There’s no hero without a villain.
Doctor Who has been a staple of British sci-fi TV, dating back to its debut in 1963. With the reinvention and reintroduction of Doctor Who into contemporary modern culture in 2005, the Christopher Eccleston-led era saw the show rise through a dramatic surge in popularity. With this widely held acceptance came a whole host of some of the scariest TV monsters’ fans had ever seen, with many able to rival current big-budget horror shows such as ‘Stranger Things’ or ‘The Last of Us’.
Yet what makes a Doctor Who villain truly frightening? Some monsters are scary simply because of the concept they imbue. Others are scary because of what they represent to the audience. Very few are able to give the audience actual nightmares, sending children scurrying to hide behind sofas with cushion shields clutched in fear. With the revived Doctor Who series hitting our screens this month, new and old Whovians alike will once again be held in awe as the many foes of the Doctor grace our screens. Will we see the return of any fan favourites? And which have had the most dramatic impact since their introduction?
One of the first monsters introduced in the Christopher Eccleston era, the child from ‘The Empty Child’, scared children and adults nationwide. Featuring the now iconic black gas mask, this zombie-child pursued the Doctor and friends throughout the episode, its resonant voice asking ‘are you my Mummy?’ endlessly, before going on to infect everyone it came into contact with. While the episode did end happily, the image of a helpless man’s face morphing into the terrifying gas mask still haunts many people’s nightmares to this day. The very image of a tortured, haunting child still invokes similarities to modern horror films such as ‘The Ring’ (2002) or ‘The Grudge’ (2004), easily securing the ‘Empty Child’ as one of the scariest episodes of the new-Who era.
Yet don’t discount the baddies of the Tenth Doctor (played by David Tennant), who had his own assortment of scary creatures to deal with. Perhaps we’ll soon be revisiting ‘The Flood’, our villains from ‘The Waters of Mars’. With the Flood, the danger came from the fact it only takes a single water-droplet to convert unaware, innocent lifeforms into lethal water-zombies. With their cracked, discoloured mouths and wide, white eyes, the Flood create a stark visceral terror as they remain in vaguely human form. With contemporary culture creating an on-going fear of epidemics and disease, the Flood hooks the audience, exacerbating the fears our modern audiences already hold.
Or maybe we’ll face the Weeping Angels once more. Debuting in ‘Blink’, these villains are often cited as the scariest foes, starring in one of the strongest new-Who episodes to date. In their standard form, the Weeping Angels resemble silent human-sized stone statues, in the form of winged angels in wrapped clothing. As they close in on their victims, their appearance transforms into a more horrific, demonic aspect with wide-open mouths, vampiric teeth and clawed hands. With ‘Blink’ considered to be one of the strongest stories written by Stephen Moffat, the Weeping Angels were quantum-locked creatures from the dawn of time, only moving when not being watched, zapping their victims back in time to feed off their time-energy. While later episodes aimed to develop the angels’ abilities, with them being able to inhabit pre-existing statues and travel through TV screens, it was their inaugural episode that saw them at their scariest, hunting unsuspecting humans. For how could you fight something that never stops, never sleeps and never rests?
Simple similarities could be drawn between the Weeping Angels and our next villains, the Silence, introduced in season six. The Silence instantly instilled an air of dread, mystique and anxiety upon their arrival. With their elongated face, fingers, and sharp black suits it’s clear to see visual links between these creatures and the urban myth ‘Slenderman’. With the extra caveat being that someone instantly forgets the Silence the moment that they look away from them, these creatures bombarded the 11th Doctor, Matt Smith, and his companions over a series of multiple episodes. A terrifying presence, how can you fight something you can’t remember existing?
Lastly, will we be seeing the Daleks and their terrifying leader Davros once more? It seems that no matter how many times the Doctor has faced them, the Daleks inevitably return bigger, stronger and more deadly than before. The Daleks have beaten the Doctor on many occasions, with the Doctor being forced to nearly regenerate when shot by a Dalek in ‘The Stolen Earth’, surviving by siphoning off the excess regeneration energy into his spare hand. Nigh invulnerable, able to develop and evolve, and with a drive to destroy every life form in existence, the Daleks have been a threat now for as long as the show has been on the air. Without a doubt, we’ll soon be hearing their titular ‘exterminate!’ once more hit our screens.
Simply put many of the Doctor’s villains will always be around to inspire fear in the audience and, to put it quite simply, the Doctor will never truly be able to defeat them all. As memorable as the many Doctors, the villains of Doctor Who are now just as integral a part of the show. Even so, there has always been an elegance to Doctor Who villains; episodes never need to rely on graphic gore, nor cheapen situations with cheap jump-scares. With the future of Doctor Who looking bright with new Doctor Ncuti Gatwa taking the helm, only time will tell as to whether any new monsters will rear their heads, once again terrifying new and old viewers going forward.
Which Doctor Who villain scares you the most? And do you think any of the villains mentioned will make a return on May 11th?
