Not every monster has access to the Daleks' talent agent...
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00:00 The Doctor has faced a great deal of terrifying foes throughout their travels.
00:04 Given the vast expanse of all of time and space, it's incredibly surprising when the
00:08 Doctor bumps into those foes again.
00:10 Looking through the prism of a long-running television drama that has to attract audiences,
00:15 it becomes a lot clearer as to why big hitters like the Daleks, Cybermen, and the Master
00:20 all regularly return to ruin the Doctor's day.
00:23 The Daleks practically secured Doctor Who's longevity the minute they waved a sucker arm
00:28 in Barbara's face way back in 1963, and writers and showrunners repeatedly return to the Daleks
00:34 nearly six decades later.
00:37 Some monsters and villains don't get as lucky as the Daleks and the Master, however.
00:41 It's not for lack of trying.
00:42 The Sea Devils, for example, were a huge part of the cultural memory of 1970s Doctor Who.
00:48 The Zygons from 1975's Tom Baker serial captured the imagination of a young David Tennant,
00:54 but they didn't return to the series until 2013.
00:58 And then there are monsters even unluckier than that, those who are clearly brilliant,
01:02 but have, to date, never returned to the TV series.
01:06 So with that in mind, I'm Ellie with Who Culture, here with 10 Doctor Who Villains
01:10 You're Surprised Only Appeared Once.
01:13 10.
01:14 Fenric
01:15 Fenric and the Doctor have a long history with each other.
01:18 First appearing in the seventh Doctor classic, The Curse of Fenric, he was the original evil
01:23 from the dawn of time.
01:24 An earlier incarnation of the Doctor and Fenric first met in 3rd century Constantinople, where
01:29 the Doctor defeated the Intelligence in a game of chess and imprisoned him in a flask.
01:34 From his prison, Fenric manipulated the seventh Doctor's timeline in order to free himself
01:38 from his prison.
01:39 The Doctor and Ace eventually defeated Fenric once more, but the old evil played a big role
01:44 in the seventh Doctor's big finish series of audios.
01:47 Fenric was intrinsically linked to the legendary Cartmel Master Plan that would suggest the
01:52 Doctor was more than a Time Lord.
01:54 With that in mind, it wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility for Fenric to have
01:57 been defeated by Joe Martin's fugitive Doctor in The Employ of Division, or by another of
02:03 the Timeless Doctors.
02:04 Whichever Doctor defeated him first, it's surely time for another rematch.
02:08 If only so the Doctor's last important chess game wasn't that awful one from Nightmare
02:12 in Silver.
02:13 9.
02:14 Eternals
02:15 Enlightenment is one of the best Peter Davison serials.
02:19 Taking place during an intergalactic yacht race, it introduces the Eternals as god-like
02:23 beings that play games with dispensable human pawns for prizes.
02:27 The Doctor is rightly horrified, and his confrontation with Stryker gives Davison some of his best
02:32 material in the role.
02:34 The Eternals have been mentioned in passing throughout the new series, but haven't yet
02:38 made a return.
02:39 Or at least not explicitly.
02:41 In the 13th Doctor Adventure Can You Hear Me?, the TARDIS team come up against Zelen,
02:45 who can manifest people's fears and do weird things with his fingers.
02:49 He tricks the Doctor into freeing his lover R'Kaia, but is of course eventually defeated.
02:54 While not explicitly referenced as Eternals on screen, a tie-in story entitled The Guide
02:59 to the Dark Times was published in the official Doctor Who Annual 2021.
03:04 Written by River Song, it outlines the history of the mythical Dark Times, and suggests that
03:09 Zelen and R'Kaia were Eternals.
03:11 Regardless of whether this was the intention of the original script, a Doctor Who story
03:15 that tackles gods who treat human beings as toys would be fantastic.
03:19 It's a regular fallback plot across the Star Trek series, so isn't it about time
03:23 that the Doctor had their own queue?
03:26 8.
03:27 Skarrison
03:28 The Zygons finally returned to Doctor Who in the 2010s, but when they did, their pet
03:33 Skarrison was nowhere to be found.
03:35 In their original story, Terror of the Zygons, this terrifying creature was key to the story.
03:40 The Skarrison was revealed to be the actual Loch Ness Monster, and the Zygons themselves
03:45 survived on the creature's milk.
03:47 Loch Ness Monster milk.
03:49 A product that even the Scottish Tourist Board wouldn't even consider marketing.
03:53 The realisation of the Skarrison on screen was one of those notoriously ropey Doctor
03:57 Who monsters, so it's perhaps unsurprising that the Skarrison hasn't yet made an appearance
04:02 in the new series.
