Recap / Big Finish Doctor Who Specials I Davros Corruption

"Logically, the war ends with one form of life in utter control of the world. All other life forms gone. That is the goal. That is the only true victory!"

This episode is the third part of the I, Davros story, the events of which more or less directly precede "Genesis of the Daleks".

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Now established within the Science Elite, Davros and his team are pushing the boundaries of Kaled experimentation further and further forward. Access to Thal DNA spearheads an entirely new field of research for Davros, and as he becomes more and more intrigued by genetic mutations, others around him begin to fear him, his drive and his obsessive need for power. Meanwhile he must learn to cope with betrayal and political manoeuvrings that will leave him changed forever.

Tropes

• Body Horror:
  • Calcula's mutation into a proto-Dalek creature by turning on a radiation machine created by Davros to kill a Kaled saboteur who was ordered by the Supremo to wreck Davros's work and hurt his mother.
  • Davros becomes a crippled deformed shell of his former self after an atomic shell destroys his laboratory.
• Call-Forward:
  • A member of the Military Youth being promised a general's rank foreshadows young General Ravon in "Genesis".
  • The button on Davros' life support chariot that the Doctor threatens to switch off in "Genesis" is explained as a suicide device so Davros could euthanize himself if he wished, according to Kaled tradition.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Davros kills a Thal assassin by having Calcula sneak up and press a button on the operative's magnetic parachute which sucks her down to the planet's magnetic core... with only a few feet of concrete in the way.
• Curse That Cures: Thanks to his life-support chariot, it's noted that Davros might well be one of the few Kaleds who live long enough to die of old age.
• Cut Himself Shaving:
  • High Councillor Matross, who didn't get on with Calcula and criticised Davros's work, apparently slipped and fell in front of a training tank.
    Calcula: He shouldn't have gotten in the way. Of that tank.
  • Shan's father, a decorated war hero, is reported as killed in action the day she's executed for treason.
• Dying Vocal Change: Calcula's fatal exposure to radiation leaves her with an eerily distorted voice complete with Vader Breath.
• Enemies Equals Greatness: A Thal suicide squad attacks a meeting hosted by the Supremo who rules Kaled society. However their target turns out to be not him but Davros, whom their statistical computer has identified as the greatest threat. Davros's mother takes a pride in the implication that her son is the most important person on the planet.
• Engineered Public Confession: Davros gets Shan to discuss her idea of making peace with the Thals. The Supremo is listening in the next room, and condemns her for treason.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Subverted
  • Davros rushes to warn his mother on being told her life is in danger, but the sight of her mutated and dying only incites scientific fascination. Neither is he interested in avenging her, as he feels the Supremo's days are numbered anyway.
  • Shan is the first woman Davros has taken an interest in, if only because he respects her intellect, and so Calcula has Shan checked out as a potential wife for her son. But when Davros finds that Shan doesn't share his vision of the future he doesn't hesitate to have her framed as a Thal spy and executed.
• Goal-Oriented Evolution: Discussed Trope. Shan points out that evolution takes place over millions of years, and is a response to the environmental conditions and so can't be predicted. Davros however realises that genetic engineering can be used to create a lifeform resilient and adaptive enough to survive the Death World that Skaro is becoming.
• Head-in-the-Sand Management:
  • Davros complains about the short-sightedness of the Council of Twelve who want Awesome, but Impractical weapons while refusing to fund pure research that might yield better results in the long term. The Council of Twelve is impressed with a battle demonstration of a Lightning Gun that can tear open an armoured bunker but burns itself out after one shot, but Calcula casually dismisses her son developing a cure for cancer when he should be working on Weapons of Mass Destruction (this on a planet suffering from massive radiation poisoning).
  • The Supremo is disturbed by Davros's vision of exterminating not just the Thals, but all life on Skaro in the struggle for supremacy. However, after overhearing Shan's solution—end the Forever War and both sides turning their resources to healing the planet, he has her executed for treason.
• Human Outside, Alien Inside: The Kaleds and the Thals are subspecies with a common ancestor, and Davros discusses some internal differences despite their common appearance.
• Join or Die: Being in the Military Youth isn't compulsory but if you don't join you get beaten up.
• Master of All: Davros becomes a master at the political game, thanks to his mother, Calcula. He uses her death to put a permanent leash around the Supremo's neck so that he can continue his scientific work without interference or oversight. Davros tells the Supremo that he could turn that leash into a noose at any time by letting Calcula's followers know that the Supremo caused her death.
• Near-Death Experience: When hit by a Thal shell Davros sees Shan and Calcula. Shan tells him she is at peace and urges him to seek peace himself, while Calcula is angry at her work being undone and convinces Davros to live.
• Mercy Kill: The Scientific Elite construct a means for Davros to terminate his own life, should he wish it. He doesn't, deciding his disability has stripped him of everything irrelevant in his life, so only his mind survives.
• Nuclear Mutant: These now roam the Wastelands outside the Domed City, with Drammankin Lake where Davros grew up now known as the Lake of Mutations. Davros puts a more positive spin on this than Shan, seeing this as life adapting and surviving.
• Playing with Syringes: Davros injects pregnant mothers to create a Dalek Fetus Terrible. The mothers die giving birth to them.
• Putting on the Reich: It's made very clear that Kaled society has become this. There is a Kaled analogue of the Hitler Youth, all loyal to Calcula because of her support of them and her political clout.
• Radiation-Immune Mutants: Radiation actually causes Kaled DNA itself and other life forms on Skaro to mutate and adapt on their own in order to survive. Having cured cancer as a trivial effort already, Davros begins to take inspiration from the irradiated and mutated creatures of Skaro's wastelands in devising a way to evolve the Kaled race into the ultimate survivors.
• The Scapegoat
  • Section Leader Fenn brags that the Supremo has promised to make him a general as a reward for turning on Calcula. She derides his naiveté, accurately guessing that the Supremo has already denounced Fenn as a Thal agent.
  • Davros needs the Supremo to remain in power, as a fall of government would interfere with his plans, so has to offer up someone else as Calcula's assassin. He proposes Councillor Valron, whom Shan has befriended and who might support her alternate plan for the survival of the Kaleds. The Supremo points out he's an unlikely suspect (Valron's family was wiped out by the Thals) but Davros has already prepared fake evidence of his treason, knowing no-one will question it in the current lynch-mob atmosphere.
• Suicide Mission: A Thal commando team is sent to assassinate Davros, with a projected 80% casualty rate on the parachute drop alone. Only two commandoes make it to the ground alive, and one has to immediately sacrifice himself to Hold the Line so the other can complete their mission, which she would have if she'd just shot Davros on the spot instead of monologuing.
• Taking You with Me: When Fenn starts destroying Davros's work and tells Calcula she will end up a broken old woman after what he plans to do to her next, she exposes them both to radiation.
• Tempting Fate: When Ral tells Davros a Thal warhead is approaching he says he'll be fine as his laboratory is twelve storeys below ground...
• That Wasn't a Request: The Supremo only wanted to break Calcula to eliminate her as a rival. Her death has caused her supporters in the youth movement to take to the streets. In exchange for calming the situation, Davros commands the Supremo to give him and the Science Elite full autonomy from the Council of Twelve to use whatever resources they need free of oversight. When the Supremo objects that this is more power than even he has, Davros says bluntly that he's not negotiating, and the Supremo had better comply if he doesn't want to be dragged out into the street and lynched.