My video on the issue of the BBC's support of Transphobia: kzread.info/dash/bejne/k4Jo18VpeL3Yh6g.html My video on the BBC's response to complaints of its reporting: kzread.info/dash/bejne/pZ-cmpOHZc_Jibw.html My short on why I'll continue to put up the note at the front of these: kzread.infoHpwwzjzFXiE Shaun's 1st video, which includes some additional confirmed information: kzread.info/dash/bejne/lGiW16yGfczdk8o.html Shaun’s 2nd video, which follows how the BBC is trying to dodge accountability for all of this: kzread.info/dash/bejne/o5qetqlvg7nQnbQ.html Shaun’s 3rd video, following him escalating his complaints: kzread.info/dash/bejne/mIaik7eTZMnOlKg.html Shaun's 4th video, covering the BBC's response: kzread.info/dash/bejne/ZXprqblwgtKaf7Q.html Laura Kate Dale's protest speech outside the BBC offices: kzread.info/dash/bejne/mnaeqdCQm9qnmqw.html

I’m a disabled person in a wheelchair and I LOVE Davros. His design his chair. Even once thought of decking out it chair to get the Davros look for a cosplay. I would hope more they go with the 3rd option cus I’d hate to lose that iconic design. Otherwise Davros as just a regular looking guy…loses the mystique

@HonoredMule

7 ай бұрын

And that actually tracks. Every physically disabled content creator I've encountered has in some way developed or at least modded their own prosthetics/chair/physical aids. Because of course they do. We as a species are tool users and makers, and people with disabilities are by that uniqueness the very ones least likely to be adequately equipped by "off the shelf" tooling. So of course that's going to be a highly relatable quality. I wonder if any disabled people were consulted in "fixing" this character.

@WiloPolis03

7 ай бұрын

I love how the youtube commenting algorithm put two comments saying "I'm disabled and this is awesome" and "I'm disabled and this sucks" back to back

@DarthBear356

7 ай бұрын

I couldn't agree more, part of Davros' impact is his design it's just so unique and to replace it with a generic military officer uniform which could be from any Sci Fi show would just be sad

@pennspeller5919

7 ай бұрын

⁠ I’m really happy that you feel this way about the evil character in a wheelchair. But I relate to why RTD wants to avoid problematic troupes. It’s the same way that gay and lesbian characters were portrayed in the past as evil psychos who prey on children. Today we’ve moved past that troupe. I dare say, we’ve evolved to point where now it’s okay to portray a gay character as evil without feeding into a troupe. The only reason we can? Because people like RTD broke those antiquated stereotypes by being aware of the troupe! Good on him!

@johnvinals7423

7 ай бұрын

Oakwyrm brought this up in one of his videos re: Darth Vader, i.e. while Vader is a disabled bad guy and does fall into certain tropes around villainy and disability, he still gets to be a badass, ominous, and powerful threat who’s taken seriously by the narrative. And yes, I do think this is also very true about Davros.

One of the things that really annoys my about all of THE DISCOURSE is I feel sad for Julian Bleach - this was probably his one chance to play a character he's famous for and show his real face. This should have been a nice little treat for him to be seen without layers of prosthetics.

@NicoleM_radiantbaby

7 ай бұрын

Yeah, he's so good. I was just rewatched 'The Borgias' TV show recently and he's got a small role on there as Machiavelli, WHICH HE NAILS. He plays baddies so well.

@hotdog1214

7 ай бұрын

He did do a stellar job regardless and if its seen without the context of RTDs comments or the fandom discussions it holds up really well. I feel its mostly in his voice, but overall he embodies Davros very well. A real talent as sometimes its the costume that can help an actor portray a character but here he is, 'naked' as it were.

@NicoleM_radiantbaby

7 ай бұрын

@@hotdog1214 He's just got a great physicality to him. He was even super creepy in Torchwood and didn't have prosthetics there either. Love seeing him in shows.

I've never seen davros as disabled, I saw him as the half way point between kaled and dalek, the bottom half being the dalek bottom, his remaining body half way between the humanoid kalek and the dalek mutant, and with his eyes withered away replaced by a artificial eye in his forehead to replicate the dalek eye stalk.

@aazhie

7 ай бұрын

Yea, I guess I saw him this way as well? I'm not a lore expert, but I assumed his technology was advanced enough that he could have possibly hust grown himself new eyes or something? I saw him as choosing a darker route, for his own reasons. But I am fairly igborant of the reasons he chose his augmentation, and also whether he seemed to have a real choice.

@davemack7577

7 ай бұрын

Exactly!

@davemack7577

7 ай бұрын

Exactly!

For disability representation in Doctor Who, I always loved Diane (Dan's friend from Flux). She was missing a forearm, but it never even came up in plot or dialogue. She was just Dan's friend, a cool person and an interesting character

@CubeGuy

7 ай бұрын

I don't remember that at all. Now I'm wondering if it's because it was never mentioned and I'm not observant (yay for passive inclusion) or because I blocked most of Flux out of my memory.

@jackriver8385

7 ай бұрын

Yes it was just not mentioned, she just existed as herself :)

@Stephen-Fox

7 ай бұрын

Diane's great. Looking forward to seeing what RTD is going to be doing with Ruth Madeley as Shirley Ann Bingham in the upcoming specials.

@CubeGuy

7 ай бұрын

@@jackriver8385 yeah I just looked her up. I absolutely did not even notice.

@The-Cosmic-Hobo

7 ай бұрын

Yes - I would much rather more depictions of people with a disability in a positive light, than to take away Davros' main motivation.

Seeing Julian Bleach play Davros without the make-up really demonstrates what a great actor he is. He was so good, I want to see more of this Kaled Davros.

@edwardphilibin3151

7 ай бұрын

As soon as I saw Mr. Bleach I thought, "That's Davros, right?" And then he started talking about the "travel machine," and I KNEW it was Davros." Without any makeup or props, just the performance absolutely sold Davros.

@tomnorton4277

7 ай бұрын

Watch Julian Bleach in The Magicians Apprentice and The Witches Familiar. His take on Davros was sublime. I even felt sorry for him when he croaked "Am I a good man?" and painfully opened his eyes. Meanwhile, Peter Capaldi never got a drop of pity from me, not even in Heaven Sent. I was upset that Clara was dead because I actually cared about her but if the Doctor had regenerated or permanently died in Heaven Sent, I would have just thought "damn you for not saving Clara first!"

@JohnCastleSmokeless

7 ай бұрын

Thing is, he _is_ in the makeup -- it's just a lot more subtle. But look at the dark skin around the eyes. It's there.

@brandonwood2612

6 ай бұрын

Okay, yes, he was excellent as Davros, no makeup needed. The focus. The ambition. The contempt. But did anyone else wonder why no one was wearing a chef's hat for a rat to hide under? He looked SO MUCH like the food critic in "Ratatouille". Was I the only one that thought that?

My preferred way for Doctor Who to joke about itself would be episodes like School Reunion. Mickey realizing he's the tin dog, or Sarah Jane and Rose sniping at each other until they realize how much more validating it is to make fun of the Doctor. These were jokes that were just meta enough, but at the same time appropriate to the context and delivered well, without consuming the plot of the episode.

I think choosing to depict Davros before he became disabled is a good idea, because it somewhat reframes Davros from "evil disabled person" to "evil person who became disabled". It's not much, but I think it's good damage control. We did previously see a non-chair-bound Davros in modern Who as a child, but he wasn't evil yet, so that doesn't decouple his evil from his disability (and thus doesn't do any damage control for the harmful trope).

@JazzyWaffles

7 ай бұрын

@@dddayesq5061 Disney is only a distributor. They have no creative input or authority.

@scipi3590

7 ай бұрын

This!

@Mark-nh2hs

7 ай бұрын

​@@JazzyWafflesthis is true but Disney do have particular strict guidelines for anything associated with them. And look at it outside of fandom. Many Americans may not know much about Dr Who and seeing Davros on a Disney streaming - doesn't take much to realise a particular group of people will kick off over it.

@gryfon_gamez8184

7 ай бұрын

THIS!!!! THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING!!!

@ghostbomASMR

7 ай бұрын

I don't understand this. He wasn't born disabled, he did not become disable through means involving other people other than himself after an age where where he could make choice (as far as we've seen) . He is not a victim. He is someone that chose their path through life and it was for the worst for many people, other than himself.

Quick thing abt the Jodie Whittaker Costume shenanigans. Sacha Dhawan literally regenerated into Jodie’s costume earlier in that episode and nobody complained abt anything so David Tennant doing the same thing shouldn’t have made any sort of difference.

