other Kaleds attempted to thwart his project, Davros arranges the extinction of his own people by using the Thals, whom he mostly killed with the Daleks later. Davros then weeds out those in elite scientific division who are loyal to him so he can have the Daleks eliminate the rest. However, the Daleks ultimately turn on Davros, killing his supporters before shooting him when he tries to halt the Dalek production line.
In Destiny of the Daleks, it is revealed that Davros (now played by David Gooderson) was not killed, but placed in suspended animation and buried underground in the destruction of his bunker. The Daleks unearth their creator to help them break a impasse in their war against the android . However, the Dalek force is destroyed by the Doctor, and Davros is captured and imprisoned in suspended animation by the humans, before being taken to Earth to face trial.
In the Sixth Doctor story Revelation of the Daleks, it is revealed that Davros managed to escape at the end of Resurrection and has gone into hiding as "The Great Healer" of the funeral and cryogenics preservation centre Tranquil Repose on the planet Necros. There, creating a clone of his head to serve as a decoy while modifying his body so that it can fire electric bolts and his chair is able to hover, Davros uses the more intelligent frozen bodies to engineer a new variety of white armoured Daleks loyal to him (while using the lesser intellects as food for the galaxy, ending a galaxy-wide famine), but he is captured by the original Daleks and taken to Skaro to face trial.
Davros' final classic appearance is as the Emperor Dalek in Remembrance of the Daleks, with his white and gold Daleks now based on Skaro and termed "Imperial Daleks", fighting against the grey "Renegade Dalek" faction, who answer to the Dalek Supreme. By this time, Davros has been physically transplanted into a customised Dalek casing. He is only revealed to be the Emperor in the final episode. Both Skaro and the Imperial Dalek Mother ship are apparently destroyed (in the future) when the Seventh Doctor tricks Davros into using the Time Lord artefact known as the Hand of Omega, which makes Skaro's Sun go supernova, before homing in on their mothership. Davros flees into an escape pod as the ship explodes.
In the follow-up episode "Journey's End" (2008), it is revealed that the stolen planets are required as a power source for Davros' ideal final solution: the Reality Bomb, which produces a wavelength that would cancel out the electrical field binding atoms to reduce all life outside the Crucible into nothingness in both his universe and countless other realities. But Davros learns too late that Dalek Caan, who came to the realisation of his race's atrocities as a consequence of saving his creator, used his prophecies and influence to ensure the Daleks' destruction while manipulating events to bring the Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) together for the role the latter would play. Though the Doctor attempts to save him, having earlier taunted the Doctor for turning his companions into killers and being the cause of the deaths of countless people during his travels, Davros furiously refuses the Doctor's help and accuses him of being responsible for the destruction while screaming: "Never forget, Doctor, you did this! I name you forever: You are the Destroyer of Worlds!" Thus the Doctor is forced to leave Davros to his supposed fate as the Crucible self-destructs.
Davros, which does not feature the Daleks, apparently fills in the gaps between Resurrection of the Daleks and Revelation of the Daleks,A timeline provided with The Complete Davros Collection placed Davros after Resurrection of the Daleks. and has the scientist trying to manipulate the galaxy's economy into a war footing similar to Skaro's. The Sixth Doctor manages to defeat his plans, and Davros is last heard when his ship explodes, an event obliquely mentioned in Revelation. However the Doctor thinks he has survived. Davros also mentions he will work on a plan to combat famine, tying into Revelation of the Daleks.
The Davros Mission is an original audio adventure (without the Doctor) available on The Complete Davros Collection DVD box set. It takes place directly after the television story Revelation, while leaving the planet Necros and beginning Davros' trial. At the end of Davros Mission, he turns the tables on the Daleks, forcing them to do his bidding. The Big Finish miniseries I, Davros, also features trial scenes, but mostly explores his early life. In those four stories, his journey is seen from his boyhood, to just before Genesis of the Daleks.
