Davros, is a character from the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who, responsible for the genesis of the Doctor’s deadliest enemies, the Daleks. He was created by Terry Nation.

Davros is a scientist from the planet Skaro whose people, the Kaleds, were engaged in a bitter thousand-year war of attrition with their enemies, the Thals. Horribly scarred and crippled after what is simply described on screen as an “accident”, with only one functioning arm and one cybernetic “eye” mounted on his forehead, for much of his existence he depended completely upon a self-designed mobile life-support chair which enclosed the lower half of his body. It would become an obvious inspiration for his eventual design of the Dalek.

Davros was a megalomaniac who believed that through his creations, the Daleks, he would become the supreme being and ruler of the universe. He is a brilliant scientist who has demonstrated mastery of robotics, metallurgy, chemistry, artificial intelligence, cloning, genetic engineering, biology and military tactics.

When he first encountered the Fourth Doctor in the 1975 serial Genesis of the Daleks, Davros (played by Michael Wisher) was the chief scientist of the Kaleds, heading the Scientific Elite Division. Davros realised that contamination from the nuclear and biological weapons used in the war was mutating the Kaled race, and artificially accelerated the process to examine the ultimate evolutionary end product. The mutations were weak and crippled: no more than brains with tentacular appendages and with no hope of survival on their own. His solution was to remove all emotions pertaining to weakness, a category in which he grouped such emotions as compassion, mercy and kindness, and place the mutants in tank-like “travel machines” that were partly based on the design of his wheelchair. He named these creatures Daleks, an anagram of Kaled.

Davros quickly became obsessed with his creations, considering them to be the ultimate form of life, superior to all others. To stop his own people from shutting down his Dalek project, he arranged for them to be wiped out by the Thals. The Daleks then almost exterminated the Thal victors, but ultimately turned on Davros and apparently killed him at the conclusion of the serial.

He proved too effective a character to be kept dead and was resurrected four years later in 1979’s Destiny of the Daleks (played by David Gooderson using Wisher’s mask, which did not fit his face properly). The Daleks unearthed their creator — who had apparently been in suspended animation since his “death” in Genesis — to help them break a logical impasse in their war against the android Movellans. However, the Dalek force was destroyed by the Doctor, and Davros was captured and imprisoned by the Earth Empire.

Terry Molloy as Davros in “Resurrection of the Daleks”In the Fifth Doctor story Resurrection of the Daleks (1984), a small Dalek force aided by human mercenaries and Dalek duplicates liberated Davros (now played by Terry Molloy with a differently designed mask that, this time, properly fitted the actor’s face) from his space station prison, needing his expertise to find an antidote for a Movellan-created virus that had all but wiped them out. Believing his creations to be treacherous, Davros began using mind control on Daleks and humans, ultimately releasing the virus to kill off the Daleks before they could exterminate him. However, at the end of the story, he apparently succumbed to the virus himself before he could escape, his physiology being close enough to that of the Daleks for the virus to affect him. Ironically, the hypothetical creation of a viral weapon was the subject of a discussion between the Fourth Doctor and Davros in Genesis of the Daleks.

Davros emerged as “The Great Healer” of the funeral and cryogenic preservation centre Tranquil Repose on the planet Necros in the Sixth Doctor story Revelation of the Daleks (1985), where he used frozen bodies to engineer a new variety of Daleks loyal to him, distinguished from the original Daleks by their white and gold livery and slightly changed design. In this story there appeared to be two Davroses: one was a head in a tank and apparently a decoy for assassins; the other was in his usual chair (which could now hover), emerging from hiding when the clone was indeed assassinated. Davros could now move his neck and fire electric bolts from his hand, although the hand was shot off shortly before his original creations arrived to destroy the new Daleks and transport Davros to face trial on Skaro.

Davros’ last television appearance (played again by Molloy) was as the Dalek Emperor in Remembrance of the Daleks (1988), with his white and gold Daleks now based on Skaro and termed “Imperial Daleks”, fighting against the grey “Renegade Dalek” faction. By this time, Davros was physically reduced to a head in a customised Dalek casing. Both Skaro and the Imperial Dalek mothership were apparently destroyed by the Seventh Doctor using the Time Lord artifact known as the Hand of Omega, which had been stolen by the Daleks. However, a Dalek on the bridge of Davros’ ship reported that the Emperor’s escape pod was being launched and a white light was seen speeding away from the ship moments before its destruction, leaving a clear route to bring Davros back in the future.

In the 2005 series, it was revealed that the Daleks and the Time Lords had engaged in a mutually destructive Time War, although the Dalek Emperor survived to build a new race of Daleks. Davros was referred to (albeit not by name) in the episode Dalek: the Ninth Doctor explains that the Daleks were created by a genius, “a man who was king of his own little world.”

When the Emperor made its appearance in the season finale, The Parting of the Ways, it was a Dalek mutant floating in tank of fluid connected to a giant Dalek shell, and was evidently not Davros. Davros’ status at this point, or any role he may have played in the Time War, is unknown.

An article by Russell T. Davies in the Doctor Who Annual 2006 states that one of the “Dalek Puppet Emperors” openly declared his hostilities towards the Time Lords and their planet, Gallifrey. This may be a reference to Davros’ threats against the Time Lords in Remembrance of the Daleks.

In the 2007 episode Evolution of the Daleks, he was referred to by the Tenth Doctor as thinking that ‘removing emotions made a race stronger’. The human Dalek Sec continued and said that he was ‘wrong’. Again, he was not referred to by name, and has yet to be in the new series.