I know it has been a while since my last post about the worst of the Doctor Who villains, but it seems that people have been pretty curious about seeing just what baddies from the new series I just absolutely loathed.  There weren’t too many, but the ones I picked were pretty darn awful.

Now I wasn’t judging the show when I wrote that post.  Doctor Who is one of the best shows on TV, but even it has it’s fair share of dud episodes.  Just like the episode of Torchwood (a fantastic spin-off) had a cyberwoman fight a pterodactyl. That was a bad choice.

With the bad, also comes the good, and let me tell you, there is a hell of a lot more good than bad in this show.  So today I want to take a look at some of my favorite villains from Doctor Who.  This is a list ranging from Eccleston to Smith, so I warn you it might be lengthy.

Without further adieu, let’s get this TARDIS flying!

The Daleks: By and far, the Daleks are the most overused villain of the entire Doctor Who franchise.  There is a reason for this though, the Daleks are terrifying!  Think about it, small alien (and some human) creatures, devoid of all emotion, encased in near indestructible armor, trained to kill (well exterminate).  In fact, trained isn’t the right word, programmed to kill is more accurate.  It is their one drive.  Take that coupled with the fact that the Daleks destroyed the whole of Gallifrey during the Last Great Time War (leaving only our Doctor and Master), and you have a setup for unending conflict.

The Dalek’s do have a ranking system as well, and not all Daleks are created equal.  We’ve had the opportunity to run into Daleks of all makes and colors, varying weapons, and even a human Dalek.

Your standard Dalek comes equipped with a gunstick and a manipulator arm.  The gunstick is used for exterminations (and resembles an egg whisk) and your manipulator arm is mostly used for opening doors, and picking up objects, sometimes even latching onto people’s faces (and resembles a plunger).  Their top dome is equipped with an eerie glowing telescope eyestalk and a twin set of speakers.

Other weapons Daleks can come with are…

• Flamethrower
• Claw arm
• Machine gun
• Seismic detector – for locating the TARDIS
• Electrode unit
• Syringe
• Dalek claw

These guys are the ultimate killing machines, and that emotionless, 8-bit voice sends chills through my spine just thinking about them.

The Cybermen: Though they weren’t incredibly impressive in the new series, I still have to go on record stating that the Cybermen are awesome.  If you look at the Daleks from a mindset that they are what would happen in countries ruled by martial law, then the Cybermen would be viewed from the mindset of what happens to a country ruled by technology…and aren’t we close to that already?  Look at the Wikileaks stuff that happened over the last month and then answer.

Plus they’ve been around in the Whoverse almost as long as the Daleks have been!

An early design

If their metallic, monotone voices don’t make your skin crawl, then maybe their methods of assimilation will.  It is called cyber-conversion, and it could happen to anyone.

The Cyber-conversion consisted of a total replacement of all human elements, including emotions.  In one Doctor’s time the cyber-conversion was merely a simple brain extraction, said brain was then relocated into a cybernetic helmet on a metal body.  The conversion didn’t remove emotion, as it is still a human brain, so an emotional inhibitor was implanted inside the brain to achieve the desired effect.

As for weapons the Cybermen are deadly.  Not only can they generate electricity arcs from their hands which can stun and disable, but they also come equipped with short range guns, a Cyberlance, and a Cyberscope which allowed them to not only see their victim, but also access a computer database and view a battlefield remotely. They also have death rays in their chest, and oh yeah, lets not forget about the megtron bomb that can destroy all life on Earth.

I’ve watched some classic episodes of Doctor Who and this villain just keeps getting cooler and cooler, they are similar in so many ways to the Daleks, but its just the fact that these are more humanoid I think it has a more profound effect on the viewer.

Sycorax: This tribe hasn’t made a huge impact on the Whoverse, but don’t underestimate them, they play a very large part in several seasons of the show.  This race of warriors is primitive compared to some of the other villains on the list, but that almost makes them that much more awesome.

If you aren’t intimidated by their outward appearance yet, let me break it down for you.  That’s a skull they are wearing as a mask.  A skull of something they killed.  What’s under the skull you ask?  Why exposed muscle.  Yes, their face with no skull mask is just exposed muscle!

Also, see that curved bone on his shoulder?  Oh yeah, that’s his wife’s rib bone!  All of those other pieces he is wearing…those are trophies from the victims of his sword.

Which brings me to my next point, the Sycorax didn’t use ray guns or any fancy weapons, they stuck to the classics.  Swords were their primary weapon, which were effective as hell (look what it did to the Doctor while he was regenerating), they also used an energy whip.  Doesn’t sound too deadly does it?  Well if you were hit by that energy whip it would destroy all your flesh and leave nothing behind but a pile of burnt bones.

Though the Doctor did beat them over London on Christmas one year (and Harriet Jones blew up one tribe’s ship as well) the Sycorax did come back to play a part in The Alliance against the Doctor.

The Sisters of Plenitude: The sisters were a race of Cat Nuns who had dedicated their lives to helping the sick.  Doesn’t sound too horrible does it?  Well just wait until you hear how they dedicated their lives.  It was with a race described as “new humans”.

Now, the new humans were a race of clones that had been infected with every disease known to man.  They had been infected with these diseases since birth, and were experimental puppets for the Sisters.  Should this race of new humans show any sign of sentient thought, they would be disintegrated.

