Review: I, Davros: Guilt

Words: Daniel Berry, April 25 2008

The superb I, Davros miniseries draws to a close with its fourth episode, Guilt, written by Scott Alan Woodard.

The raspy-voiced and grossly-mutated Kaled scientist Davros, now dependent on a life-support chariot to keep him alive, is taking his interest in genetic mutation one step further. Now colder and less emotional than ever before - slowly growing into a personality clone of his mother, it seems - he seeks to take his race's evolution to the next level.

Guilt is perhaps the darkest chapter of the series to date. Tonally, it's very much in the same vein as the previous episodes, but it pushes things a little further in many ways. At one point, Davros slaughters a group of people who stand in his way en masse, crying out "Exterminate!" as he watches their demise - a scene which first horrifies, then becomes unspeakably chilling. His "child protection plan", which is predictably not quite what it seems, is also very disturbing, as is the emotionless and unquestioning loyalty of Davros's new right-hand man Lieutenant Nyder.

Woodard seamlessly bridges the gap between the Davros of this series so far, and that of Genesis of the Daleks, filling in the one remaining missing segment of the villain's early life. Looking back to Innocence, the first episode, Rory Jennings's young Davros seems like an entirely different character, and yet his gradual evolution over the course of four hours of storytelling bridges the gap in a smooth and logical manner. All the authors involved in the series have characterised the lead superbly, and the rise (or, depending on how you look at it, decline) of Davros has been consistently compelling.

Of course, much of that success is also down to Terry Molloy, who switches between the forward-thinking scientist of earlier plays, the calculating and considering mastermind from later television stories, and the all-out ranting dictator we know and hate. Throughout Guilt, his performance is multi-layered and entirely engrossing, just as it has been in all the other stories.

It's also worth mentioning how superb Molloy is in the present-day framing sequences, during his "trial" by the Daleks. These brief scenes are a simple device to put the flashback story into context; they set up each episode, then round it off and tease us about the next one. Listening to the first few minutes of Guilt, I was struck by how easy it would be just to read these scenes in a menacing way - they are, after all, simply brief monologues with sporadic interjections from a Dalek, which bear little importance to the main plot. Terry Molloy, though, acts the hell out of them, making every word engaging, no matter how innocuous, and even selling the script's more melodramatic lines (on the page, "They underestimated me - their final, and gravest mistake!" is begging for a "MWAHAHAHA!"; on audio, Molloy's performance is dripping with realism and tangible menace).

As with all three previous stories in this series, the guest cast are great, with Peter Miles reprising his Genesis of the Daleks role as Nyder to great effect. It's impressive how easily he slips back into a character which he played in one story three decades ago, and his performance is thoroughly engaging. John Stahl, continuing his ongoing role as the Kaled Supremo, maintains the cold but measured persona he's established over the previous episodes, and is excellent.

Nicholas Briggs also deserves credit for his role as Baran - admittedly, I do sympathise with those who dislike how often Briggs and his very distinctive voice pop up in Big Finish's various stories, but his performance is so impressive in Guilt that I stopped noticing who he was after his first couple of scenes. Very strong stuff indeed.

There's something missing, though - the wonderful Carolyn Jones (Davros's mother, Lady Calcula) was killed off in the third instalment of I, Davros, and her absence here is felt. She was flawlessly brilliant throughout her episodes, and although her very brief cameo in Guilt is enjoyable and effective, things aren't quite the same without her.

Unlike the rest of the series, Guilt is a double-disc release, with the second CD boasting a seventy-minute documentary which goes behind the scenes of I, Davros. It's a lovely idea as a free bonus, but it's probably not worth more than one listen - its focus is often sprawling, discussing at length tangential subjects like the switch between producers Gary Russell and Nicholas Briggs, and the process by which Live 34 (no, really) was submitted. Plus, I think anyone listening to a four-part audio miniseries based on a single science-fiction character is probably enough of a fan to know who the bloke is, so the documentary's history of Davros is somewhat redundant. When the interviewees are talking about I, Davros, their contributions are universally fascinating, but the documentary doesn't go into as much depth about the series as I'd expected. It's also a little over-long, running for a few minutes more than Guilt itself, and might be improved by being trimmed a little. However, writer and narrator Joseph Lidster has done a great job of tying the interviews together into one smooth narrative, and the production values are high. The documentary is a polished production, if in need of some tightening-up.

All in all, then, Guilt is a terrific end to a terrific series. I, Davros is probably one of Big Finish's best productions to date, and comes highly recommended.