@CouncilofGeeks

7 ай бұрын

One’s the villain, one’s the hero. It would have been treated differently. It shouldn’t be. But it would have.

Disabled person here who uses a mobility aid and also has a sight disability. Vera I totally agree with you especially when it comes to having positive counter examples of disabled people and only if they consult disability advocates and use a disabled actor if possible. I think these convos are far overdue. I do appreciate RTD talking about this and bringing visibility to this. Again I would hope in the future he would also make sure to consult with disability advocates on writing disabled characters if he were to use them again. I like this short and when I first saw it I just thought they were depicting davros before his accident and that's it. But when I found out about RTDs statement on this I like it even more now. I also thank you Vera for talking about it and for your other video on disability representation because seriously hardly anyone stands up for us disabled peeps and that's also problematic. And the discourse is out of control. They changed the toymaker too because that character was written as a racist trope, but thankfully I haven't heard too much anger about that because that would be awkward. The disabled community is not a monolith (there's a lot of internalized ableism in this world but that's a topic for another day) but that doesn't mean that show runners can't change how they portray visible disabled characters in the future. Sci-fi is long overdue for some positive disabled characters.

The thing I hate about the Davros change is the fact that originally, Davros was the Dalek God essentially - he made them in his own image. His prosthetic eye became the Dalek eyestalk, his crippled hand became their plunger, his lack of mobility became *their* lack of mobility. It is as though he limited his creations so that they were not 'better' than him. Now, his accident leads to him *copying* his creations rather than them being made in his image... It takes away from his character.

I'm disabled myself and I personally fall under the "this is ridiculous" camp. Now, due to my own disability, I have been in contact with more disabled individuals than an average person, birds of a feather, and all that. Let me tell you... merely being disabled doesn't make you a saint. I know many people with disabilities who are absolutely lovely, and I also know many who simply put are not. We're not a monolith that way either. I think it's rather silly for anyone to go "This evil character on a tv show is in a wheelchair, therefore I will assume all people using wheelchairs are also evil" ... where's the critical thinking? The media literacy? That said, we know for a fact other wheelchair rep is coming. Ruth Madeley has been cast in a wheelchair-using role, and Bernard Cribbins was using a wheelchair in BTS pictures, although I don't think we know if that was just for him out of character or if it will also impact Wilf. I agree with your point, here, that this thus makes removing Davros' "wheelchair" unnecessary. Honestly, there isn't a lot of mobility aid representation on tv period, I'd happily take more no matter the context. Be they good people, bad people, morally grey individuals... it's all good in my book.

@Freak80MC

7 ай бұрын

The second paragraph. Yes, it is silly. And sadly, people are like that. I'm trans and I can't tell you the number of times I've seen someone use one trans person being an asshole or rude or whatever as "proof" that all trans people are crazy or something to that effect. It gets tiring.

@chrisdiokno5600

7 ай бұрын

I think its mostly due to the old "Deformed/Disabled person is sinister/suspect" belief and that like, more often than not, a lot of evil characters are evil because of their disability. Oakwyrm, herself a disabled KZreadr, has done vids on disability rep, including on disabled characters in media

@douglaswolfen7820

7 ай бұрын

"This evil character is in a wheelchair, therefore I will assume that all people in wheelchairs…”. You're right, that would be stupid. But for whatever it's worth, that's not what people are claiming. That's not how the psychology is expected to work Nobody would think that _consciously_. They don't even think it unconsciously, because the unconscious parts of the mind don't really work that way I might not have any beliefs about "all wheelchair users", but the next time I meet one specific wheelchair user, I'm gonna feel a certain way about them. I might like them, I might not like them. I might trust them, I might not trust them, and I'm not gonna be able to put my finger on why I feel the way I feel. It's just gonna be a vibe, a feeling, based on a whole lot of different things about them Stuff like that comes down to associations, and availability of memories. If the only memories I have of wheelchair users are all about evil, untrustworthy characters, then that's gonna have some effect on how I feel, and how I treat the real people that I meet. And I'm probably not even gonna realise it or know why (or at least, that's the theory)

@glampixie

7 ай бұрын

Trying to deny the existence of Ableism and the ways in which media we consume influence and inflame views of marginalized people is the ridiculous part.

@chrisdiokno5600

7 ай бұрын

This@@douglaswolfen7820

I was at a comic-con in Glasgow and saw 2 children in wheelchairs who had both cosplayed as Davros. They both loved the character, and loved the idea of a character in their favourite show that they could cosplay as. So I entirely agree that there should be some more positive examples of disabilities, and I believe that there are some coming our way in the upcoming specials

As someone who suffers from a disability (though not a physical one), one of my biggest pet peeves is seeing members who don't belong to a particular community speaking on behalf of said community. Did RTD actually speak to physically-disabled individuals to see if they felt this way? Because I have seen a lot of disabled people object to this change. I'd actually be curious to see someone poll disabled members of the fandom to see what the attitude toward this change is overall.

@rmtcts

7 ай бұрын

I'd be interested to know, but I don't think he specifically has to. If it's a change he wants to make, it's his show to give it a go. If Doctor Who had never allowed change it would have stagnated ages ago.

@charlestownsend9280

7 ай бұрын

This does come across as one of those moments when able bodied people do things on behalf or to "help" disabled people but it's not helpful and annoying. I would be curious about whether anyone who was disabled was involved in this decision. Personally I'd rather he didn't remove what representation we have and retcon an element of a character but instead create new and better representation, like a new companion who is disabled or even a disabled incarnation of the doctor (hopefully in both cases played by a disabled actor).

@NeilCWCampbell

7 ай бұрын

Ofc he did.

@AtariDad

7 ай бұрын

@NeilCWCampbell He never references doing so. All he said was that he talk to the production crew about it. A lot of well-meaning progressives often make decisions on behalf of communities that they are not a part of without first consulting with said community. A good example of this is the whole "Latinx" controversy.

@Wurmze

7 ай бұрын

I don’t consider this a “change”. We see davros as a child with Peter Capaldi and he wasn’t disabled so it’s clear that something happened to him. We’re just seeing a point before that happened. With the side effect of reinforcing the character was evil before the disability to try and offset the trope a bit and done in the important context of the audience of children in need

As long as its not portrayed that the disability made him evil out of frustration anger or whatever, I don't understand why a disabled person shouldn't be able to be a villain?

@Venemofthe888

7 ай бұрын

exactly and Davros i dont think fit into this. He was a evil scientist during the war trying to win and got injured in the accident. What made him a good villain was his mind for war and how callous he could be. The focus was never on the chair he was in

@stephjovi

7 ай бұрын

@@Venemofthe888 Agreed I never cared about the chair either. I'm not a wheelchair user so I get I can't decide how they feel. But as a women it reminds me of women sometimes being over protracted in a sense. Like did you als wheelchair users how they feel about it? Don't they think a wheelchair user can be the leader the maker the kind of God of the most evil creatures in the universe? I'd think that makes him bad as

@RobinG11

7 ай бұрын

Davros was always evil, but his accident made him worse. Wanting to destroy the Thals cos what they did to him. Hence the Daleks got created. But I've never ever looked at davros once and think oh he's a wheelchair user.""

@stephjovi

7 ай бұрын

@@RobinG11 blaming others for bad things that happen to us is so very universal I'd say it's very human but I guess it's also her Kaled

@SavageBroadcast

7 ай бұрын

Ultimately, disabled rep tends to be massively skewed in the negatives, and disabled heroes or even just protagonists are simply not common enough yet to even it out. There's still a lot to do, and it's bigger than just one show.

Personally, my issue with this whole debacle is how badly RTD is coming across on social media. What’s troubling me, given how excited I was as a lifelong (40 years +) fan of the show for his return is RTD’s attitude to anyone attempting to discuss this. I'm genuinely shocked at some of the petty replies to fans he's making on social media. Given how great he is at PR and marketing usually. Most surprising was that he replied "oh poor baby 😭” In response to a post that was literally from a child who was saying he didn't like that Davros had changed. The profile photos of the commenter were clearly a lad of about 13/14. That is unacceptable in so many ways. Can you imagine what it must be like for a kid to receive that from a famous adult associated with their favourite TV show? That's like me writing to Tom Baker when I was little saying I was sad he wasn't The Doctor anymore and getting the single word reply back "Tough" Which is another thing RTD has said, admittedly not to a child. To be completely fair, some of his comments are towards people who are being deliberately offensive or making personal attacks themselves. Which on the one hand is ok, but on the other…I would have thought RTD was above this. Don’t feed the trolls etc But it seems he’s not distinguishing between the “anti-woke” whingers and actual fans saying they don’t like what he’s done to a much loved character.

