Aside from its unforgettable rogues’ gallery of monsters and aliens,Doctor Whohas featured plenty of beloved villains over its nearly 60-year run. The most enduring of these villains is, of course, the nefarious Time Lord known as the Master. However, only slightly less iconic is Davros, the power-mad scientist who created the Daleks.
Davros has been a thorn in the Doctor’s side ever since he debuted in the 1975 Tom Baker serial “Genesis of the Daleks.” In the following decades, the Dark Lord of Skaro has returned again and again with new schemes to guide his genocidal children towards universal domination. But while Davros may seem on the surface to be nothing more than just another vicious megalomaniac, there’s one episode that’s notable for attempting to add some humanity to thefather of the Daleks. That is the Series 9 episode, “The Magician’s Apprentice.”
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Davros On His Deathbed
The 2015 episode “The Magician’s Apprentice” — followed by its second part, “The Witch’s Familiar” — opens with a young boy desperately trying to escape a desolate, war-torn wasteland covered in eerie hand-shaped mines. But of course, help soon arrives when the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) suddenly appears to rescue the child. However, things take a bleak turn when the boy tells the Doctor his name: Davros. A look of horror spreads across the Doctor’s face as he realizes what he’s just done. He has saved the life of his most hated enemy, ensuring the creation of the Daleks.
Later in the episode, the Doctor is approached by Davros’ servant, the reptilian Colonel Sarff, who tells him that Davros is dying, andrequests the Doctor’s presencein his final moments. The Doctor is of course reluctant, fully expecting this to be another one of his nemesis’ diabolical schemes to destroy him once and for all. However, when the Doctor and Davros come face to face on Skaro, the creator of the Daleks seems sincere. He truly is on his deathbed, even more weary and decrepit than usual. And while the Daleks naturally pose a threat to the Doctor and his allies during their trip to Skaro, Davros himself shows no signs of hostility. He simply wishes to speak with his nemesis one last time before the end.
At first, Davros tries to rehash his age-old ideologicaldebate with the Doctor— is it better to treat others with compassion, or to ruthlessly fight for supremacy? However, the tense confrontation between fierce rivals eventually gives way to something much more personal. When the Doctor reveals that he managed to save Gallifrey from its destruction at the hands of the Daleks, Davros offers his sincere congratulations, much to the Doctor’s confusion.
“A man should have a race, a people, an allegiance. A man should belong, Doctor.”
While Davros' wording is filtered through his fascistic, authoritarian worldview, he still seems truly happy for the Doctor. After all, he first created the Daleks in order to save his people from extinction — albeit byturning them into living weapons.Despite his tyrannical cruelty, Davros still knows what it’s like to be desperate to save one’s people. And in this brief moment of connection between two mortal enemies, Davros opens his true eyes one last time, and urges the Doctor to watch over his homeworld:
“Protect your own, as I have sought to protect mine.”
More Than a Monster
As Davros sits with the Doctor in his final moments, the two cry together, and even laugh together. It’s a remarkable moment of nuance and vulnerability from a character who’s spent decades as a loathsome, single-minded despot. The Doctor thinks back to the time he saved Davros as a child, and feels compassion for his greatest foe. In the present, he attempts to save Davros’ lifeusing his own Regenerationenergy — however, Davros uses this opportunity to try and steal the Doctor’s life force, creating an army of immortal Daleks. Of course, the Doctor manages to thwart this scheme with a bit of quick thinking, but he’s still left wounded by Davros’ betrayal.
At first, it seems as though Davros’ entire conversation with the Doctor was nothing more than a ruse to lure him into a trap. If that were the end of the story, this episode would feel like a massive wasted opportunity — a poignant, heart-wrenching story that was ruined at the last second by a cheap twist. And indeed, if Davros truly died here, then this would have been a magnificent sendoff for one ofthe Doctor’s deadliest enemies.But even so, there’s one last added wrinkle that offers a bit of hope. Before he escapes Skaro, the Doctor is confronted by one last revelation: the Daleks have the capacity to show mercy.
This story establishes that the Dalek casings are able to filter out any speech that is considered un-Dalek-like by their programming: saying one’s name is translated to “I am a Dalek,” while “I love you” becomes “Exterminate!” Davros intentionally made his creations incapable of expressing any independence or dissent, trapping them in eternal conformity to his twisted ideals. However, after the Master (Michelle Gomez)traps the Doctor’s companionClara (Jenna Coleman) in a Dalek casing, her desperate pleas for help are translated as “I show mercy.” The Doctor is astounded to see that the Daleks, despite their infinite hatred and cruelty, have the capacity to show mercy. And he realizes this means that Davros too must value mercy on some level. In the end, the Doctor doesn’t regret saving the young Davros, because he realizes that the innocent boy he once was is still buried somewhere deep in there.
Davros isn’t the sort of villain one would ever expect to have sympathy for — yet in this story, he’s portrayed not merely as a raving tyrant, but as a tragic figure who became a monster out of a misguided desperation to save his people. Admittedly, Davros’ characterization here is undercutby his eventual betrayal.However, the story’s conclusion indicates that there is still some faint trace of good in him, implying that his earlier conversation with the Doctor may have had some sincerity to it after all. And when one looks at the story with that in mind, it becomes a fascinating, emotional look at one of the most enduring villains inDoctor Whohistory. “The Magician’s Apprentice” and “The Witch’s Familiar” may not be perfect episodes, but they provide Davros with a surprising amount of complexity, nuance, and humanity.
