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141a 'Davros'

CD adventure released September 2003, 4 episodes

Writers: Lance Parkin
Director: Gary Russell

Roots: Dawkins College Cambridge (named after Lalla Ward's husband??), The Dalek Solution echoes Hitler's Final Solution. Hamlet ("Goodnight Sweet Prince"), The Prisoner ('Be seeing you.' Being held prisoner in a well stocked village.), Soylent Green (source of food pills). The name Lorraine Baines appears to be borrowed from that of Marty McFly's mother in the Back to the Future movies

Intertextuality: The names of Skaro's two moons, Falkus and Omega Mysterium, come from the 1976 Artus book Doctor Who and the Daleks Omnibus.

Goofs: It is said that Davros has been dead for a thousand years (since 'Genesis of the Daleks'?) and then later he was declared dead over a century ago (since 'Resurrection of the Daleks').

How does the Doctor survive the fall down the lift shaft? (More to the point, how does he survive the nuclear explosion - it doesn't seem to have time to fall far!)

Fashion victims: The Doctor refuses to wear a tie, as it would clash with his outfit.

Technobabble: The Doctor constructs an alpha matrix.

Dialogue Disasters: 'I'm the one with a degree in space medicine' (Er, that differs from normal medicine how?)

Dialogue Triumphs:'A Dalek can't change its bumps.'

'The Doctor is far more dangerous than a mere fire.'

Davros' speech about his imprisonment.

'He'll take out your eyes, then come back for the sockets. And laugh while he does it.'

'Davros, if you're not careful your face will stick like that.'

Double Entendres: 'I'm not sure I have ever felt anything."

'They say I shall be the one to do it.'

Continuity: Skaro is in the same galaxy as Earth. It is not known how the war started. Before the end of the Kaled-Thal war, Shan was the one who came up with the idea (and the name) of the Daleks, but Co-ordinator Davros took credit. He loved Shan, but had her killed when he found out she was unfaithful (as he considered it) to him.

The Daleks have not been active for a century since the last Dalek War. Dalek regalia is sought after as collectors pieces.

TransAllied Inc (TAI) is one of the largest corporations in the galaxy, and is run by Arnold Baynes. TAI sells robots, starships, terraformers, medical equipments, explosives, foodstuffs, protective clothing, weft engines, computer brains, recreational narcotics, laser cannons and more. Employees of every corporation have personal organisers implanted in their ears that can feed them up to date information. The galaxy is largely controlled by corporations.

The treaty of Parlagon prevents any private individual from holding atomic weapons. Though humans have spread throughout the galaxy, famine is a major problem.

Davros was crippled after an attack. The medical people gave him a projectile poison injector to allow Davros to kill himself, but he kept it but didn't use it. Despite wanting to change, Davros always remains the same. He considers the Doctor to be the closest thing he has to a friend, and admits the Doctor as his equal. His chair acts like an iron lung and pacemaker, it monitors and maintains his body. During the 90 years he spent in suspended animation (between Destiny and Resurrection) he was conscious. He is regarded (by the Doctor at least) as the most evil being the galaxy has produced.

The Doctor doesn't consider mass redundancies and labour relations to be one of his fields. The Doctor skimmed 'Dalek Genius' and 'The Dark Side of Shako' by Lorraine Baynes. He claims he never lies. He only needs an hour a night's sleep (although he does like a lie-in), but he does snore.

Peri is away on the other side of the galaxy, attending a botany symposium.

Links: The Trial of a Time Lord Parts 9-12 (Stellar Stora), Genesis of the Daleks, Destiny of the Daleks, Resurrection of the Daleks. For Davros, this story leads neatly into Revelation of the Daleks, establishing his interest in the galactic famine, his ability to fire lightning bolts from his hands, and his apparent demise in a spaceship explosion.

Location: Skaro in flashbacks, and an unnamed planet.

Future History: The human race can create clones of themselves, and download their minds into the new bodies.

The Bottom Line: 'I like to consider myself a self-made man.'

Lance Parkin takes on the task of delving into the psyche of Davros (reminding one of a similar audio at the beginning of the year when one of Davros' creations was examined). He doesn't take the cliched line of 'he was a good man turned bad by society', instead giving us the picture 'he was always a total bastard.' Some unfortunate casting had very similar sound voices for some characters, but this has to be one of the more DW-actor heavy audios, with three guest stars in Terry Molloy, Bernard Horsfall and Wendy Padbury.

THE GENESIS OF DAVROS

The childhood, early life and career of Davros is explored further in Big Finish's four-part series I, Davros. The characters Ral and Shan, and Shan's 'Dalek solution' paper referred to in this story are explored further in part three (Corruption) of the series, during the latter part of which the prologue sequence to Davros is also set. In I, Davros we learn of the scientist's family life, in particular the machinations of his mother even upon her own children, Davros' doomed romance with the aforementioned Kaled officer Shan, and his eventual and brutal rise to power within the Kaled elite and (in part four, Guilt) his final alliance with Security Commander Nyder, later to appear as his lieutenant in Genesis of the Daleks. I, Davros essentially and neatly completes its story with Davros' mutilation and survival, the creation of early Dalek creatures and the escalated nuclear war on Skaro, and ends on the eve of Genesis (producer Gary Russell states in the story's extras that it is intended to be six months prior to Genesis.)

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