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The Curse of Davros crash-lands into your ears screaming about identity, hatred, and the Battle of Waterloo while a bunch of Daleks apparently looked at European history and decided “you know what this needs? MORE fascism,” and honestly? Respect the commitment to the bit.
This is the official introduction of Flip Jackson as a proper companion for Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor, after her earlier appearance in The Crimes of Thomas Brewster, and immediately the dynamic is… interesting. Because the Doctor is acting WRONG.
Not subtle wrong either. Not “slightly off.” We’re talking full television-era Six. Abrasive, egotistical, rude enough to strip paint. And at first I genuinely thought the story was pulling some timeline trickery where we’d landed back in the early days of his incarnation before the character mellowed into the magnificent technicolour disaster uncle we know and love in Big Finish.
But no. SURPRISE. Mind swap with Davros. Which is honestly a much better idea.
And to the story’s credit, this is where it comes alive. The psychological overlap between the Doctor and Davros has always been fertile ground for Doctor Who. Two brilliant minds, both convinced they know what’s best for the universe, separated by morality and about twelve billion war crimes.
So putting each inside the other’s perspective? Good stuff. Even if the story occasionally handles it with all the subtlety of a Dalek reversing through a greenhouse.
A lot of the middle section is devoted to “wow, being Davros sure is awful,” with the Doctor trapped inside Davros’s broken body while Davros gets to gallivant around in the Doctor’s healthier form. Now, I can already hear discourse approaching in the distance like thunder, because yes, some of this edges uncomfortably close to “disabled body as horror” territory.
But honestly? My bigger issue isn’t even that. It’s that the script keeps TELLING us how horrifying and hateful the experience is rather than letting the character work organically reveal it. It’s exposition-heavy in places where it should be emotional.
Still. Colin Baker and Terry Molloy absolutely carry the material on pure performance power. Baker playing traces of Davros creeping into the Doctor is deliciously unsettling, while Molloy getting to embody the Doctor’s mannerisms underneath Davros’s venom is equally fun. It’s theatrical as hell. Two veteran actors chewing scenery through a psychic body-swap prism. Love that for them.
Then there’s the BONKERS historical angle. The Daleks want Napoleon to win Waterloo. I’m sorry, that sentence alone almost earns an extra half-star. It’s so gloriously ridiculous in exactly the way Doctor Who should be. The image of Daleks carefully micromanaging nineteenth-century warfare like angry space accountants is deeply funny to me.
Flip herself is… promising. She absolutely has shades of Rose Tyler and Lucie Miller in the “working-class modern companion who mouths off at aliens” mould, but with a rougher, more uncertain edge. There’s a slight “class clown masking insecurity” vibe to her that makes her feel less polished and more human.
That said, right now she still feels like an early draft of a character rather than a fully distinct presence. Some of the “dumb girl” writing undercuts her, though you can feel the potential for growth underneath it.
And honestly? Pairing her with Six is smart. His larger-than-life intensity needs someone grounded and emotionally reactive to bounce off.
Final Thoughts
A messy but entertaining body-swap thriller elevated massively by Baker and Molloy’s performances, with some wonderfully absurd historical Dalek nonsense and a companion introduction full of potential, even if the script occasionally explains itself to death.
3.5 out of 5 Daleks aggressively trying to rewrite European history for absolutely no sensible reason