Adapting Doctor Who: it's time for change

The fan debate on associating disability with evil lacks nuance.

Harry Gibbins

Harry Gibbins is a doctoral researcher at the University of Aberdeen. His PhD concerns the intersection between autism and Christian ministry.

Davros, an alien leader sits in the lower half of a Dalek.

Davros: leader of the Daleks.

In an interview with behind-the-scenes show Doctor Who Unleashed, returning showrunner Russel T Davies had this to say about how iconic Doctor Who baddie Davros was to be portrayed in a mini-episode produced for charity event Children in Need last year.

“We had long conversations about bringing Davros back, because he's a fantastic character, time and society and culture and taste has moved on. 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.”

He continues to explain that this led the production team to depict Davros differently. Gone is the facial scaring, the wheelchair, the robotic eye, and the mechanical hand. Now, as Davies explains, Davros is seen through a lens in which disability stops being a way of identifying evil.

“This is our lens, this is our eye. Things used to be black and white, they’re not black and white anymore, and Davros used to look like that and he looks like this now.”

Davies’ comments caused somewhat of a split online with some fans. On the one hand, Davies is continuing a tradition that can be traced back to his previous work on Doctor Who between 2005 and 2010. For example, he purposefully wrote Billie Piper’s character Rose Tyler as working class to cut against the gain of the prim-and-proper received pronunciation of previous companion characters. Perhaps Davies was tired of the limited scope of once again portraying the villain as disabled. Just as he didn’t want another female companion who lacked agency and depth, depiction of Davros as disabled simply wouldn’t fit with this modern incarnation of the show. On the other hand, in his comments, Davies seems to suggest that if this character ever appears again, he will not be disabled, even if it contradicts previous storylines, retroactively removing this part of the character as if it was never there to begin with.

Davros isn’t evil because he’s disabled, so why is Davies so hellbent on changing something that wasn’t an issue to begin with?

But is Davies’ efforts necessary? Reddit user u/Bowtie327 suggests that Davros’ disability isn’t important, “I can’t say I ever even drew a connection around Davros, being evil, and being disabled”, whilst another user u/PenguinHighGround claims that as a disabled person themselves they found him “weirdly inspiring, his (sic) goals are abhorrent, but he didn’t let his physical issues limit him”. X user @Dadros3 highlights how, as a wheelchair user, Davros has become a sort of science-fiction icon. He euphemistically states that “evil comes in all forms, all races, all genders, all abilities, and all disabilities. We cannot stand by and allow the cancellation of something for fear of offence that doesn’t exist”.

We are starting to see where the conversation heads; there are worries of by simply removing disability from the equation no effort is made to necessarily further the cause of disabled representation in media. Similarly, Davros isn’t evil because he’s disabled, so why is Davies so hellbent on changing something that wasn’t an issue to begin with? Whether it's that Davros’ disability wasn’t noticed by a majority able-bodied audience, or that his evil ideology has nothing to do with being disabled, Davros should stay put!

What becomes clear is that the changes made to depicting Davros is a product of the philosophy of change that is woven into the show’s DNA.

There’s a nuance that I believe has been missed by these arguments, a nuance that speaks to the philosophy that underpins what has led Doctor Who to last so long. I do not believe that Davies is suggesting that we pretend that harmful depictions of disabled people didn’t happen. Rather, this is a progression of a core part of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who encompasses change. Whether it’s the titular character’s face changing every few years, new story motifs coming and going, or even entirely new production teams, change is what keeps the Doctor Who machine whirring. It is clear that in this new era of the show that Davies is looking for a sort of fresh start. That is what keeps Doctor Who alive, and I think it’s what can make it such a great show. The ability to, despite its long history, still tell a new story. Times where I think the show has suffered has been when it has tried too hard to emulate what has come before.

This is a good opportunity to look back at how disability has been characterised in the media. It is good to sit with this tension even if we didn’t notice it and even if we don’t necessarily take offence. Interestingly, in the brief discussions Davies has had in the behind the scene footage he never mentions offence, nor does he want to attribute blame onto anyone for depicting a wheelchair user in such a way. Instead, he looks forward, just as we do as an audience. Forwards to opportunities to encapsulate the real lived experiences of disabled people, not only and narrowly looking at it as a way of identifying the baddie. Speaking to Doctor Who Magazine in 2022, casting director Andy Pryor stated that he is actually intentionally trying to cast more disabled actors claiming that “If you can’t cast diversely on Doctor Who, what show can you do it on?”. This is even reflected in the set design, with the TARDIS now being completely wheelchair accessible. What becomes clear is that the changes made to depicting Davros is a product of the philosophy of change that is woven into the show’s DNA.

The original 1975 story ‘Genesis of the Daleks’, in which Davros first appears, is still available to watch on BBC iPlayer; no attempt has been made to alter the original to remove the problematic depiction of disability. These stories are still there for us to watch and learn from, not to pave over and pretend they didn’t happen. Perhaps this means Davies and the rest of the production team at Bad Wolf will be cautious about featuring Davros again. What we can say is that Doctor Who is a unique icon in the television space in the way it demonstrates how we respond to change.

Article

Care

Change

26 July 2024

6 min read

Are we forgetting how to care?

The profound act at the heart of nursing.

Helen Cowan

Helen is a registered nurse and freelance writer, writing for audiences ranging from the general public to practitioners and scientists.

A nurse bends beside a bed and talks to a patient

Marie Curie.

Recently, at a nursing leadership programme in Oxford, attendees focused on the fundamentals of care. Have we forgotten how to care? What can we re-learn from those who pioneered an ordinary yet profound act that affects millions?