04:04 After all, it hardly fits with the Zygon invasion in Version's political allegory of terrorism
04:09 and immigration.
04:10 However, if Legend of the Sea Devils can reinvent the murkha as a terrifying sea creature, then
04:15 they can do the same for the Skarrison.
04:17 Perhaps a period adventure set around the time of the first Nessie sighting, where curious
04:21 scientists accidentally awaken the Zygons under the Loch a few decades early.
04:26 Scotland is all too rarely visited in Doctor Who, so it's about time that it paid Nessie
04:31 the Skarrison a visit.
04:33 7.
04:34 Axons
04:35 The John Pertwee serial The Claws of Axos is a bit of an underrated classic.
04:39 It's the first story by Bob Baker and Dave Martin, who would go on to co-create K9 and
04:44 tackle some very timely concerns around energy.
04:48 With the world facing an energy crisis, alien visitors land in the English home counties
04:52 to offer clean, renewable energy to humanity.
04:56 Of course, their gift comes at a price, and soon the Doctor has to team up with the Master
04:59 to avert their dastardly plans, trapping them inside a time loop.
05:03 The Axons are still stuck in that time loop on screen, though they've occasionally escaped
05:07 to wreak havoc in two Big Finish audios, the second of which is to be released later this
05:12 year.
05:13 As humanity continues to discuss the financial and environmental costs of fuel, surely the
05:18 Axons are primed for a comeback.
05:20 It would surely be a foolish endeavour for the Axons to try the same grift twice, but
05:24 humanity's never been great at learning from their history.
05:28 It would take the Doctor to pop in and save us from our own errors once more.
05:31 They're an incredibly striking looking creation, though, sort of psychedelic golden gods.
05:36 Their true form, all orange tendrils, would later be repainted to become crinoids, but
05:41 more on those later.
05:42 6.
05:44 Gods of Ragnarok
05:45 In The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, the Doctor and Ace visit the Psychic Circus, which has
05:50 been taken over by the ancient gods of Ragnarok.
05:53 These ancient beings crave entertainment and wear those in their employ down, demanding
05:58 endless entertainment and new and more exciting and thrilling acts each time.
06:03 The gods were clearly a metaphor for those higher up in the BBC at the time, when Doctor
06:07 Who was on the way out.
06:08 However, from a contemporary perspective, aren't they also a metaphor for the endless
06:12 stream of TV talent shows?
06:14 It's so crazy that during Russell T Davies' first era, when Doctor Who was regularly pitted
06:18 against shows like Britain's Got Talent and The X Factor, that he never considered
06:23 writing a satire of those shows.
06:25 Given how willing everyone was to play along with the reality show satire in Doctor Who's
06:29 very first season, it's strange that they never attempted it.
06:32 But then maybe that's why; the worry that to have a Greatest Show in the Galaxy sequel
06:36 would be too similar to Bad Wolf.
06:38 So it's a good job RTD's coming back, then.
06:42 5.
06:43 Routans
06:44 The Sontarans' mortal enemies may look like balls of snot, but they're deadly shapeshifters
06:49 with plenty of unrealised potential.
06:52 While they've been name-checked in the new series, they've never actually appeared
06:55 in an episode.
06:56 However, they have appeared in multiple comic strips, novels, fan films, and even video
07:00 games.
07:01 It's perhaps the Routans' jellyfish-like appearance that has barred them from returning
07:05 to the series after the horror of Fang Rock.
07:08 How to effectively realise their appearance without being totally embarrassing probably
07:12 makes Doctor Who's practical and visual effects team wake up in a cold sweat.
07:16 However, the Routans are shapeshifters.
07:18 The horror of Fang Rock is essentially John Carpenter's The Thing in a lighthouse.
07:23 No one's sure who's who as this deadly alien works their murderous way through the
07:27 inhabitants of the lighthouse as they assess the strategic importance of planet Earth.
07:32 While the Zygon invasion/inversion has already done the shapeshifting political thriller,
07:37 there's surely plenty of scope for another shapeshifter story in modern Doctor Who.
07:41 Or perhaps given Flux's epic space battles, the time is right to finally see what a Sontaran
07:46 and Routan war actually looks like.
07:49 4.
07:50 The Wirren
07:51 Michael Moffat and Russell T Davies have both sang the praises of the Ark in Space over
07:55 the years, so it's odd that there's never been a sequel.
07:58 Perhaps they felt the pressure of following a story that has such a lauded position in
08:02 the canon.
08:03 It's a shame, because the Wirren are suitably horrifying creations that could be realised
08:07 to great effect with modern visual effects.
08:09 The Wirren are human-sized insect creatures that breed by using cattle species to grow
08:14 their eggs.