@roryhand6650

7 ай бұрын

I've seen him do this before. He is not a very nice bloke imho.

@oscarshedwick4862

7 ай бұрын

But he hasn't changed the character. This is just earlier in the time line and for a charity that helps sick and disabled children. I'm sorry but it's a children in needs special you don't need to read thay deeply into the lore of a 6 min gag about how the Dalek got its plunger.

@bookswithike3256

7 ай бұрын

Yeah, Russell is coming across as a real asshole through all this. It's really disappointing.

@NicoleM_radiantbaby

7 ай бұрын

To be fair, RTD was this rude to fans back when he ran the show before, but it seems like no one remembers that (or was too young, to be fair). He always put me off when he'd call fans 'ming mongs' or idiots or the whole 'Nine Hysterical Women' (or whatever was) thing over Ianto on Torchwood back then. So, it doesn't surprise me that he's basically doing the same thing again.

@tomnorton4277

7 ай бұрын

Russel T Davies has never behaved like a professional. If you want to see a show runner who actually treated the fanbase with respect, look at Steven Moffat. Throughout his entire time on Doctor Who, Moffat was charming and professional with a cheeky sense of humour and a genuine enthusiasm for writing Doctor Who for its own sake, not because he wanted to push a political message. Even when he was mandated to do so with Missy, he treated her as a character first and foremost.

I feel like if it was any other character then Davies would have a better point. But Davros is a character that represents war in how he has both suffered and also caused suffering to others. His childhood trauma, scarring and disability are all parts of his backstory that make his story more compelling than just being born evil.

As someone who is blind myself, I can understand changing Davros in the context of the special, where it is about raising money for children, many having disabilities. But making a change like this for something more permanent would be a bad idea. In particular with Davros, him being disabled and in the chair was not made him evil and insane, and he still had done much despite everything that has happened to him. The design was just that, a design to show that Davros was very much Dalek-like himself. Him being disabled doesn't really play into the narative that much, and if it does, it is really having to do with his life support systems.

I think introducing positive disabled representation is the best way to counteract historical potentially problematic representation. I don't see Davros as problematic (as an aging white Brit like RTD). He is a half dalek man. That's the point. He is trying to find a "war wheelchair" for his race. By that metric, all Daleks are as problematic. The disability isnt a tacked on trope, but integral to the character. It also makes him much more cool and badass than a generic Marcus Scarman clone in a N4z1 lite costume. We all grew up as Dr Who fans and became progressives because of the messages in there. Feels like baby and bath water to me. Ultimately, just don't use Davros if you feel uncomfortable with him. Other than RTD's own Lumik(?) and Max Capricorn and the Unbreakable guy, who else is there ? So far RTD is responsible for 50% of the examples I can think of!

@marocat4749

7 ай бұрын

The flash had 2 villains in a wheelchair, even if later lampshades a bit with , haha, barry suspects guy in wheelchair to be a mastermind, again. And he uses that, and yes is. Whats really bad is him not letting him being just a smart guy in a wheelchair but lets him bodyhop, so no points for him. He was called the thinker for gods sake :( its not that bad to have 2 villains in wheelchair per se, but letting him not stay in it was making him a worse villain and character. The uncle and crimeboss in a wheelchair in breaking bad that is to be fair given really a lot weight, and agency, and epic way to go out. He is a villain in a crime drama, but really given respect and agency and weight. If also, can be funny. But like they give him a board to communicate and he refuses to rat out still. The show did really care to not reduce him to a disabled old man. The dude in wild wild west. To be fair, he is a fun villain, but he is an example. Dr house, if you take bitter cynical smart cripple. the chairman in paprika, a scientist in evangelion. Blofield. I think the real harm is more how many good representation was not done, or kept (oracle cough cough, even in aarrow cough cough) due the scar that sterepotype left. well code geass has a , ok nunally isnrt evil but another not great one. And gets to walk. Ther are goofd like from dark angel logan, and other, they exist, but its also an infamous trope with the helpless in wheelchair or bitter cripple that, makes that way less used than it should.

@tommaullin1197

7 ай бұрын

That marcus scarman comparison made me laugh more than it should have

@marksmith4230

7 ай бұрын

Professor x. Xman disabled. Super hero. .. people need to realise it's the person Inside that is either good or bad. Not the disability.

@Fitzroyfallz

7 ай бұрын

He’s introducing a new character who uses a wheelchair, and Wilf will be in a wheelchair too. The tardis is also now (finally) wheelchair accessible. So I’m looking forward to the better disability representation I hope he’ll bring

RTD always strikes me as a guy whose heart is in the right place but probably does necessarily think things through enough before acting. Which, I mean, there's worse flaws to have. As for Davros, I do think that clearly showing that Davros was not evil because of his disability has value in like... lessening the harshness of the trope. I know it's always been clear from his introduction that was the case, but how many modern day viewers have seen Genesis of the Daleks? I think it'd be good to have RTD's run show a younger Davros and demonstrate that he was always cruel and evil. But ultimately, if all that's done is removing the disability with no positive examples... that's just not good enough

@Concreteowl

7 ай бұрын

It's the authoritarian way he says this is how we do things now as if he created the show and the character. He is a custodian of Doctor Who but doesn't have the right to act as if he owns it. He doesn't. If it was the beginning of a dialogue about what to do that would be very welcome but in that interview he just flat out dictated the future and he lacks the authority to do that.

@adamdavis1648

7 ай бұрын

​@Concreteowl 😄 He never claimed to have created the show, and you don't seem to understand what the word "authoritarian" actually means.

@lordjustinian2913

7 ай бұрын

The thing is he might add a character with a disability as positive representation but he's just not saying because he wants us to be surprised by the character.

@peyotebritta

7 ай бұрын

Well Ruth Madeley has been cast a wheelchair user in the upcoming specials so is that good enough for you? Why people assume changing Davros is RTD’s one and only contribution is beyond me

@nagillim7915

7 ай бұрын

I think what might be equally as interedting would be exploring what made Davros evil. People aren't born good or evil. Circumstances form their motivations and their motivations make them good or evil. So show us *why* he's a villain. What made him that way. I mean, he comes from a planet that had been tangled in a mutually genocidal war for countless years even before the Daleks came.into existence. So lets explore young Davros and his formative experiences. If nothing else it'd be more interesting than generic space nazi Davros.

The way that I took RTD saying that this was "the image of davros" was more so him saying that it was the mental image. Essentially using the opportunity to establish that it was not the disability that made him evil but was just sorta who he always was

Hi actual full time wheelchair user/advocate here. The very OLD troupe of physical Disability making villains compounded degrees of worse, more evil angry. The idea of mobility equipment as 'prison'/punishment in itself makes Navigating the world as as whole Disabled person significantly harder. There is not proportional representation of human/ normal wheelchair users. When the only "representation" we get is either Evil Villainy or redeemed when "healed" restored. Counter representation won't effective until Disabled actors are hired for Disabled roles AND those roles are written by Disabled writers. NOT parents or family members. Dyspraxia COULD have been made visible by writer with lived related experience. All Disables are valid but D/deaf, Hard of hearing blind or visually impairment don't count as "visible"/(clockable) Disabilities in most cases. See actor/creators like Molly Burke, James Rath, Pete Gustin & others. They can pass when needed especially in media. Doctor Who and most established franchises are most likely to skip Disabled writers & aim for "ease" of actors I listed off top of my head here. It would help, a little but not near "Counter example" to a substantive degree

I honestly thought it was just a contextualisation in that Davros was always evil, it wasn't his disability that made him that way.

@dustinakadustin

7 ай бұрын

I thought that too and then Davies said what he said 😂

Here is the very simple solution: Keep Davros how he is, the man only appears once every ten years anyway, but make sure all other villains who are introduced don't have a disability, and make sure they are occasionally casting disabled people as good characters too. Simple. Changing Davros support the idea of "No villain can be disabled".

Just to note it seems like the 60th specials at least will have multiple wheelchair users in the cast. We've seen wilfred in a wheelchair durring on set photos and Ruth Madeley is playing a wheelchair user as well. (no idea if her character will have any connection to Hebe Harrison who was the wheelchair using companion of the 6th doctor in big finish which she played)

So glad the Actors strike is over just in time for you to review Doctor Who again. So nice of the studios to cave in time 😉

@Ezeka93

7 ай бұрын

if i'm no wrong, since Doctor Who is a UK production, it's not covered by Sag-Aftra strike, so it COULD be talked, but that does not necessary mean that she will talk about it if the strike was still in effect

@stephjovi

7 ай бұрын

@@Ezeka93 yes technically BUT because Disney has gotten involved it was part of the strike and as an American Vera stopped any DW reviews and said she won't renew the specials until the strike has ended.