Anam Cara is an old Gaelic term for ‘soul friend’, a person with whom you can share your innermost self, your mind and your heart. It is a term that Tom Hill, former chief executive at Helen House Hospice in Oxford, used to describe the relationship between his staff and the thousands of children and their families who passed through their ‘big red door’ in its first twenty-five years. The hospice (or ‘loving respice’ as it became known) had been founded by Sister Frances Dominica in 1982.

Other care in this country can also trace its religious roots. Between 1048 and 1070 in Jerusalem, the Order of St. John was founded for the purpose of helping pilgrims (“our Lords, The Sick”) who had become lost, weary, or beset by other difficulties while on their way to the Holy Land. Today, in the United Kingdom, the British Association of the Order has extended care to older people first in almshouses and later in care homes. A trustee for ten years was John Monckton, a man of ‘considerable talent, enormous integrity and deep religious conviction’; his tragic murder in 2004 led to the creation of the John Monckton Memorial Prize, which recognised and rightly celebrated commitment to care by care workers.

Today, across the world, seen and unseen, nurses, carers and families continue to provide compassionate care. “Assisting individuals, sick or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery (or to peaceful death) that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will or knowledge” is the very essence of nursing, captured by ‘architect of nursing’, researcher and author Virginia Henderson in 1966. Meeting more than basic needs such as breathing, eating, drinking and eliminating bodily waste (which are of essential importance), Henderson recognised the role of the nurse in enabling humans to communicate with others, worship according to their faith, satisfy curiosity and sense accomplishment.

In the desire for modernisation and professionalisation, have we lost sight of the core values and activities central to patient care?

An uncomfortable truth brought out in healthcare reports such as the Final Report of the Special Commission of Inquiry (The Garling Report) 2008, and the Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry (The Francis Report) 2013 is though that this type of nursing is too often done badly or even missed, leading to pressure injury, medication errors, hospital-acquired infection, falls, unplanned readmission, critical incidents and mortality. According to nurse scientist and scholar Professor Debra Jackson, “missed care occurs much more frequently than we might think”. She cites a systematic review in which ‘care left undone’ on the last shift ranged from 75 per cent in England, to 93 per cent in Germany, with an overall estimate of 88 per cent across 12 European countries’.

In one offensively-titled paper, “Shitty nursing - the new normal?” (in which the authors apologise for the title but not the questions raised), real-life pen portraits are drawn of patients lying for hours on hospital trolleys, immobile through infection or injury, ignored by staff. Whilst acknowledging contextual factors for poor care, such as a shortage of nurses and resources, the authors argue that circumstances cannot be the sole cause of missed nursing care.

A report published by the University of Adelaide, School of Nursing, has called for nurses to ‘reclaim and redefine’ the fundamentals of care. It asks whether the cause of the problem (of missed nursing care) lies “deep in the psyche of the nursing profession itself?” “Has something happened to the way modern nursing views and values caring?” it continues. “Indeed, is nursing in danger of losing its claim to care? In the desire for modernisation and professionalisation, have we lost sight of the core values and activities central to patient care? Or is this a broader social pattern where individuals are less inclined to show kindness, compassion, and care for others even if it is a necessary requirement of the job?”

Compassion, he emphasises, is more than empathy - and way "less fluffy" but much more measurable than kindness.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, Professor of critical care medicine Peter Brindley and Consultant in intensive care Matt Morgan wonder whether doctors also “too often default to high-tech and low-touch” when patients are dying – a time “when community and connection matter most”. They powerfully begin with a mother’s comment: “Humans are gardens to tend – not machines to fix.”

Professor Sir Al Aynsley-Green, the first National Clinical Director for Children in Government and former Children’s Commissioner for England, and past president of the British Medical Association, suggests that we as a society need a “momentum for compassion”. Struck by the extremes of compassion witnessed during his wife’s treatment in the last years of her life, Sir Al wants to see a cultural transformation in healthcare: for compassion to be a key operating principle in NHS and care settings, led by the Chief Nurse’s Office; for every organisation to promote the importance of compassion at the professional level; for the views of patients and families to be sought regularly; for much earlier and better focus on compassion in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching programmes for all staff; for compassion to be inspected against by the Care Quality Commission; and for a willingness to encourage staff at all levels to expose poor practice as well as celebrating excellent care.

Compassion, he emphasises, is more than empathy - and way "less fluffy" but much more measurable than kindness. “It’s putting yourself into somebody else’s shoes – and doing something about it.” Recently appointed the UK’s first Visiting Professor in Compassionate Care at Northampton University, at the age of 80, Sir Al certainly is doing something about it. He has made it his new purpose in life to “embed compassion into every aspect of care”.

Like Sir Al, Queen Elizabeth II, the UK’s longest serving monarch, espoused compassion, in word and deed. Living a life of compassionate service, the Queen made clear that her Christian faith was her guiding principle. She speaks of Jesus Christ as ‘an inspiration,’ a ‘role model’ and ‘an anchor’. “Many will have been inspired by Jesus’ simple but powerful teaching,” she said in her Christmas Broadcast, 2000. “Love God and love thy neighbour as thyself – in other words, treat others as you would like them to treat you. His great emphasis was to give spirituality a practical purpose.”

When nurses do unto others as they would have done unto themselves, and act as role model to colleagues, not only do patient experiences of care and their outcomes improve – but so does job satisfaction for nurses: a critical factor in nurse recruitment and retention – the biggest workforce challenge faced by healthcare organisations. Across the UK, there are currently more than 40,000 nursing vacancies, and thousands of burnt-out nurses are leaving the profession early. Whether nurses decide to stay or go is driven in part by their daily experience at work. The late Kate Granger, Consultant in medicine for older people, inspired Compassionate Care Awards in her name, envisioning that such a legacy would drive up standards in care - and surely also help retain nurses, through restoring a sense of pride, achievement and fulfilment to the nursing workforce.