Shortly before Doctor Who's 60th anniversary specials aired, the BBC released a five-minute short for Children in Need. In that, the Fourteenth Doctor - newly regenerated. - inadvertently travelled back to the time when Davros was creating his Daleks (which were then known as the "Mark III Travel Machine").
Julian Bleach reprised the role but ditched the familiar wheelchair and prosthetics to play a Davros who had not yet gone through the transformation which left his future self scarred and weakened.
The short was tongue-in-cheek and a humorous way to reveal that the Doctor inadvertently named his greatest enemies and even provided at least part of their iconic appearance. In a new interview, Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies has confirmed this change to Davros is permanent and was made not just to show what he looked like when he was young - there were serious Nazi vibes - but to move on from potentially problematic stereotypes.
"We had long conversations about bringing Davros back, because he's a fantastic character, [but] time and society and culture and taste has moved on," he explains (via SFFGazette.com). "And there's a problem with the Davros of old in that he's a wheelchair user, who is evil. And I had problems with that. And a lot of us on the production team had problems with that, of associating disability with evil. And trust me, there's a very long tradition of this."
"I'm not blaming people in the past at all, but the world changes and when the world changes, Doctor Who has to change as well. So we made the choice to bring back Davros without the facial scarring and without the wheelchair – or his support unit, which functions as a wheelchair."
"I say, this is how we see Davros now, this is what he looks like. This is 2023. This is our lens. This is our eye. Things used to be black and white, they're not in black and white anymore, and Davros used to look like that and he looks like this now, and that we are absolutely standing by."
"It's a night where issues of disability or otherness or being excluded from society come right to the front of the conversation," Davies concluded. "So of all the nights to make this change, I thought it was absolutely vital to do this. And I'm very, very, very proud of the fact that we have."
Some will be quick to accuse Doctor Who of being too PC or "woke," but Davies makes some compelling points and there are elements of Davros which feel dated. Crucially, we've seen a lot of that iteration - including how his story ends - so going back to this point in his timeline could make him an exciting new villain.
Check out the Children in Need short from last year, which showcases the updated Davros, in the player below.