Doctor Who: Davros
A relatively large box set mixing new material with earlier existing releases (and a few box set exclusives to force the completists’ hand - don’t you hate that crap?), the Davros box set chronicles the multiple rises and falls of the fictional creator of the Daleks throughout his appearances in classic Doctor Who. I think I’ve mentioned before that one can tell which elements of the classic series are about to resurface in the current series by paying close attention to the classic box sets, and there are numerous rumors which seem to point in the direction of reacquainting oneself with the Davros mythology being a good idea. Here, then, is every story of classic Doctor Who in which the maniacal, Dalek-wheelchair-bound genius appeared, in one convenient package…at least for U.K. fans.
His first appearance, the early Tom Baker story Genesis Of The Daleks, is included here, with its features and main program exactly as they appeared as a solo release. Following this is 1979’s Destiny Of The Daleks, which was released simultaneously as a stand-alone DVD (and which we’ll cover separately). The next two appearances of the character, the Peter Davison story Resurrection Of The Daleks and Colin Baker’s Revelation Of The Daleks, were also previously released. So too was the Sylvester McCoy epic Remembrance Of The Daleks, the metal monsters’ final ’80s appearance, but here it’s retooled into a 2-DVD set exclusive to this set. (A standalone U.S./Canadian release was planned and then cancelled in a tangle over music re-use rights; there are now no plans for the “special edition” of Remembrance to see the light of day in North America.) One final box set exclusive disc compiles all of Big Finish Productions’ audio stories featuring Davros in one place, and throws in an audio adventure exclusive to this box set, The Davros Mission.
This review will focus on the box set-only material. The revamped edition of Remembrance now features two additional documentaries specific to that story, and a second disc with a documentary piece unto itself, “Davros Connections”, which traces the character’s path through the Doctor Who mythos, even taking into account the Big Finish audio fiction centering around Davros. Over the past nine years, there’s been an active debate over how “official” Big Finish’s audios are, but this would almost seem to be a bold step toward officially integrating those stories into the show’s canonical continuity (whether that’s a good thing or otherwise, I’m not going to get into here - that debate could easily take up an entire section of the site).
“Back To School” focuses on the production of Remembrance, with remembrances from Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Simon Williams, writer Ben Aaronovitch, script editor Andrew Cartmel, and numerous other members of the cast and crew. There’s a nice section where these various participants remember those members of the Remembrance troupe (say that five times fast) who are no longer among the living. With so many guest players and behind-the-scenes creative forces having passed on, this is sadly an increasingly common staple of story-specific documentaries on the original series, but it’s always done tastefully and fondly. “Back To School” really helps to hammer home what a breath of fresh air Remembrance was upon its premiere in 1988 (which, I’ve just soberingly realized, is now a solid 20 years ago): it was a story which took in the vast tapestry of Doctor Who mythology without demanding that the viewer have an intimate acquaintance with 24 years of previous episodes to even begin to comprehend, and it was the beginning of a subtle reboot of the show’s mythology. It also thoroughly modernized the Daleks and made them terrifying in a way that had really eluded them for much of the 1970s.
“Remembrances” digs deeper into one corner of that same story, discussing the numerous throwaway references to the Doctor’s (and the Daleks’) past adventures, demonstrating that these were tendrils of narrative that actually do lead somewhere, not just offhand mentions of untelevised romps through time and space. There is also discussion of a rethink of the degree to which Doctor Who fell back on its own history from here on out: much of the early ’80s have since been criticized by fandom for rolling out old adversaries for pure nostalgia’s sake, without strong stories to merit their return. With Andrew Cartmel now firmly in the driver’s seat of the series’ narrative, the emphasis was shifted to more of a stylistic kind of throwback - less overt continuity, and more passing mentions and an attempt to rediscover the early episodes’ sense of foreboding mystery. This piece tails off right before one would naturally get into a discussion about what fandom refers to as the Cartmel Masterplan - a subject which has already been dealt with extensively in the “Endgame” documentary included with the original series’ final story, Survival. Watch those two documentaries together, and you can get a fairly good idea of the creative thinking behind Doctor Who’s twilight years.
