The 10 Best Revival Foes We May Never See Again

Guest contributor Liam Morrell counts down his carnival of monsters.

Apart from travelling in time and space in a blue box, Doctor Who is probably best known for its monsters. The show has surely created some of pop culture’s greatest meanies. I mean who doesn’t know what the Daleks are? Or the Cybermen? I’m sure many of the non-Doctor Who fans also recognise a great deal more Who-creatures, even if they can’t name them all.

When the lists of the top baddies are created, it’s really the same list every time with the same couple of classics taking the top. They certainly deserve their place, the ones I refer to like the Daleks and the Weeping Angels are the stuff of nightmares, but I think that it’s time that we appreciate the others, the ones that threatened the Doctor when the Daleks were drying their hair. Specifically, the ones we have only seen once and for my own ease, modern series creations.

This rules out the obvious villains as well as Clockwork Droids and the Slitheen These guys were introduced and promptly vanquished never to return.

10. The Reapers (Father’s Day)

My countdown starts by taking us all the way back to the first series of the revived show. Father’s Day saw the Doctor take Rose to see her father, Pete, who was killed in a hit and run accident when she was a baby. However, when she saves his life Rose creates a paradox and the Reapers arrive to fix the wound in time. Now these guys are quite a generic monster. The sort that just eat everybody. They consumed everybody they came across and the Doctor was powerless to stop them. Then they ate the Doctor! This final point really is the one that got these guys on the list. While they are not especially scary in themselves, what their presence meant about time and how close they came to destroying the world made them a force to be reckoned with. They could come back but I think that knowing that stopping saves everybody really would suck all the tension out of the story.

9. The Boneless (Flatline)

A new addition the Who family, Jamie Mathieson’s fantastic Flatline gave us the show’s first 2D monster. The way they silently pull you into the wall was very creepy and the visual effects behind them were excellent. Excuse the bad joke, but they were also very one-dimensional and a return from the Boneless would need to evolve them quite a bit to be a greater threat to the Doctor. Very good but better as a one-trick pony.

8. The Family of Blood (Human Nature/The Family of Blood)

Both of Paul Cornell’s stories have made it on this list, surely a sign that he should be snapped up to write another one in future, but I digress. What’s memorable about these villains? The Family attempt to steal the Doctor’s lifeforce and to escape them he has to make himself human and hide in a English village. It’s this length the Doctor goes to escape them and the consequences of those actions that really make these guys stick out in my memory. Plus, the Doctor’s frankly cold, dispatch of the villains is such a great sequence.

7. House (The Doctor’s Wife)

I very nearly forgot about House, but once I did I realised he couldn’t not be on this list. This is the entity that murdered hundreds of TARDISes and their crews and nearly destroyed the Doctor’s only constant, his beloved time and space machine. This is a fantastic episode and one of the highlights is watching Amy and Rory try and survive the lethal corridors of the once safe TARDIS. A very creepy voice provided by Michael Sheen helped the character become so very sinister. Not a character that would make a very interesting return, unless he’s once again in control of the TARDIS. That does sound like a cool idea actually…

6. Vashta Nerada (Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead)

At the half way mark we have the piranhas of the air, the creatures that live in all shadows and can devour you in seconds. And if you happen to be wearing a space suit, they’ll use it to chase your friends and eat them too. What else can I say? They are pretty cool and definitely could come back in an effective way. I’m going to call it and say, watch this space, they will be back.

5. The Midnight Entity (Midnight)

Perhaps the most mysterious monster the show has ever had. This is in my opinion is tied for the best script Russell T Davies ever wrote with The Waters of Mars. As soon as the cruiser comes to a halt on the beautiful crystal world of Midnight, the tension is expertly wound up and only comes to a peak just before the end. Every character is established in the first five minutes and over the episode we see them slowly become more and more terrified of a creature that shouldn’t be possible. And the Doctor can’t do anything, he’s just a powerless as the rest of them. Then at the end we know nothing more about it than we did at the start. Hopefully we never will because the beauty of this episode if that we just don’t know what it is.

4. The Dream Lord (Amy’s Choice)

The manifestation of the Doctor’s own dark side! Why has it been 5 years and we still haven’t seen more of this master manipulator played by Toby Jones? Amy’s Choice is a brilliant episode and the dream exploration concept was very interesting which Last Christmas drew on too. What gives the Dream Lord the edge over the Dream Crabs is the interaction he has with the Doctor and his friends. There is a lot that could be done with this character and could certainly become the recurring villain that isn’t the Master, the show needs.

3. The Flood (The Waters of Mars)

A lot of the monsters on this list have a simple concept: shadows, a voice and so on. This is water that wants to get you. The people that are infected with the Flood are very creepy and very effectively achieved by the production team. My top choice for a returning villain, imagine the Flood on an inhabited world. How would the Doctor deal with that? Like he said, water always wins!

2. The Beast (The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit)

What do I have to say, it was the devil! Lucifer himself finally tries to lure the Doctor from its prison around a black hole in this seriously creepy episode. What about that scene where it whispers to Toby to not look around? And then it does! Crikey! Or the part when possessed Toby pulls Scooti out into space? This is the thing that can turn the cute Ood into an army of murderers and traps the Doctor at the centre of the planet. This is the only story that actually gave me bad dreams. But that wasn’t enough to beat number 1…

1. The Empty ‘People’ (The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances)

Choosing the top of this list was a no brainer. This is often referred to as the scariest Doctor Who story ever and it’s all down to the monsters. “Are you my mummy?” I’m creeped out just writing it. Considering that this also comes from a lost little boy hidden behind an expressionless gas mask and you’ve got yourself several sleepless nights. While it didn’t get me like that, my cousin didn’t watch the programme for years because of it! What I want to point out is that the Empty People are the prime example of why I made the list – they will never return! The entire scenario is revealed to be an almost apocalyptic mistake of Jack Harkness’ with the nano-genes and that would be a very contrived repetition. I also think it would taint this story. Here we have a monster truly unique to its story and that can never be repeated. This also happens to be the first Doctor Who I ever saw so is probably responsible for making me a fan of the show. That’s what puts the Empty Child at the top of a list that had the Devil himself in second place.

So there we have it. That’s what I thought, now I’d love to see if you agree or disagree with my choices. Thanks for reading, to the comments!