Doctor Who brings Davros back, with Julian Bleach in the role again – but he’s looking very different these days.
Viewers of the BBC’s Children In Need telethon last Friday night will have caught a five minute special Doctor Who episode, as has become traditional with the appeal. This time though, not only did we get David Tennant back as the Doctor, we got a surprise return for the creator of the Daleks, Davros.
The role was reprised by the incumbent Davros, actor Julian Bleach. Yet now he was mobile, not confined to his chair, and seemingly ready to wreak havoc again.
The move to redefine Davros is, as you might expect, a deliberate one. This was confirmed by the showrunner of the show, Russell T Davies, who explained to Doctor Who Unleashed after the broadcast of the short clip.
He admitted that conversations had been had over how to present Davros going forward, and that the traditional view of him as an evil wheelchair user needed to change. After all, if that’s what you want from Davros, there are plenty of previous episodes to pick from.
Going forward? “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”, he confirmed.
“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 in black and white anymore. And Davros used to look like that, and he looks like this now, and that we are absolutely standing by”.
There you go. A done deal. You can see the Doctor Who Unleashed clip where it’s all explained here.
Doctor Who returns to our screens in earnest on Saturday, with the first of three special episodes screening to mark the 60th anniversary of the show. We suspect we might be talking more about those in the days ahead.
Here’s the Children In Need clip, if you’ve not seen it…
