A Recent Change to ‘Doctor Who’ Also Carries Important Message for Star Trek
Reimagining classic villain offers lesson for Trek franchise
If you're like me, you're at least almost as big a fan of Doctor Who, as you are of Star Trek.
And you’re reveling in the current string of special episodes to mark the UK sci-fi series’ 60th anniversary.
But whether you’re a Whovian or not, we all should take note of an important message for Who fans from Russell T Davies, the celebrated showrunner who launched the revival of Doctor Who back in 2005 and recently returned in time to produce these new 60th anniversary specials.
That message involves Davies’ decision to retcon, or change the presentation of, the series’ most infamous and reviled villain, Davros, the megalomaniacal scientific genius from the planet Skaro, and who is responsible for creating The Doctor’s historical enemies, the Daleks.
First created by screenwriter Terry Nation, originally for the 1975 serial Genesis of the Daleks, Davros was for decades depicted as horribly scarred and disabled.
Davies, however, introduced a radical change in that depiction last month when actor Julian Bleach took on the role in a special scene which aired during the BBC’s annual Children in Need telethon.
Davros no longer appeared scarred, or disabled, and was freed from any wheelchair.
Davies, very forthrightly, explained that the intent behind that is to keep Davros as such going forward and to push against back the trope of largely associating physical disabilities with villainous characters.
“We had long conversations about bringing Davros back, because he’s a fantastic character,” Davies said as part of an interview broadcast in Doctor Who Unleashed. “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 is 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 [in media].”
And Davies made the change very clearly without any animosity for what came before.
“I’m not blaming people in the past at all,” Davies continued. “But the world changes. And when the world changes, Doctor Who has to change as well.”
Indeed, Davies introduced the very welcome character of Shirley Bingham in “The Star Beast,” a UNIT scientist and protagonist who happens to use a wheelchair who is played by actress Ruth Madeley.
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Why does this have anything to do with Star Trek?
Simple.
Star Trek has a long history of many more retcons than Doctor Who ever has. (The many changing faces of the Klingons and Romulans alone bears this out. Plus, just how many different timelines do we fans have to contend with these days?)
And the franchise certainly will see many more.
Davies’ reimagining of Davros ought to be instructive.
His retcon was very deliberate, and well-thought-out.
He didn't change a deeply classic character just for the hell of it, or on a whim.
Davies had a very definite reasoning and goal in mind.
Too often, such retcons in Star Trek seem very haphazard and not at all well-thought-out.
And the change to Davros represents an, again, deliberate and rather straightforward evolution to keep a longstanding and beloved sci-fi property current with changing societal attitudes.
Both Davies’ decisionmaking — and the uncomplicated way it was carried out — ought to serve as a lesson and model for every Star Trek creative going forward.
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