As a registered disabled person this is my take. Davros isn't a man driven to acts of evil because he is in a wheel chair. He is an already evil man who is injured and becomes a cyborg in order to continue his evil plans. As a comedy skit (which apparently this isn't) the scene was rather like Curse of Fatal Death in displaying a knowledge of lore but ultimately being a vehicle for silly jokes. As a template for how the character is to be depicted going forward it's very problematic. It implies that people such as myself don't have to work at being fantastic because our disability makes us immune to villainy. How chair users who cosplay as Davros feel about this message I don't know. I do know that Terry Nation created the character not RTD. His half Dalek shape is an icon of the show a bit like how Disney currently uses the assisted breathing apparatus of a quadruple amputee burns victim that kills children to sell their merch. RTD did oversee the the creation of less iconic characters such as John Lumic and Max Capricorn. His take on the Master was driven insane and therefore evil (because mental health and villainy are okay for some reason) by Time Lord induced tinnitus. If the image of the chair wasn't to his taste he could have just rested the character. He has only appeared twice since 1988. By announcing this and declaring it as permanent a change as the shift from monochrome to colour it's created antagonism where it need not exist. I hope his successor reverses this immediately because RTD isn't the show. He is a temporary custodian.

@SavageBroadcast

7 ай бұрын

It's feels like you've misconstrued - the argument isn't Davros is evil because of his wheelchair, or that real life disabled people are the same as him. The argument is that his disabled features stem from long-running tropes that dehumanized disabled people as lesser, for the entertainment/disgust of wider society. It feeds a (completely wrong) stereotype that people uncritically take onboard, because it is so old and so common. Did Nation or Holmes mean to do this? No, but that's what happens when you don't ask where did something, an idea, an image, come from.

@Concreteowl

7 ай бұрын

If Davros is a chair user aren't all Daleks chair users? .Traditionally Davros was injured first and based the Dalek on his cyborg existence but if it was a chair the Dalek becomes a mobility scooter for radiation victims. This isn't a solution to problematic depictions it is a new problem that didn't need to exist. The solution to depicting disability isn't to sanitise existing characters but rather introduce many more positive depictions. Chibnail has had a lot of mud thrown at him but he had a visibly disabled person as a romantic interest with no announcement or fanfare. Nadia Albina was just there and she did much more than anything done by RTD to make people feel included.

@Concreteowl

7 ай бұрын

No. I haven't misconstrued anything. I am presenting a logical extrapolation of the sort of cultural reedit on show here. I'm saying Davros has never been a person made evil by his injuries. He was evil to start with. This is how he has always been depicted. He didn't become even more evil when his hand got shot off in Revelation of the Daleks. Even in this skit he is showing signs of mutation. The teeth, the skeletal visage. Are gaunt people still allowed to be evil? Isnt that a kind of body negative trope?

@rmtcts

7 ай бұрын

@@Concreteowl the daleks clearly aren't disabled people, davros presents very similar to a disabled person. Also your presuming RTD won't include disabled people/characters, but we've already had some confirmed for the next series.

@professorakiba434

7 ай бұрын

See it isn't an issue of becoming evil because of the disability. It is about the cliche which has been around for the longest time in which a disabled person is depicted as the evil bad person.

As someone disabled, I would love to see counterexamples added to the show. It doesn't bother me that Davros is a wheelchair user since he isn't evil because of his disability. I believe evil disabled characters can still feature in media provided they aren't evil because of their disability. Still, I want to see counterexamples (for the same reasons you brought up).

I think you’re right. Davros probably won’t be used again in RTD 2. I doubt he would want to try and top The Stolen Earth with the same villain.

@j.adickey2002

7 ай бұрын

Another Doctor... another show runner.... gets to revisit the excellence we witnessed with TOM BAKER.... however.... i would forgive RTD if some underling under DAVROS defects to the other side of things and is grilled by THEIR military intelligence! Think bottle episode clip show meets up with fond memories and flashbacks that have Julian Bleach in them!!!

@Mayeur000Donz

7 ай бұрын

I hope he dosn't return to his old pattens of constantly trying to top the scales in season finales.

it’s great to see you able to talk about Doctor Who stuff again. even if it’s negative discourse stuff.

@HOTD108_

7 ай бұрын

Able to? Was there something preventing Doctor Who discussion prior to recently? Apologies, I think I'm out of the loop here.

@joeyunderwood

7 ай бұрын

@@HOTD108_ vera chose not to talk about it because of the writers and actors strike that was occurring. i think she technically would’ve been fine, but was doing so just in case and out of solidarity.

@FarikoWishless

7 ай бұрын

@@joeyunderwoodAh my suspicions were obvious yet the confirmation is nice

Vera: “have counter examples/counter-representation!” RTD: … hold my beer.

For your suggestion of companions with disabilities, Big Finish has had some recent examples of doing that: one being a new 6th Doctor companion called Hebe who is in a wheelchair and introduced in the Water Worlds boxset, and a new 9th Doctor companion (sort of, he only appeared in Red Darkness from Shades of Fear and the The Green Gift from Pioneers, but apparently there's room for more stories between those 2) called Callen who is partially sighted. Also from what I've heard, the voice actors for have disabilities similar to those their characters have.

@NeilCWCampbell

7 ай бұрын

Audio disabled 🤣🤣🤣

@HOTD108_

7 ай бұрын

Not to say that Big Finish is nothing, but representation in a very niche audio tie-in catalogue doesn't really compare to representation in a mainstream television show. Good on Big Finish, but inclusion in the actual show would reach far more people and make a much more of an impact.

@Jedi_Spartan_38

7 ай бұрын

@@HOTD108_ I know but I thought I should at least mention it for the sake of referencing that there are places for main show writers to use as inspiration...

If russell felt like this I wonder why he didnt try to change davros in series four or is this russels recent opinion since then thank you for this video it is awesome as ever

@CouncilofGeeks

7 ай бұрын

As I said, it’s been enough time that it seems clear his views have changed and evolved.

@davehall7041

7 ай бұрын

Thanks it was just a thought and I hadn't realised that you had actually referenced that thank you for the reply

@notuptome

7 ай бұрын

​@CouncilofGeeks You are correct. Views have changed since then. A lot has changed now in my mind, even if even if russell russell at some point brings back the Deleks In Ncuti Gatwa Era of doctor who And write a story with them that does not mean it will even include davros . Now with that being said, even if it does.And what we seen in this very small snip It for children in need ends up continuing I would then look at it as he's trying to make something better for new viewers. Who could possibly without knowing any history of the character and/or doctor who for the most part Could find the depiction of the character in a wheelchair and being evil and having Scars as very offensive, especially if some of those new viewers themselves disabled and in A. Wheelchair, don't share, since we are seeing a Divide right now on this very small slice of new new doctor who content for the children in need. Also, I'm thinking new viewers some of them. Whom could just be new viewers because of their love for Ncuti Gatwa .... Anyways thank you for the video love all your videos you're awesome.

@cag9284

7 ай бұрын

Because Disney is pulling the strings

@cag9284

7 ай бұрын

@@notuptome unfortunately, for Ncuti, he's in the shadow of David, this was a tactical decision made by RTD, so to bring back veiwers, when David leaves the "David fans" and most of them will hang about just for curiousity to see what Ncuti brings, rather like they did with Jodie, but after that .. ratings will go down. As for Davros... Stupid reasons ... Illogical, my wheelchair user friends are more upset by RTD comments.

I am really struggling with this. My brother has Down Syndrome. One of the only physical fights I've been in was defending him from bullies when I was a kid. Some people look at him as if he should be locked away from the world somewhere, like what my parents were told to do with him when he was born back in the 70s. And yet for many years he contributed to society, went to work, and - well he absolutely adores Doctor Who! I cannot however fathom Davros not being in his life support/wheel chair. It was his disability that inspired the creation of the Daleks. To remove that, is to deny the Daleks' existence. If you remove these tropes from a writer's grasp to create colourful characters, then what is left? If Sharez Jek wasn't boiled in mud by his former business partner, we don't get the best Doctor Who story ever made. The story behind his disfigurement makes him both understandable and empathetic. Are we saying that Phantom of the Opera has no place in 2023?