08:15 In the Ark in Space, this is the crew of the Nerva Beacon, and is portrayed to horrifying
08:19 effect with some of the most creative use of green bubble wrap that you'll ever see.
08:23 It's so effective that a recent Bruce Willis film called Breach has practically the same
08:28 plot, but couldn't come close to matching the horror, despite the slightly more advanced
08:32 effects work and a higher age rating.
08:35 Maybe this is key to why the Wirren haven't yet returned to the series, as any Doctor
08:39 Who production team is wary of recreating the alchemy of those early Tom Baker stories.
08:44 Regardless, these creepy-crawlies are long overdue a return.
08:48 3.
08:49 Sutek
08:50 Everyone forgets that the fourth episode is actually a bit rubbish, but Pyramids of Mars
08:54 is a stone-cold Doctor Who classic.
08:57 It pits the Doctor against an Egyptian god imprisoned on Mars, and introduces the Asyrans,
09:02 god-like aliens in the Doctor Who universe.
09:05 There have been demonic aliens introduced in the third Doctor era, but here was the
09:09 show tackling the gods themselves.
09:11 Sutek has never returned to the TV series, but one of his relations travelled with the
09:16 tenth Doctor in the comics, Gabriel Wolfe, who played Sutek in Pyramids of Mars, has
09:20 returned to the series, playing the voice of the Beast in The Impossible Planet/The
09:25 Satan Pit.
09:26 To date, however, no Sutek.
09:28 Having the Doctor take on an Egyptian god would be an epic season finale, so it's
09:32 strange that it's not happened yet.
09:34 Now that the MCU is making Egyptology cool again with their Moon Knight series, maybe
09:39 the fourteenth Doctor will be taking on the Asyrans in a future episode.
09:44 It would certainly push the show in a much-needed new direction, away from the alien invasion
09:48 plots that have become overly familiar.
09:51 2.
09:52 The Dream Lord
09:53 Arguably, the Dream Lord is the Valiard, the embodiment of the Doctor's worst impulses.
09:58 However, his genesis is different, the product of spores that find their way into the TARDIS
10:03 systems.
10:04 The Dark Doctor is an incredibly compelling concept, so much so that the Matt Smith era
10:09 tried it again with much less success in Neil Gaiman's difficult second story, Nightmare
10:14 in Silver.
10:15 It's odd that the Dream Lord hasn't returned in the series.
10:17 There certainly appeared to be unfinished business at the end of Amy's Choice.
10:21 The availability of Toby Jones needn't be a problem either, as you could have a different
10:25 Dream Lord for each Doctor actor.
10:27 We've had opportunities for the Doctor actors to play darker versions of themselves over
10:31 the years since Amy's Choice, but nothing that's captured the Doctor's self-loathing
10:35 and anxiety.
10:36 It's strange that a story like Can You Hear Me, which was all about mental health, didn't
10:41 reintroduce the Dream Lord as the embodiment of the Doctor's own anxieties and mental
10:45 health concerns.
10:47 Perhaps the introduction of the Fugitive Doctor put a page to that idea, so for now, the Dream
10:51 Lord is still out there, waiting.
10:54 1.
10:55 The Crinoid
10:56 The Seeds of Doom is an absolute cracker of a Tom Baker story.
10:59 It begins by riffing on the Thing from Another World, long before John Carpenter and Kurt
11:04 Russell did to great acclaim in 1982.
11:06 After the Doctor and Sarah's Antarctic sojourn, they return to the UK to stop unhinged millionaire
11:12 Harrison Chase from playing in his Green Cathedral and unleashing the terrifying crinoid upon
11:18 the world.
11:19 The crinoid are a great creation by Zygon creator Robert Bank Stewart.
11:23 Carnivorous plant life that consume animal life, their pods can transform other beings
11:28 into plant life too, prompting the Doctor to recall that on planets where the crinoid
11:32 take root, all animal life cease to exist.
11:35 The crinoid have dug their tendrils into various bits of Doctor Who spin-off media, but haven't
11:40 yet returned to the series.
11:42 As plant-based diets have become increasingly popular in recent years, and with the return
11:46 of Russell T Davies to the show, the time is surely right for a crinoid return.
11:51 It's in RTD's wheelhouse to use an old Doctor Who monster to comment on our contemporary
11:56 society, and a story about plants that eat humans feels relevant at a time where we're
12:00 all questioning our impact on nature.
12:03 And that concludes our list.
12:04 If you have any other suggestions, then do let us know in the comments below.
12:08 And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification
12:11 bell.
12:12 Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there @whoculture, and I can be found across various
12:16 social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
12:19 I've been Ellie with WhoCulture, and in the words of River Song herself, goodbye,