Davros. The Sixth Doctor. No Daleks. Two men enter, one man leaves.
The premise is simple — after being found drifting in the cold of space by Arnold Baynes and his wife Lorraine, head of TAI Industries, Davros is revived and... hired to work as the new head of their R&D Division. The Doctor, having been summoned by an old friend, is displeased with this arrangement. And after abruptly introducing himself, he hires himself out to Mr Baynes, so he can be present when Davros inevitably flips.
Despite Davros' protests, the Doctor knows it's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when.
While Davros and the Doctor bicker and snark at each other, we're treated to snippets of Davros' life on Skaro. Flashbacks show him in Anachronic Order as a simple Kaled scientist; working on projects together with his friend Shan; his accident, his recovery, and becoming used to his horribly disfigured body; Shan coming up with the concept of Daleks in order to save the Kaled race.
It turns out that Davros has (of course) spent his time at TAI Industries making a nuclear bomb to throw on top of the Doctor, since he solved all of TAI Industries' actual problems during his first few hours there. The Doctor neutralises the bomb, but by that time Davros has already taken over the company and manipulated Lorraine Baynes into handing him full executive power. While pretty much every single minor character in the story rapidly dies, Davros and the Sixth Doctor get a chance to talk in full detail about how they feel about each other. Davros makes a good show of insisting that he has. no. emotions., but is tripped by the painful memory of Shan and his homesickness for a life of war and battle. When the question comes up of whether he might have loved Shan, Davros reveals that he simply took the credit for her concept of Daleks and damned her to death.
Davros escapes in the end, as he always does, and Six glumly notes that his Joker Immunity is yet another way in which he and Davros are the same. Lorraine thinks she'll get away as well, but the Doctor stays by her side until the interstellar police arrive.
Davros includes examples of:
- A Day in the Limelight: This is an adventure without Daleks, so Davros carries the whole story.
- Anachronic Order: Davros' flashbacks are all over his timeline.
- And I Must Scream: Davros' time in stasis
. - Awesome by Analysis: By reading up on economics (the concept of EVERYTHING because the entire concept was alien to Davros when the story started) Davros has come up with an equation that is able to predict the stock market exchange, thus destroying the economy.
- Body Horror: One of the Flashbacks details the moments after Davros having narrowly survived a Thal attack, but suffered horrific injuries because of it, including having most of his flesh cooked off.Davros: ...what...what is that smell?Ral: [hesitantly]...it's you, Davros. [Beat, then Davros lets out a anguished scream of horror]
- Brain Uploading: Mentioned as a possibility in the future. Baynes notes that, despite the technology for cloning oneself and transferring the consciousness having been around for a while and the procedure reportedly not even being hugely expensive, almost no one is actually willing to go through with it. It's supposed that this is also why Davros hasn't done it to himself despite clearly being capable and despite his body being in the state it's in.
- Creator Thumbprint: Not so much for writer Lance Parkin, but it features a number of Terry Nation's trademarks, including an amoral, galaxy-spanning MegaCorp, something randomly prefixed with "space" ("space medicine" this time) and a colossal dome city. If it had someone named Tarrant, it'd be a Terry Nation bingo.
- Death Seeker: Davros dares the Doctor to kill him.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Lorraine Baynes has made an academic career of "re-examining" the motivations, context, and impact of Davros and the Daleks, which has seen more than one libel suit against someone who accused her of "Dalek apologism." Shades of David Irving abound.
- Dragon with an Agenda: Davros to Arnold Baynes.
- Dull Surprise: Arnold Baynes.
- Dystopia Justifies the Means: Once Davros learns about capitalism and is tasked with devising solutions for interplanetary famine he decides to deliberately destroy the entire galactic economic system and replace it with a state of endless war with each planet dedicating its own economic resources toward military production and survival, with the only surviving interplanetary order being controlled by Davros himself.
- Elaborate Underground Base
- Evil Laugh: Davros when he thinks he's blown the Doctor up with a nuclear blast.
- Faux Affably Evil: Davros.
- Flashback: A few, dotted around the story, show Davros back on Skaro, both prior and the days immediately after his crippling injury.
- For the Evulz
- Friendly Enemy: Davros thinks he and the Doctor could've been this.
- The Grotesque: Davros flashbacks to when he was considered this.