“Davros Connections” is an interesting piece which takes up the second disc of the new Remembrance 2-DVD set. Terry Molloy - the voice and face of Davros since 1984’s Revelation Of The Daleks - narrates this documentary look at Davros’ life and his horrific exploits. Interestingly enough, this documentary piece heavily features audio material by Big Finish Productions, to an unprecedented degree. The audio stories featuring Davros are excerpted extensively (especially the I, Davros series which covers his younger years), and their authors are interviewed, as is Big Finish’s then-producer, Gary Russell (who now works on TV Doctor Who). This is really a bold and unusual step here: we’re walking right up to the plate and saying that Big Finish is official. That very issue has been at the heart of considerable debate among fans for the decade that Big Finish has been doing audio Doctor Who, and even if we go ahead and say Big Finish’s stories are canonical, that doesn’t come without its own baggage, since Big Finish also liberally borrows from and references the New Adventures, the various Doctor Who comics stories down through the years, and much more. It’ll be interesting to see entire internet forums implode from the implications of this idea. The documentary itself is a nice, not-quite-an-hour-long mission briefing on the Doctor’s twisted foe, featuring interviews with Davros actors David Gooderson (Destiny Of The Daleks and Terry Molloy, as well as archival audio interview material with the original Davros, the late Michael Wisher. Eric Saward, Ben Aaronovitch, and numerous Big Finish writers are interviewed as well. It’s amusing to go from Terry Molloy talking about himself in the third person to an actual interview with Terry Molloy. Very little behind-the-scenes information is revealed: this entire piece is basically a character study, focusing on the fiction of the Doctor Who mythos.
The audio story disc compiles Davros’ appearances - both with and without the presence of his meddling Time Lord nemesis - as chronicled by Big Finish Productions. The Doctor Who audio stories heard here include Davros and The Juggernauts (both starring Colin Baker and Terry Molloy as Davros), Terror Firma (starring Paul McGann alongside Molloy), and the four “episodes” of the standalone I, Davros miniseries (starring Molloy). Note that these are the Davros stories only, not all of the Dalek stories - it’d take more than a single DVD to accomodate those, even as compressed audio with static backgrounds. Some of these stories are decent stuff (and others not so much - Terror Firma caused me to lose interest in the eighth Doctor audios for quite a while), and with the double CD stories running at least $25 a pop, and the single CDs of the I, Davros series coming in a little bit cheaper than that, the audio-only disc is quite a value if you don’t already have a majority of what’s on it. A final Davros/Dalek story, The Davros Mission starring Terry Molloy and written by Nicholas “voice of the Daleks” Briggs, is exclusive to this disc and isn’t on the Big Finish release slate in CD or download form. (And, you guessed it, The Davros Mission is covered separately in our audio theater section.)
As for this set’s cancellation in North America, it’s a mixed blessing. Obviously I’m reviewing the U.K. release, so what we’re missing out on here is Remembrance with some extra featurettes (but the same commentary and other bonus material we already have from the single-disc edition), the Big Finish disc, and a nice slipcover. Destiny has already been released separately here. It’s really a bit of a pain in the butt that Remembrance has been nixed as a 2-DVD standalone, because that probably would’ve been an attractive option along with the standalone Destiny release, and technically, the only thing out of the entire set that would have been lost to U.S. and Canadian fans would’ve been The Davros Mission But as it turns out, the problem that both individual title and box set ran into was within Remembrance itself - the version in the U.K. box set restores two Beatles tracks heard as background music (the story is set in 1963), and no provisions were made to replace the music with cheaper cover versions or different music altogether outside of Britain. With the re-use of Beatles songs carrying a premium price tag in the Americas (thank you, Michael Jackson), Remembrance effectively became a memory. Part of me is glad to have the British edition with the original songs as heard on first broadcast, and part of me is thinking that it was just lack of foresight or flexibility that led to this problem in the first place.
Ultimately, I give the Davros collection 3 stars - Genesis and Remembrance are all-time Doctor Who classics, Revelation and Destiny are novel takes on how to put a different spin on Davros and his Daleks, and Resurrection is almost an over-convoluted, continuity-laden train wreck, but at least it’s an enjoyably stylish one. Some of the Big Finish material is as good as the televised stories (in places, better!), and the new documentary features help to round things out. But with a 100-pound price tag in the U.K. - nearly $200 U.S. with the dollar falling faster than a Dalek down a magnetized mineshaft - one wonders if the music rights hurdle wasn’t just a convenient place for the U.S. distributors to say “thank you, but no” and back away from a product that wouldn’t sell because of the combination of a steep price and the sheer amount of previously released material. (That being said, you could probably spend $200 gathering the individual Big Finish audio stories compiled onto one disc here, to say nothing of the individual TV serials on DVD.) It’s sad that we won’t be seeing this set over here - but in the end, it’s understandable, and at least the one previously unreleased TV story, Destiny Of The Daleks, allows American fans to complete the Davros story on their own.
Now, one wonders…where will we see or hear Davros next?