Released October 2021

SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW

With Movellan and Dalek warships floating above a familiar planet, mistakes of the Doctor’s past return to haunt him as the inevitability of the Time War takes form around him in Dalek Universe’s conclusion, ‘The Triumph of Davros.’

Isolated from Anya for a significant portion of the story as the pure logic that dictates the conflicting and resolute actions of the Daleks and Movellans destructively continues, the Tenth Doctor here is at his most vulnerable, helpless to inflict any sort of change on the ultimate progression of the Daleks’ might and trying his best simply to keep as many people alive as possible by avoiding the worst of the assured brutality. He does his very best to manoeuvre around the shifting dynamics in play as alliances are formed and broken in short order and as the essence of humanity amidst two distinctly nonhuman races proves its worth, and David Tennant gives an incredible performance as his Doctor is directly forced to consider the inadvertent repercussions of his actions while still trying to instill hope in others facing a seemingly impossible situation.

The previous story found great success pairing David Tennant with Terry Molloy, and the raw emotion on display here once more provides an incredibly strong narrative backbone. There has always been something of a comparison to be made between the Doctor and Davros despite their obvious philosophical differences, but the Doctor’s guilt regarding the destruction and deaths that have so often followed in his wake has always provided him an anchor to the universe as a whole that Davros never managed. However, the identity of the First Movellan is a fact that Davros is all too eager to exploit to further reinforce just how similar the Doctor and he truly are. That proposition is quite chilling and certainly re-contextualizes the Doctor’s previous actions, and Tennant once more excels both in the presence of the First Movellan and when confronted about that identity elsewhere to truly highlight the Doctor’s conscience, guilt, and determination to do better whenever he can. The Doctor’s only desire here is to simply leave to let history takes its inevitable course, but the maverick actions of Davros that so threaten to upheave the wartime stalemate as well as the resulting tightrope the Doctor is forced to walk as he must reveal crucial information to the Daleks while still staying true to himself and not revealing too much to anyone about the Time War that will so dwarf this comparatively petty war are strong plot points; they perfectly capture the typical essence of Davros who is well on his way to becoming the megalomanical genius seen in the modern series as well as of the Doctor who has rarely faced such a stressful confluence of events.

Despite the strong study of the Doctor as a character and Davros’s almost gleeful reprimanding of his eternal foe as he furtively works to assure his own creations’ dominance, the overall plot does play out more or less exactly as a prototypical Dalek tale. Yes, the Doctor’s foreknowledge is an intriguing aspect that puts this skirmish into an entirely new context alongside the origin of the Movellans themselves, but the Doctor seemingly allying with one particular faction of the Daleks as Davros works to assert his own dominance while coming precariously close to falling victim to his children have all been done numerous times before. With the backdrop of Kembel hardly being used despite the incredible promise it holds given the histories of the Doctor, the Daleks, and the Kingdom family, there are certainly opportunities for the tale to take a more unconventional route, and not quite enough is done with the Movellans outside of the First Movellan’s identity to truly capitalize on the many exciting components that form the core of this plot.

Nonetheless, ‘The Triumph of Davros’ is without question a triumph for both the Doctor and Davros, and it provides a fitting ending- at least for now- for Jane Slavin’s Anya Kingdom who has firmly gained the Doctor’s trust and respect after a long and arduous journey in which she never lost faith in the Doctor. As an endpoint to such a bombastic saga, the actual Dalek and Movellan storyline of ‘The Triumph of Davros’ falls somewhat flatter than expected, but the incredible characterization and performances elevate a fairly standard storyline to something altogether more engrossing that pays due deference to what has come before while capably setting the scene for exactly what the Doctor knows must come to pass.