I’m genuinely serious when I say I never made the connection between bad disability representation and Davros and seeing this whole discourse is really informative. From a thematic and storytelling perspective, I think it’s a really good idea to focus more on this younger Davros because it means we hopefully get to see more of the Kaled/Thal War. With the world going to sh*t right now with brazen cruelty becoming more popular, doctor who content serving a new sobering story about the rise of Davros and the Daleks could be some great “Ghost of Christmas Future” stuff for where we might be going if all this hate keeps up. Both Doctor Who and RTD have done it before and we need more of it. We’re staring down the barrel of fascism and I want as much anti fascist media on the airwaves as possible.

As a middle aged, lifelong wheelchair user, I strenuously agree with Davies intentions and I really wouldn't have a problem with fully retconning Davros. But of course, more, varied and balanced representation is always the better option. We're still far more invisible than any other marginalized group and that needs to change.

@DingleDangle66

7 ай бұрын

You’re definitely not a real fan if you believe this iconic villain should be retconned.

@johnhmaloney

7 ай бұрын

@@DingleDangle66 Grow up. There's no such thing as a "real fan". People like things to the degree that they like them and any attempt to enforce some sort of arbitrary measurement on that is masturbatory at best. Invoking "real fan" is nothing but a simplistic attempt to gatekeep people who disagree with you from corporate franchises that aren't really all that important in the grand scheme of things.

@DingleDangle66

7 ай бұрын

@@johnhmaloney Either way, you’re not a fan of the show. I dislike anybody who thinks the most iconic villain in the shows history should be retconned.

@DingleDangle66

7 ай бұрын

@@johnhmaloney And don’t worry, John. Albeit the fact you’re clearly delusional by the words I described you as, all you have to do is perpetually stick your fingers in your ears or cope with the fact that your opinion is stupid?

@johnhmaloney

7 ай бұрын

@@DingleDangle66 And why exactly should I care about some random stranger's opinion of me and my degree of "fandom"? You sound like a silly child trying to grasp at power from something that you didn't create and don't profit from. It's just sad.

Nobody in their right mind should associate wheelchair users or disabilities as evil. Davros is a classic mad scientist character so driven by the purity and evolution of his race that he becomes half of his own creation to sustain and prolong his evil ambitions. I hope RTD sees the pushback from the community and appreciates their input and feedback to think about his personal beliefs and not push them on the viewers for the sake of entertainment. That being said, by all means give us more pre-accident Davros if you want to use Julian as an actor more and allow more sides of the character in future with a good story, I'd like to see that.

@j.adickey2002

7 ай бұрын

Claude Rains in the INVISIBLE MAN is a scientist who goes mad after testing his new formula on his own body. He was a nice guy and rather normal at the beginning of the legendary film. DAVROS before his bio-tech experimentation is actually much nastier than many of Claude Rains's infamous villains! I think the middle-aged DAVROS we just glimpsed holds his own with Monsieur Rains's KING JOHN from that Robin Hood romp of a merrie auld flic!

Saying Dr. Who is “going woke” is the most hilarious thing I’ve heard all day. Like seriously folks, Dr. Who has been woke.

@AtariDad

7 ай бұрын

Doctor Who has always been progressive (with a couple of notable exceptions), but between this and the Fourteenth Doctor's mid-regeneration wardrobe change, this is starting to feel more like overcautiousness than progressivism.

@overtheoverseer

7 ай бұрын

No'one knows what "woke" means anymore.

@rmtcts

7 ай бұрын

@@AtariDad overcautious would be not making any change. There's far more anger at them doing this than if they left it alone. It's a brave change to make I think.

@HonoredMule

7 ай бұрын

Star Trek has had plenty of of that reaction too in recent years, and that was clearly a case of double-code for terrible writing.

@marocat4749

7 ай бұрын

Next you say the avatar the last airbender adaptation will be "woke" :P i am joking but probably will happen, whyever. Sadly. Whyever?

Thats how i feel about it: just add. I admit I'm one of the disabled community that believes to not take away, just show some good characters to balance out the villians. I also am someone who has invisible illnesses so making something look like it's not there makes the whole journey more difficult in terms of being believed and and getting help- my own personal experience living with my illnesses from childhood on. I do appreciate your comments in terms of interview vs what we see onscreen. And while i can totally understand for the purpose of Children in Need why this choice was made, i was an outsider in the chronic illness world of kids i got to know because no one else had my main illness. Even in arthritis camp, i was different.

This is the best take I’ve heard on this and I totally agree balance would have been a better option. Im not disabled so I can’t really speak with any form of authority, I just never considered Davros as “disabled”. Not in comparison to any form of trope. I just saw him on the same level as the Master and didn’t consider it. The number of bad guys who are able bodied grossly outnumbers Davros, but totally agree that there needs to be a good character who is disabled to balance out any negative thoughts.

Like others have said, I think what this does and is hopefully meant to do is to show that he is not evil *because* he's disabled, he was evil before he became disabled. It's such a small thing but it completely changes the context of the character in a very meaningful way. I do hope that they won't completely take his disability away, and it ends up just being a part of him without it being a part of his moral character.

Last time we saw Davros he DID try and siphon off some of 12s regeneration energy. Having him in a somewhat restored form in the future might not be out of the question.

@Silverwind87

7 ай бұрын

Or just say he built himself a new body. Or he stole someone else's body, just like the Master.

@blackphoenix77

7 ай бұрын

Having him be restored in the present day is fine, but the past needs to be left alone

@profdracko

7 ай бұрын

@@blackphoenix77 Not leaving the past alone has very much been the entire premise of the show since day 1.

@MrMarsFargo

7 ай бұрын

Yes, this, the show literally has so many already existing explanations of how he could look like this permanently going forward that I'm shocked anyone is acting like it "alters canon." You have the regeneration energy he absorbed from 12, you have the fact technically Davros from NuWho onwards is a cloned body from the DNA of the original with his mind imported (created during the events of the audio story "Terror Firma") and you could just say that happened again, you could even just say the Doctor saving young him in "The Magician's Apprentice" created an alternate timeline where he was never injured. There's so many explanations for it that I'm shocked fans, even non-outrage fans, are so up in arms about it.

@cjward_24

7 ай бұрын

However, this essentially "fixes" a disabled character and makes them "normal." What kind of message does that send? Sounds pretty ableist to me, and only goes to lessen representation.

As a disabled person i don't like what RTD said or changing davros go8ng forward. I actually find his attitude slightly offensive cause it implies that disable people can't be evil and it feels like he's trying to get points by making a change that no one is calling for and just to look good. It feels more like someone able bodied doing something annoying while trying to be helpful and failing cause they didn't think it through. If RTD wants to do positive disability representation, taking away the only consistent disabled character isn't great, instead MAKE A DISABLED COMPANION, have them being mostly independent and capable on their own and positive about their disability. Maybe make that companion meet davros and have some sort of conflicting views regarding disability, with davros being angry about being disabled and the companion having the opposite view, giving a positive representation that conflicts and opposes davros. Yes there is a problem with making villains disabled, disfigured or ugly for as a shorthand for evil but I don't see that as the case with davros and even if it were I also don't think that rewriting decades of the character's past and lore really fixes it. Also just being disable and a villain does equal being part of the negative trope, you can have evil characters who are disabled, not doing that is equally as offensive. If it were just this special I wouldn't mind but RTD has implied that this is it going forward. That's my take anyway as a disabled person.

My friend who had a work related accident is wheelchair bound and when he heard what RTD said he just cracked out laughing. As he said " Davros was evil before the atomic shell hit the building he was in" The accident did not turn him, he fought to survive and was determined to create the Daleks. The box ticking is getting beyond a joke so will Cybermen be next they have limbs removed cybernetic limbs added they are evil so we don't want people with limbs replaced shown as evil ?

What I dislike most about this is that it kind of undercuts Davros' last appearance in "The Witch's Familiar", which I thought was excellent.

Davros, sees wheels as an enablement... I never saw Davros as disabled. He chose to mutilate his own body, manipulating his bio cells, in order to create a clone race that will live inside armoured wheelchairs.

Facial scarring being associated with villainy is common, look at Bond, and I’d understand why the creative team wouldn’t feel comfortable rehashing those tropes. My main concern is that they haven’t found an equally striking and iconic design to replace the old Davros. It sounds like a petty point, but if they end up doing stuff like this again, this kind of empathetic, more socially aware character design will become associated with a lack and the erasure of creativity. This may discourage such further moves in the future and across other franchises. I wouldn’t mind them changing Davros’ look but why does the new look have to be so boring?