The Curse of Davros begins with Davros and the Daleks working together to try and alter the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo using technology that Davros has created that allows him to swap peoples' minds, allowing him to switch various soldiers in Napoleon's army with his own Daleks, ultimately intending to replace Napoleon with a Dalek after Waterloo is won so that he can change history and lead humanity in a direction where they may ally with the Daleks. The plan is complicated when the Sixth Doctor arrives and uses the device to swap bodies with Davros in an attempt to subvert the Daleks' plans from the inside, but Davros-in-the-Doctor is eventually able to convince the Daleks of his true identity, planning to remain in the Doctor's healthy body while leaving the Doctor trapped in his original form. At the end, Davros and the Doctor are returned to their original bodies with the aid of the Doctor's new companion Flip Jackson, the Doctor exposes Davros's true agenda to Napoleon, and Davros is left with an army of Daleks who have had their minds wiped. These Daleks presumably become the "Imperial Daleks", first seen in Remembrance of the Daleks.
In The Juggernauts, Davros is on the run from the original Daleks. He hatches a plan to add human Nervous system to robotic Mechanoids, using them, along with his own Daleks, to destroy the originals, but the Doctor learns the truth about this plan, and his companion Mel Bush—who unwittingly assisted in the programming of the new Mechanoids—uses a backdoor she installed in their programming to turn them against Davros. At the end of the story, the self-destruct mechanism of Davros' life-support chair explodes after he is attacked by the Mechanoids, destroying an entire human colony. It is not clear how Davros survives to become the Dalek Emperor as seen in Remembrance. However, in the DVD documentary Davros Connections, director Gary Russell points out that the explosion of Davros' life-support chair leaves the listener to believe there is little of Davros left. This fits chronologically the fact that Remembrance depicts Davros as just a head inside the Emperor Dalek. The Davros Connections DVD
In Daleks Among Us, set after Remembrance, Davros returns to Azimuth, a planet that was invaded by the Daleks long ago, presenting himself as a victim of Dalek enslavement to infiltrate an underground movement against the repressive government- so desperate to prevent riots about individual actions during the Dalek occupation that official policy is now that the Dalek invasion never happened- seeking the remnants of an old experiment he carried out on the planet. This experiment is revealed to be Falkus, a clone of Davros's original body that was intended to be a new host for his mind, with Falkus having evolved an independent personality since the Daleks left Azimuth. Falkus attempts to acquire the Persuasion Machine, a dangerous device that the Seventh Doctor has been tracking with his companions Elizabeth Elizabeth Klein and Will Arrowsmith, but the Doctor is able to trick Falkus into using the reprogrammed Persuasion Machine to destroy himself and his Daleks, while Davros flees in an escape pod. Davros is last shown trapped on the planet Lamuria, faced with the spectral former residents of the planet who sought to punish all criminals in the universe.
By the time of the Eighth Doctor audio play Terror Firma (set after Remembrance), Davros is commanding a Dalek army which has successfully conquered the Earth. His mental instability has grown to the point where "Davros" and "the Emperor" exist within him as different personalities. His Daleks recognise this instability and rebel against Davros. By the story's end the Emperor personality is dominant, and the Daleks agree to follow him and leave Earth.
In the fourth volume of the series, looking at the Eighth Doctor's role in the Time War, after The Valeyard uses a Dalek weapon to erase the Daleks from history, the Dalek Time Strategist escapes the erasure by travelling into a parallel universe where the Kaleds and Thals have been at peace for centuries, with Davros still fully human and married to a Thal woman. The Dalek Time Strategist manipulates this alternate Davros into using his dimensional portal technology to merge various alternate Skaros together to recreate the Daleks in the prime universe, convincing Davros that the Doctor is an enemy of the Kaleds rather than the Thals. Reference is made to the 'prime' Davros having been killed in the first year of the War (as mentioned in "The Stolen Earth"). The process of merging with his alternate selves causes the alternate Davros to gain the injuries and memories of his counterparts, to the extent that he forgets his wife and the peace with the Thals. Eventually his presence restores the Daleks in the prime universe, but the Dalek Emperor has Davros put into stasis to prevent his influence causing another civil war by causing the Daleks to become divided between loyalty to the Emperor and Davros.
At the conclusion of War, Davros was seemingly disintegrated by a Spider Dalek on the order of the Dalek Prime. However, Davros had previously recruited one of the Spider Daleks as a sleeper agent for just such an eventuality, and even he was not certain in the end if he was being disintegrated or being Teleportation away to safety, leaving the possibility open for his return.
Terry Molloy played Davros in the remounting of the play, again with Miles, for another one-off production in 2005. During the production, specially shot footage portrayed Dalek atrocities.
In 2008, Julian Bleach appeared live as Davros at the Doctor Who Prom, announcing that the Royal Albert Hall would become his new palace, and the audience his "obedient slaves".
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