War, ethics, and the galaxy’s worst pepper pots — now with added Davros.
Short Synopsis
The Time Lords send the Doctor, Sarah Jane, and Harry to Skaro during its centuries-long war. Their mission: prevent the creation of the Daleks. Unfortunately, the Doctor meets Davros, a mad scientist with a skin condition, a killer wheelchair, and a dream of galactic extermination.
Extended Storyline
The Doctor and friends arrive on Skaro, a planet where the Kaleds and the Thals have been killing each other for centuries in a war that makes trench warfare look like a polite scuffle. The Time Lords want the Doctor to meddle with history — a rare move for them — and stop the Daleks from ever coming into existence. What could go wrong?
The trio immediately get split up (of course). Harry and Sarah Jane stumble into Thal captivity, where Sarah nearly gets crushed in a “move this heavy object or die” cliffhanger. Harry spends most of the story being gallant but not particularly helpful.
Meanwhile, the Doctor meets Davros, a genius scientist whose idea of solving a war is to genetically deform his own people and stick them inside mobile pepper-pot death machines. Davros himself is half-man, half-machine, and 100% obsessed with extermination. He treats the Daleks like his children, which is sweet until you remember they grow up to be intergalactic fascists.
Throughout the story, the Doctor debates whether to blow up the Dalek incubator room with two handy wires and some explosives. Cue one of the most famous moments in Doctor Who history:
“Do I have the right?” the Doctor wonders, staring into the middle distance, as Tom Baker delivers Shakespearean gravitas in a quarry.
In the end, the Doctor doesn’t destroy the Daleks completely (of course he doesn’t, otherwise the show would be over by Tuesday). Instead, he delays their development, ensuring that the Daleks will still exist — but perhaps not as quickly or efficiently as Davros hoped. It’s the Doctor’s way of patting himself on the back for making a moral choice while still dooming the universe to decades of exterminations.
Davros, in classic villain fashion, ends up screaming at his creations to obey him — only for them to immediately turn on him. It’s the beginning of his long, dysfunctional relationship with the Daleks, which can be summarized as: “I made you!” followed by “EXTERMINATE!”
The TARDIS team leaves Skaro, having achieved… well, not much, but the Time Lords never were very clear about what they wanted anyway.