I admit right off the bat that I'm speaking as a white able-bodied cis straight man, who strives to be an ally and supportive of people from different backrounds and the like, but inherently has a POV coming from a place of privilege. While I understand that certain tropes are straight-up nothing, but harmful and should never be used (say, gay men being pedophiles or black people being angry brutes), as a writer I strongly believe that tropes in general are tools and even ones that should be questioned and challenged can be used tastefully/effectively. I'm especially iffy/conflicted with the idea that certain groups of people should be "safe" from certain storylines/roles, because that can easily create situations like Star Trek Into Darkness whitewashing Khan, because the writers were scared of a potential controversy from having non-white villain, only for people to be mad that one of the most charismatic and iconic POC villains in sci-fi was given to a white Brit. But this is kinda a "case-by-case"/personal opinion type of situation and I'm not going to act like my view is the correct one.

RTD's a great showman, and he could have just made the change without delving into motivations. The character is iconic but kind of creatively tired, so a reinvention isn't necessarily a bad idea. I think expounding on the change as a corrective to previous negative tropes probably just comes across as preachy to many and invites more scrutiny around other creative decisions. Though bringing attention to it was an obvious goal of his, so...I don't know. I think get people onboard first and just focus on making good stories, characters, etc. and then you've succeeded. Also, many people are so hyper-aware these days that they can sometimes overanalyze. I think the original idea was just to show the Dalek creator as someone who himself was part Dalek...the template physically as well as philosophically. It may or may not have been informed by negative tropes. And you're right about there being as many opinions on these things within disabled groups as any other group.

@j.adickey2002

7 ай бұрын

its simple Davros = part Dalek ....Davros also experimented on his own body ....Davros is not a nice person, and despite the obstacles he faces he is very stubborn! He NEVER quits. Darth Vader actually had a few self doubts at the end.... and we cannot copy STAR WARS at all, we hope there is a writer who exposes Davros's inner turmoil brilliantly! Julian Bleach has enough time to achieve a greatness equal to that of Claude Rains over his movie career, if he knows how to age Davros with an ease and grace. Claude Rains was also a rather good PHANTOM OF THE OPERA!!!!

Okay upfront, I'm saying this as a disabled person (not an abled outrage merchant): I wouldn't go as far as to say we need to retroactively label or condemn appearance of Davros in old episodes as ableist, in the same way we'd denounce "Talons of Weng-Chiang" or "Celestial Toymaker" for their problems, since the reason he looks like that isn't a symbolic statement about disabled people but to narratively foreshadow the hateful creatures he'll eventually create and how they reflect/come from his own hatred... but I'm also okay with him no longer looking like that. Even the actual subtext _specific to this character_ regarding why he look like that isn't necessarily ableist, I think it's perfectly fine to (even permanently) change him to no longer play into this stereotype as a more general problem in overall fiction. Heck, I think an able-bodied Davros would even be more in-line with his ideology as a believer in physical and racial superiority than a disabled Davros anyway, so if anything it makes even more sense thematically. Here's my thoughts on the context/implications of this short in particular... it kind of connects to my thoughts on "Tales of the Tardis," since I don't actually think that's the throwaway clipshow series some have assumed it is. I actually found it was more substantial in what it added about the respective companions' characters or continuity, with "The Mind Robber" even going as far as full on (SPOILER) -restoring Zoe and Jamie's memories- (END OF SPOILER). One of the things that series implied is the existence of alternate timelines. People who've only seen NuWho sometimes mistakenly think creating alternate timelines isn't possible in the "Doctor Who" universe, but that's actually not the case and has been possible since the old show (only time-loops are fixed, not all of history). In "Tales of the Tardis," they imply the existence of both an alternate timeline 6th and 7th Doctor, where they both got old before regenerating into their next incarnation rather than what we saw on the show (as a way of explaining aging), suggesting future onscreen appearances by them won't be "our" 6th and 7th Doctors but alternate timeline versions. Given certain hints and suggestions, it already seems like playing with alternate timelines in a much larger way than the show has attempted previously could by part of the new RTD era. I could write it off as a throwaway line in "Tales of the Tardis" if not for the fact multiple things released from his era have so-far played with or hinted at that concept. On top of this, some have pointed out that this short contradicts the continuity of "I, Davros," which explains he got scarred/injured at an earlier point in time than this short could have possibly occurred. Given RTD knows and enjoys the Big Finish audios, I'm not entirely sure that's an accident. So... what if that's what's happening with Davros here? Like, what if this is a _NEW TIMELINE_ Davros that never looked like the one we know, because the event that caused him to become disabled never happened? I know you suggest you'd have an issue with this, but I actually don't. I see that as an easy expansion off of what's already been established onscreen. Like, when the Doctor saved young Davros in "The Magician's Apprentice," that created a timeline where he never got in the accident. Like, I don't even think that's just RTD altering the timeline to not be ableist, I genuinely just think he's already exploring the possibility of alternate timelines for many of the characters we know in the show, and used that as an opportunity to create a new timeline where Davros never looked like the one we used to know. Like, forget "trying to make a statement," I honestly just think that would be an actually great creative decision for the show. Like, Davros as is pretty much has nothing left you can do with him as far as I'm concerned, "The Magician's Apprentice" seemed like a pretty definitive ending to his story/character-arc as far as storytelling goes; going back to his beginnings as the ending, etc. But creating a new timeline essentially creates a new character, which means they could do completely new things with him. I don't think that's something you can do with the old Davros, who as far as I'm concerned is just a resolved/concluded character already. I wouldn't be horrified if they did this, like some are saying, I would just genuinely be excited to see the storytelling potential of creating a new timeline altering the history of the Daleks. Heck, could that even create a timeline where the Time Lords are back, because altering the Dalek history potentially also alters the history of their relationship with Gallifrey? Heck, maybe the whole Time War never happened! We already have alternate 6th and 7th Doctors, as explicitly implied by dialogue in "Tales of the Tardis." Seriously, like, what if that's what RTD is doing? If he did, I'd genuinely find that cool rather than bothersome. (p.s. sorry for writing a book, I'm neurodivergent, my brain is oft wanton to do these things) EDIT: also, I'm obviously only one disabled person and don't speak for all of them, we're not a monolith/it's perfectly fine if other disabled people disagree with me.

@andrewbowman4611

7 ай бұрын

To support your extremely well-thought-out points, I would suggest seeking out the comic Liberation of the Daleks which has just come to an end in Doctor Who Magazine, if you haven't already. In that, there are multiple timelines, fictional and otherwise. Davros 2023 could easily be from one of those, in my view.

commented this somewhere else so i'll paste here too my partner is a wheelchair user and after watching the skit genuinely mentioned they didn't really like when evil characters such as Davros are disabled and specifically in wheelchairs like that (Davros is essentially in a Dalek wheelchair let's not pretend that it's not because he can't walk(which we see in that Capaldi 2 parter)) RTD did it himself with John Lumic too. Personally, I think with Davros there's some level of intentional irony and nazi satire. like he has this eugenics vision of a perfect race but the Daleks hate him. he's not a part of his own vision. and I don't think this means we won't ever see Davros in a chair again. I think they might do stories before his accident or condition like this is, but they wouldn't change the canon like that. I'll say this. it's not about saying an individual disabled character can't be a bad guy because it's bad representation. that's not the issue and it's not limited to just doctor who I'm afraid. it's about a long-running ableist trope of disabled bad guys (often higher bad guy representation than good or neutral) and the disabilities essentially turning the characters evil (hence showing Davros was evil before the chair here, probably)

@amelialikesfrogs5778

7 ай бұрын

it's very likely this is a time thing not a retcon (especijally since the main reason for the davros thing here seems to be that it's for children in need(which isn't a great organisation, according to my partner) which is mainly about disabled children)

@amelialikesfrogs5778

7 ай бұрын

i've been to the bad parts of youtube (anti "woke", anti "sjw" shit) from videos about this(taking this post there too was a mistake) and the comments are unhinged.

Peter Capaldi's Doctor was briefly blind. It made for cool moments.

RTD is try to fix a problem that didn’t exist in the first place. I’ve never heard disabled groups complaining about Davros as being a negative influence on how able bodied viewed handicapped people. Actually, they have been numerous disabled people up in arms about this decision. Feeling patronised that an able bodied individual thinks he’s speaking on their behalf. They had no problem with the Davros character. You are correct that there was no need for this unless RTD was using it to send a message. This is his lens, how he see things. He’s proud of what’s he’s done . Actually, he’s very,very,very proud of this change. To me, it’s virtue signalling. This is the same man who made fun of overweight people in The Slitheen 2 parter and again in Partner’s in Crime. Then there is the John Lumic character in The Age of Steel. An evil genius in a wheelchair. Plus Max in The Voyage of the Dammed. Another egomaniac villain in a wheelchair. This has been a recent conversion. Now had he apologised for those last two examples in his interview, I could forgive him. Not only did he not do that but he threw shade over Terry Nation, Robert Holmes and Philip Hinchcliffe. Despite Russell using Davros in that form back in 2008. The hypocrisy is staggering. Russell should retcon his own characters and leave the work of far better writers alone. As ever, IMO.

