Another one of 2011’s surprise classic Doctor Who figure sets, this set hails from the early ’80s era of the fifth Doctor, and brings the classic version of a seemingly un-killable foe into plastic form. From Peter Davison’s only run-in with the Daleks, Resurrection Of The Daleks also reunited the Doctor with Davros – a reunion that both probably would’ve been happy to pass on.
We’ve already gotten a Davros figure from the new series, in an almost identically-populated box set (the Stolen Earth set also features the Doctor, Davros and two Daleks). But this is the first classic series Davros: a little bit less up-armored and a tad shorter, but still the insane genius who created the Daleks.
As with the Stolen Earth set, Davros’ action figure minions are a Dalek warrior and the Supreme Dalek. In the context of the mid 1980s, with the series suffering from frequent and legendary budget woes, “Supreme Dalek” meant “take a normal Dalek casing, paint it black, and paint the sensor globes white.” And that’s what’s been done here, too. The grey warrior Dalek is of a slightly different design, with less detail in its midsection than previously released Dalek figures; this reflects the new Dalek casings that the BBC constructed at around this time, which were also a little less detailed. (What’s amazing is that both the fans and Character Options care enough about the specifics of which Dalek props were used in a given television episode to make the differentiation.)
Davros was played by Terry Molloy in this story (the first of Molloy’s Davros career, which stretched through Davison’s two television successors and had since included numerous audio plays in the role), and the figure accurately reflects the more “elongated” look of Davros’ head as created by the show’s makeup department. The many coils and cords surrounding Davros’ skull are accurately represented. At the base of Davros’ Dalek-casing wheelchair, there’s a button (cleverly disguised as one of the globes portruding from the chair) which releases a small panel on the wheelchair. In the TV episode, this allowed one of Davros’ mind-controlled cronies to shore up the Dalek creator’s defenses; in figure form, it’s just a neat little add-on.
The figure of the fifth Doctor sports a stalk of celery on his lapel – as well he should (previously individually-packaged figures of Davison’s Doctor had no celery, due to the personal preferences of a member of Character Options’ upper management) – so those who had only bought the celery-free fifth Doctor earlier can finally have a screen-accurate version here thanks to the resulting fan uproar.
The television series made it abundantly clear that Davros was all but unkillable; introduced in the fourth Doctor’s era, Davros also battled the Doctor’s fifth, sixth, seventh and tenth incarnations, while Big Finish’s series of Doctor Who audios also pitted him against the eighth Doctor. Character Options was also eager to pencil the Dalek creator in for return engagements as well: nearly every original series episode to feature Davros would also get its own figure set with the appropriate Doctor and Daleks, with the Davros figure undergoing minor modifications in each set. He’s as ever-present on the toy shelves as he is in the Doctor’s many lives.