- Here We Go Again!: Half way through the story the Doctor gets another earpiece installed.
- History Repeats
- Hold Your Hippogriffs:"He's an asteroid-hugging hippie."
- Kaled Resources
- Hypocritical Humour: After painstakingly sneaking his way into TAI's hangar-bay, avoiding the guards and reminding his compainions repeatedly to be absolutely quiet, the Doctor's reaction upon spotting Baynes and his men wheeling out the body of his old foe?Doctor: DAVROS?! [dashes out from cover] OI! YOU THERE! YOU! THERE!
- In the Style of: Season 22 - the episode is two 45-minute episodes, rather than four shorter ones.note Chronologically, it fits in before "Timelash".
- Joker Immunity: Invoked Trope.Lorraine: You really think Davros is alive?Doctor: Oh yes, he survived. People like him and me don't know any different.
- Jump Scare: DOC-TOR!
- Kitschy Local Commercial
- Davros Loves Shakespeare
- Klingon Promotion
- Large Ham: Oh, go on. Guess.
- Last of His Kind
- Last-Second Chance: Initially, Davros takes to solving non-Dalek type problems, like the economic crisis and galactic famine, like a fish to water. It doesn't last.
- Leave Behind a Pistol: Or poison in Davros's case (see Motive Rant).
- Living Lie Detector: Davros can tell by heartbeats, and body temperatures, whether or not somebody gets nervous from lying.
- Manipulative Bastard: All by his lonesome, Davros still manages to be an impressive threat. He goes from being dead, to have practically fully taken over a powerful multi-systems corporation.
- Make It Look Like an Accident
- Mecha-Mooks
- Motive Rant: The story starts off with a flashback of Davros on Skaro, after suffering his horrific injuries. His people, who are big on "purity" want him to kill himself. After a few minutes of contemplation... he decides no.
- No-Nonsense Nemesis
- "Not So Different" Remark: A key element of this trilogy (with the other parts comparing Five to Omega and Seven to the Master). Davros tries this with the Doctor, noting that, if things had been different, they could have gotten along famously. The Doctor is less than impressed.Doctor: [ice cold] We're not friends, Davros.
- Not Quite Dead
- Nuke 'em: Davros tries to end it all here.
- Origins Episode: A certain Flash Back shows how Davros had come up with the concept of the Daleks.
- Pride: It's pointed out that someone of Davros' genius could easily clone himself a new, undamaged body to transfer his consciousness into, but as that wouldn't be "him" as he perceives it, he stays with his old, damaged near-corpse.
- Red Herring: Two of them. The first concerns Shan, whom everyone assumes to be a love interest for Davros. She's not. The second Red Herring is about the mass-produced robots. They're just regular robots.
- Replacement Goldfish: Davros treats Mrs. Baynes as one for Shan.
- Scare Chord: A rare example of one being on the Doctor himself, when he first appears, scaring two secondary characters.
- Shout-Out: ...Lorraine Baynes?
- Davros paraphrases Hamlet while describing the experience of his imprisonment, as lampshaded by the Doctor:Davros: That there was more in Heaven and on Skaro than was ever dreamt of in your philosophy, Doctor!
Doctor: [laughs] Eternity, and the best you can manage is to misquote Shakespeare? (...) Goodnight, sweet prince. I'm off to get that cup of tea.
- Davros paraphrases Hamlet while describing the experience of his imprisonment, as lampshaded by the Doctor:
- Swiss-Cheese Security: The Doctor manages to get past three separate security doors in a robot testing ground where he's not supposed to be.
- Taking You with Me: Kimberly Todd.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Davros, having learnt his lesson from previous encounters, tries to kill the Doctor by dropping a nuke on him. Doesn't work, naturally, but gotta give points for effort.
- Villain with Good Publicity
- Visions of Another Self: Davros Flashbacks very vividly sometimes.
- Volleying Insults: When forced to work together, the Doctor and Davros simply do not stop sniping at each other (for obvious reasons). It's hilarious.
- Written-In Absence: Peri is off on a botany congress.
- Year Outside, Hour Inside: Davros describes stasis like this. He describes centuries of torture, "Groundhog Day" Loop memories. The total destruction of his psyche, shattered into insanity. Depleted of all thoughts he could muster, every memory, every theory, every book. Then darkness. Only a second had passed.