I think the reason the Discourse™️has exploded so much is that the anti-woke outrage merchant crowd feel betrayed as they were expected Davies not to be political. I feel sorry for the mobility disability voices being drowned out by the prior crowd, as I ultimately feel like getting their opinion on it is so important. Personally, I do not have mobility issues, and was more intrigued by the storytelling potential here as to how Davros could be restored. Given RTD is not afraid to address ideas from the Chibnall era, I'd love to see more Daleks question how they are a preservation of the Kaleds, potentially having a faction that restored Davros as the initial step to resurrect the Kaleds. I am fully aware restoring disabled characters comes with its own problematic issues, but what if this was done against Davros' will and we have him confide in the Doctor that he feels violated, his bodily autonomy stripped from him - this is an issue the Whoniverse has addressed before in Class. True this is dicey to do with what is effectively Space Mengela/Hitler, but damn done right, with a Dalek civil war in the mix, you have a great vehicle to analyse how Fascism hurts even those complicit in the system. Again, lots of pitfalls here, and I don't expect Davros to be in the Neo-Revival for a very very long time.

@spaceanarchist1107

7 ай бұрын

Ooh, I really like the idea of a Dalek faction wanting to return to the Kaled form. That would introduce a new twist into Dalek politics and make the Daleks interesting again.

i think its less undisabling davros, and more, lets default to this period of his timeline for any near future appearances. tbh the character got a really solid endpoint with capaldi.

Vera, a helpful video for sure. I’m excited to see Ruth Madeley coming to the tardis as I’ve heard she’s going to be a recurring member & she’s a Disabled actor so I guess there’s someone coming to counter that? I hadn’t seen the RTD interview where he addresses the Davros idea tho. Will need to look for it!

Based on what RTD said about Davros he created John Lumic creator of the Cybermen and had him in a wheelchair

Agreed with your points. I’m fine with seeing Davros both before and after his accident or whatever. I think for having better representation we should have heroes, villains, and people in between who have disabilities, are minorities, LGBT+, etc. Having underrepresented groups be flawless, magical, virtuous people all the time is condescending to those of us who aren’t typically represented.

I’m watching this just after having seen the first full special. So many of the points you’ve made are relevant to it and I can’t wait to hear your thoughts. I did smile when you said that they’re messing with your schedule because I think that your points were heard in the future…❤

1000% agreed with your preferred solution to the issue of problematic representation. We'll have to see what Davies does further on though, this is like 5 minutes so we don't know what's gonna happen later. Wish people could just chill and not jump to conclusions...

It does the character of Davros a disservice to boil him down a "character with a disability" he's too outlandish to even be remotely comparable to anyone besides possibly Hitler!

i have no issue seeing a young davros in the same way we saw him in the magicians apprentice, but i would LOVE to see davros used to further explore disability in the future. (in less important personal hopes, i would love to see *young* davros canonized as explicitly ableist, with the dramatic irony that he becomes disabled later as everyone will)

As a non-wheelchair user, I've always interpreted Davros as literally halfway between a person a dalek and the chariot is less a wheelchair and more because he has lost his humanity and has a lot more in common with the Daleks he created. Sort of visualising a metaphor. Happy to be argued with or proven wrong

@packman2321

7 ай бұрын

I think there's a difficulty there in that disability is frequently employed just as a metaphor in fiction. So the fact they've chosen to demonstrate his loss of humanity and his monstrosity by injuring him and putting him a wheelchair is kind of the problem. No one has stopped and considered 'what might a person who uses a wheelchair see when they look at this?' and he also exists in a long tradition of villains who are the only disabled characters where their disability is intrinsically linked to a lack of humanity (Darth Vader, Richard III in Shakespeare, Captain Ahab). Snyder and Mitchell's Narrative Prosthesis goes into this really well, if you can find it.

I saw the claw and thought no f ing Disney reboots the Daleks no they have a plunger as stupid as it is. But than ten safes the day 😂. Took me until the special to find out that Dalek is an anagram of Kaled it makes so much sense

I don't currently use a wheelchair so grain of salt applies (I have briefly used one during some operations but I was quite young at the time). I remember when I was younger (before Davros was introduced to the new series so when his existence was more of a trivia piece than an actual character) quite enjoying the fact that Davros was disabled. I liked the way his Darlek chair was modifiable and thought it was pretty stylish (the wheelchair I'd had had been multiple sizes too big, since the hospital was out of child sized ones and so I was completely incapable of moving it myself). I think some of this might have just been the sheer drought of representation of any disabled people in anything at the time. At least I knew with the villains they wouldn't suddenly forget the character was disabled or have them 'overcome' their disability through sheer willpower. I don't know if I'd feel the same way if I was in a wheelchair long term though and I might idealise my memories of my experience from that time a bit because I like medical technology and I think it gets a bit looked down on (see the tendency of people describing others as 'stuck' using wheelchairs, orthotics etc instead of recognising how awesome those items are at expanding what people can do). Certainly, I don't think it's a good look to have Davros be the only character with a physical disability in the show.

The Doctor is EXACTLY the kind of person to immediately see value in a disabled person, without question. A disabled companion entirely makes sense and I'm disappointed we haven't (really) had one yet. (Also I agree changing the writing is the point. What a great chance to do new things.)

@madassassin5465

7 ай бұрын

Ryan was disabled

Davros felt more emperor palpatine, but I can’t explain why I feel that way

As a disabled Whovian (and I don't claim to speak for the whole community), I agree that having more representation for disabled characters is a good way to combat the problematic tropes that Davros plays into, whether or not Davros continues to be portrayed in his 'classic' appearance. Most importantly, any future disabled characters should be played by actors who have the corresponding disabilities. And RTD does seem to be planning to do that too - the forthcoming specials will feature Ruth Madeley, and Ncuti Gatwa's first season will feature Lenny Rush.

Someone on Twitter came up with a great explanation: the issue with Davros is not about offense, it's about stigma. It's not that he offends some group of wheelchair users (though some have said that they used to be called him as kids by bullies) and more that he feeds an ableist stigma that is rooted in centuries of prejudicial propaganda - that physical disability is a marker for someone being 'lesser' or bad (think say leprosy or the mark of Cain from the Bible). Same thing at play with Disney villains being historically coded 'gay' or the banker goblins in Harry Potter using antisemitic tropes in their design - it's not about someone being offended, it's about unthinkingly reinforcing prejudice in wider society.

@nagillim7915

7 ай бұрын

While i get the playground jibes, i'm sure just as many kids in wheelchairs got called Ironside by bullies as Davros. And he was the hero of the show but i bet it cut just as deep. Kids will turn anything into an insult. Doesn't matter how vanilla it may be they will find a way to use it as a weapon against kids who aren't in their group. The only way to stop disabled kids being called names based on disabled tv characters is to have no disabled tv characters at all. Or to make disabled characters so normal that the kids no longer pick up on the otherness of it from social cues. As an lgbt person i think i wouls actually prefer to be insulted with comparison to a terrifying iconic lgbt villain who steals the show than to some boring generic meh lgbt character who blends into the background. The villains get all the best stuff and all the best lines.

@hypnoamber3248

7 ай бұрын

Awesome point and no notes.

@TPH250290

7 ай бұрын

What a load of twoddle.

I wonder if a story in which Davros tries to 'restore' himself away from his iconic guise could potentially work. His appearance in Witch's Familar gives an indication as to how close to death he at least looks, and it may be a tie in to the Daleks instinct to survive. The life support system he uses seems to tie him to the Daleks in an aesthetic sense, so to remove it (temporarily or permanently) could allow him to function as a villain independently of them. I'd like to see potential stories having Davros as an antagonist, but with no Dalek involvement at all. Despite all that, if this change was to occur for him, I think Davros in his more memorable guise needs at least one more appearance, to show how his 'restoration', if it were, was achieved. Sorry to ramble a bit, just a thought I had whilst watching this

Love this discussion. Imagine if the Doctor picked up someone else from Skarros who had also been injured in the same accident or in the related war but who realized that it was the war that was to blame, not the enemy.

