Are we missing the point on Davros? My take on the minisode

Before y’all get all riled up and such, this is not me about to defend something the world over said ‘no’ to, but neither is this me about to join in and condemn it, either. It is not a slight at the fans, and it is not a slight at the producers of the show. Instead, this is a short discussion on some thoughts I had on how both Russell T Davies (RTD) and the fans, collectively may be entirely missing the point here.

First, context, for those who don’t know:

In Doctor Who lore, Davros is a character who was introduced in 1975 as the creator of iconic villains the Daleks (about 12 years after the debut of the Daleks themselves). According to the story, Davros became a deformed, chair-using maniac after some sort of explosion (I’m not 100% up on this, but the point is that Davros was depicted as always using this Dalek-style wheelchair-like device).

In 2023, RTD wrote a mini-episode sketch titled “Destintion: Skaro”. The minisode, which is considered ‘canon’ to the main show, ‘retcons’ Davros into a non-deformed (or non ‘disabled’ person, as per RTD). RTD gave his reasoning and was quoted as saying:

We had long conversations about bringing Davros back because he's a fantastic character. Time and society and culture and taste has moved on, and there's a problem with the Davros of old in that he's a wheelchair user who's evil. And I had problems with that, and a lot of us on the production team had problems with that, of associating disability with evil, and trust me, there's a very long tradition of this. I'm not blaming people in the past at all, but the world changes, and when the world changes Doctor Who has to change as well. So we made the choice to bring back Davros without the facial scarring and without the wheelchair or his support unit, which functions as a wheelchair. I say this is how we see Davros now. This is what he looks like. This is 2023, this is our lens, this is our eye. Things used to be black and white, they're not black and white anymore. And Davros used to look like that and he looks like this now, and that we are absolutely standing by.

As you can imagine, this led to backlash, and strong feelings on both sides. Fans lashed out at what they perceived as over-sensitive, while RTD went as far as to mock fans who appeared to only be trying to engage in meaningful conversation. (I don’t like making jibes, but could the man who gave us ‘Midnight’ really not come up with anything better than ‘oh poor baby’ there???)

However, in the storm of media barbs, I’m looking at this whole debate. And I’m thinking something: are both sides missing the point here?

What if (and yes, this is arguably more controversial, but it’s a point that needs be made) the question we should be asking is not ‘how should Davros be brought back’, but rather: should Davros be a character who is even brought back in the first place?

Hear me out: If there’s one thing that this whole debate brings to light, it’s that Davros is, or at least has become a divisive character. This particular debate between the fans and RTD did not start with them — there has been debate over whether Davros represents disabled users (consider this: both Little Britain and Phoenix Nights, shows which are 20+ years old now, both referred to a character in a wheelchair as ‘Davros’, so the comparison (and therefore likely the question) has existed long before this). Knowing this, it’s almost baffling that RTD simply didn’t think to let past grievances lie, rather than let himself be perceived as some sort of wokeish Mary Whitehouse-type showrunner.

Furthermore, all that aside, does bringing Davros back even make sense simply from a narrative perspective? Sure, they say anything can go on a sci-fi time-travelling show, but what more does Davros have to offer from a narrative perspective, able-bodied or not? In fact, looking back on Davros’ character history, all he ever seems to have really done is sat around and get dominated by the Daleks (and maybe act as their scientist or whatever). The appeal of Davros, therefore, doesn’t seem to be his narrative as much as his cool design. And if there needs to be debate over his design, then maybe it would be logical for the creators to say ‘ok, he had some cool episodes. Let them episodes stand, and let’s move on with some fresh, new villains’ (interestingly enough, RTD is on record as saying that he wanted to bring fresh new villains [that said, he then proceeded to bring back Sutekh, the Rani, and Omega, amongst others]). From a narrative (and design) point of view, Davros is irrelevant to some extent: the Daleks debuted twelve years prior and had already by that time become some of the most iconic sci-fi villains of all time. All without the help of Davros.

To be clear, this is not necessarily my personal opinion, just some interesting thoughts I had as I observed the whole debate. What’s your thoughts?