*Note: The original idea for the new humans involved them having gaping flesh wounds all over their bodies, but it was decided this would be too horrific for younger viewers.*

Clockwork Droid: Plain and simple the Clockwork Droids were only programmed to fix their ship, the SS Madame De Pompadour, should anything break down.  The ship, as I’m sure you guessed, was in an ion storm and broke down.  However, these guys didn’t have the right parts to fix their ship.  So instead they just used different body parts of the 50 crew members that were on-board.  The ship wasn’t complete yet though, they needed one last piece…a brain for their command circuit.

The Clockwork droids then modified their quantum drive to open doorways into the life of the real Madame De Pompadour, thinking that if they could implant her 37 year old brain (the same age as their ship) into the system, then all the ships problems would be resolved.

As nefarious as these droids sound, they’re just as deadly as they are cool.  They come equipped with short range teleporters, scanners, tranquilizers, and sharp tools within their wrists.  They can also heat themselves up should they become frozen.  Whenever they entered a room, they broke every single clock nearby so that the ticking of their innards would go unnoticed as the ticking of the room’s clock!

This is what they look like without their mask on.

Sontaran: Just how evil were these baddies?  So evil that the Doctor declared them to be the most evil force in the galaxy next to the Daleks.  Yeah, let that sink in.

This war-faring race is not only well protected and blood-thirsty, but are also strong as hell.  They live  in low gravity environment, so when they land on planets like Earth or Gallifrey, their incredible strength is magnified.  They could also outnumber any army in battle.

They reproduced by cloning, so all Sontarans are almost identical in every way (though there were some Sontarans that had differences from others).  So how did this help in battle?  With their advanced cloning techniques they could breed up to 1,000,000 Sontarans in 4 minutes!

They kinda look like milk duds though

If their virtual indestructibility and sheer numbers didn’t frighten you, wait until you see the weapons they brought into battle.

Their handguns, Rheon Carbines, were made not only for energy projection…but also hypnotism.  They had a rifle laser that could kill a human without any external damage.  They also had fragmentation grenades that, when deployed, could destroy everything in a certain area.

They also developed a weapon that could turn entire planets into anti-matter, wiping them from the galaxy (so a Sontaran Death Star).

But every bad guy has to have a weakness right?  You are so right, and the Sontarans do.  A tiny little hole on the back of their neck where they draw in energy.  Hit it with a blunt instrument and they’ll pass out.  Stab a sharp instrument into it and they will die.  But look at what you have to fight your way through just to get to that.

Vashta Nerada: Their name means “the Shadows that melt the flesh”.  They are microscopic beings that live in giant swarms.  Individually these beings are not a threat, however when you reach them in numbers of thousands they are an unstoppable carnivorous force.  They could strip flesh down to bare bones in milliseconds,  and if they were caught in a contained area (i.e. a space suit) they could work together to make the suit take human form and walk.

They got their prey by mimicking normal shadows of a building, and then attached themselves to you, making it appear as if you had two shadows.  If you hit this stage, then you were dead on your feet.  Sonic technology could detect the presence of the Vashta Nerada, but could not stop them.  Their only weakness is light.

Rassilon: He is quite possibly the single most important man in Time Lord history, also the most dangerous.  He is considered the first Time Lord, he invented Tardis technology, and some say he invented the race of Time Lords themselves.  So how could a man that has done so much good be so bad?

War does terrible things to people.

It was during the last great Time War against the Daleks when Rassilon cracked.  He tried to save the Time Lord race by making them all beings of pure consciousness.  That consciousness came at a cost…it would destroy the rest of creation.  The Doctor put Rassilon in “the moment”, a time loop that placed Rassilon, the Daleks and all the evil of the Time War in a temporal loop, doomed to repeat the war for all eternity.

Rassilon had a plan.  He used the Master to help him break the Time Lock and help him escape the moment.  When this happens it releases all the evil of the Time War, and brings literal hell on Earth.

Dream Lord: Not much is known about the Dream Lord, but from what we do know he is a darker version of the Doctor who was awoken by specs of psychic pollen.  After he was created he trapped the Doctor, Amy, and Rory in two collective dream worlds.  One was set it Upper Leadworth five years in the future, the other had the crew unconscious in the TARDIS hurdling toward a cold star.

He told them one dream was real and the other wasn’t, and that to wake in the real world again they would have to die in the dream, but that put them at the risk of dying in the real world as well.  He enjoyed taunting the team, and pitting their insecurities against one another.

It is not sure if he has been defeated.

The Alliance: The Alliance was formed of some of The Doctor’s greatest enemies.  They believe that the TARDIS was forming cracks in the universe, and that if they destroyed the TARDIS the cracks would be undone and the universe would be saved.  They lured the Doctor and his companions into a scenario based on Amy Pond’s memories, and trapped the Doctor in the Pandorica (a prison box hidden under Stonehenge that contained the most feared organism in the universe inside).

The Alliance was formed up of the following:

The Atraxi, Blowfish, Chelonians, Cybermen, Daleks, Draconians, Drahvins, Haemogoth, Hoix, Judoon, Nestene Consciousness, Autons, Roboforms, Silurians, Slitheen Family, Sontarans, Sycorax, Terileptils, Uvodni, Weevils, and Zygons

Seems like a lot huh?  Well it is, a lot of these guys haven’t been seen since older incarnations of Doctor Who, or even extended universe Doctor Who.

These are my favorite of all the villains in the Whoverse, The Alliance being the best.  What do you think?  Is there a villain that I’ve left out that you feed needs to be on the list?  Put it in the comments below.