I don’t like how people in the comments are framing it as if RTD was proudly boasting to the press/ audience about the change for ‘woke points’ People, it was one of many things he mentioned in Doctor Who Unleashed where he is generally discussing the BTS of the production. It’s going to be a very long year if people are going to be watching Unleashed every week just to misquote Russel or make a mountain of a mole hill. We didn’t have to deal with toxic fans back when Confidential was airing but now I’m wondering if RTD should even give these fans the time of day

I have an invisible disability, so perhaps I'm not qualified to comment on visible disability, but I agree that erasing the villain's disability isn't the best way to deal with negative representation. Disabled people are people. We can be just as evil as anyone else...so counteract with positive representation & reflect the spectrum of possibilities.

As a part-time wheelchair user, i think this is good. Show us some varied disabled characters, and then you can have a disabled villain. But ONLY showing disabled people as villains isn't it.

@gaymooshroom371

7 ай бұрын

Also I need everyone who's not a wheelchair user to be quiet plsss

As a disabled person who isn't wheelchair user yet i'm glad this Davros get introduced and everybody can clearly see he isn't evil because he is in wheelchair. I think it's a good start but it's just a start that won't mean anything without more representation of disabled people on the show

I always thought Davros created his life support system & the eye thing as part of his megalomania, to extend his own life indefinitely and rule the universe forever. I never thought that disability made him evil. The chair system just made him altered to be more like his Dalek creation, which he would think is a good thing, I think.

I agree that really showing more positive representations of disabled people is the best way. I personally never previously saw Davros as disabled and if anything his disablity is what drove him forward. I've also listened to Big Finish's iDavros which shows him as evil before his accident but understand that not many will have listened. There are people saying that when the 12 doctor gave Davros some regeneration energy it cured him but i think going down that route would be a mistake as it would hurt those disabled without any cures available

We can never be fully inclusive since that would have to have every type of person being a hero and a villain

The outro of you saying the patreon names was amazing 😂🎉😊

So the problem being addressed is that a disproportionately large number of fictional characters in wheelchairs are depicted as villains. If the solution then is to remove the people in wheelchairs from the fictional work, then that can give the impression that having a character in a wheelchair is the problematic part. Adding more non-villain wheelchair users to counter-balance sounds like a much better approach in that respect, imo.

You didn't like The Curse of Fatal Death?!? How could you, Vera!

As a fellow Romana fan, I always enjoy hearing you say that it's Romana at the End of Time.

I never thought of Davros as being in a wheelchair, I always thought it was a life support machine because he was a mutated Kaled. I cant imagine what they will do with the Cybermen.

I’m a long time subscriber of yours, massive Whovian, fellow creator on here, Millennial and someone born with Cerebral Palsy and I just wanted to say thanks for such a nuanced response to the subject. I can see from other comments that many people from the community are saying great things, so I don’t have too much to add, except to say that, on this specific topic I’m in the middle. The trope is negative, challenging it is good overall but I also love a good Richard III and have never cared enough about Davros to be offended by him as a wheelchair user. I completely understand why someone might be but Davros is so uninteresting that it barely makes a difference when I watch him.

I had feeling you'd say tennant feels like the tenth still. But for me he really didn't, at least from the acting perspective it's a very different tone from what I remember, but the script gave him mostly tenth doctor catchphrases to work with so I guess that's what you're more concerned with. For me its enough that the lines have more edge and dismissal to them, like he's not interested in stopping to quip and admire things he's actually more duty focused and not interested in wasting time like before.

So Im watching this after the Star Beast has aired and its kind of fun to see these takes on positive disability inclusions with the benefit of knowing how that actually went. Also I feel like seeing how Davros becomes the Davros we saw in this special to the Davros we eventually see in actually really compelling.

New Davros looks like Prince Phillip

I always appreciate your videos & how you express your views & thoughts in a positive way.

Personally, as a wheelchair user myself, I’ve never found Davros offensive (as a kid, I thought he was cool) and, as I’ve grown older, I would argue the problem with Davros is not to do with his appearance, and more so his characterisation - If one were to give him more depth/humanity, you could move away from the ‘Disabled Villain’ trope, while keeping him recognisable to both casual and die-hard fans. In short, I think this was a well-intended choice that’s been poorly worded: Davros is an iconic design, one whose disability has a lot of unexplored narrative potential, so I hope this isn’t the end of Davros in the chair, just an opportunity to see more variety.

@ftumschk

7 ай бұрын

Agreed, although I would suggest there are vastly more examples of the "NON-disabled villain" trope in Doctor Who alone, never mind elsewhere.

Glad to see a nuanced take among all the outrage! Surprised you didn’t mention the several disabled actors already announced to be appearing in the specials in your point about positive counter examples though, we don’t yet know the nature of these characters, but I suspect from what RTD said here they won’t be portraying villains.

Another thought is I also bet they didn't put him in full makeup and props bc it would be a lot of money for very little screen time if they wanted it to look good

Do we alter Darth Vader's costume because we do not want to offend people with prosthetic limbs? What if we were judged on actions and character?

I always saw Dave Ross as a reflection on the horror of war. A twisted evil man before further hardened and made further evil by a war he continues to perpetrate. My grandfather was shot in the head in WW1 and survived, albeit blinded. Initially he was able to see light and some colour but that eventually faded and he was apparently horrendous to live with, to the point that my own Dad was nearly taken into care. I myself work within the complex care sector, specifically with paralysed clients and have worked with some lovely people, but also worked with some highly unpleasant people, one clearly so due to their disability. Bring in more positive disabled characters as a balance, as RTD seems to be doing. While I applaud RTD for bringing Dave Ross into this minisode in a pre-injury capacity due to the nature on Children In Need I don't feel it necessary to retcon an established villain just because of the unpleasantry of the disabled villain trope. Sure, don't make future villains deliberately disabled, but lets not go messing with an established character of almost 50 years standing, especially as I don't see him as the typical "disabled villain" but, as I stated, a reflection on the horror of war. The potential minefield for this to extend to is the inability to cast a legitimately disabled actor in a villain role for fear of furthering the trope, despite them being the best person in their acting skillset for the role. Or fear of casting a person of a certain ethnicity in a villainous role for similar. We're going to end up with all villains being white middle classed suburbanites and thus creating a new trope that some future writer will say "well, I know Character X was always portrayed that way in the past but we look through a different lens now so he's going to be portrayed by a cat going forwar.... aw, dammit, now I'm making a stereotype of cats being evil, aren't I?" As several people on this thread have stated, we're a diverse society, a mix of good, bad, and everything in between, in every possible type of outward visage. Lets reflect that completely. I completely agree with Vera on the fact that rather than change a character, we should represent the other side of the coin. To paraphrase another well know sci-fi franchse, lets bring balance to the force. I applaud RTD for showing Dave Ross in a pre-injury form, especially in the arena he was putting him in, but don't bring Dave Ross back. Make this pre-injury version his swansong. Leave him presumed dead at the end of The Witch's Familiar.

This was a pretty rational and reasonable way to look at this. Thanks for your input, gives me something to think about

As a Disabled person, I don't necessarily find Davros to be an issue. He was shown to be evil prior to his injury, it would be totally different in my eyes if he was a great person, but then became disabled and became so angry that he became evil due to his injuries, but instead he was an evil guy who became injured, and then became a cyborg to continue his villainy. I would absolutely LOVE a companion who is in a wheelchair or uses a form of mobility aid. With my specific disability we have had two good portrayals of people with disabilities like mine, Erica from the Pyramid at the End of the World and Porridge! But I would love more, I'm very excited to see Morris, as portrayed by Lenny Rush.

Invisible disability here. I like the special, and I like seeing pre-disability Davros. I think it was also an easier indicator of time, rather than reverse-aging him. I'd like to see more of him, more early stories. But when later Davros appears, he should be in all his mutant glory. That's who he is.

It was nice to hear Nyder’s voice over the speaker.

@CouncilofGeeks

7 ай бұрын

I missed that detail. Good catch.

I would love to see more young Davros like his fall into "evil".

I just assumed the children in need special davros is just earlier in the timeline, before his accident, the show is all about time travel after all.

The primary reason RTD did this was to generate media discussion about Doctor Who. He's always been a master at that. But... the elephant in the room he's trying to distract everyone from is how extremely problematic one of his own characters was: Cassandra. And how he (maybe) is finally making a counterexample to that with Donna's daughter.

@j.adickey2002

7 ай бұрын

BINGO. He has handed us a discussion topic he did a scenario decision tree for! He is seeing us think through the stuff he already thought through! He EXPECTED the reaction he just got, he KNOWS this all is a distraction! It is like a magician's stage act....