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Not every monster has access to the Daleks' talent agent...
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00:00The Doctor has faced a great deal of terrifying foes throughout their travels.
00:04Given the vast expanse of all of time and space, it's incredibly surprising when the Doctor bumps
00:09into those foes again. Looking through the prism of a long-running television drama that has to
00:14attract audiences, it becomes a lot clearer as to why big hitters like the Daleks, Cybermen,
00:19and the Master all regularly return to ruin the Doctor's day. The Daleks practically secured
00:24Doctor Who's longevity the minute they waved a sucker arm in Barbara's face way back in 1963,
00:30and writers and showrunners repeatedly return to the Daleks nearly six decades later.
00:36Some monsters and villains don't get as lucky as the Daleks and the Master, however.
00:41It's not for lack of trying. The Sea Devils, for example, were a huge part of the cultural memory
00:46of 1970s Doctor Who. The Zygons from 1975's Tom Baker serial captured the imagination of a young
00:53David Tennant, but they didn't return to the series until 2013. And then there are monsters
00:58even unluckier than that, those who are clearly brilliant, but have, to date, never returned
01:04to the TV series. So with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with Who Culture, here with 10 Doctor Who
01:10villains you're surprised only appeared once.
01:1310. Fenric
01:15Fenric and the Doctor have a long history with each other. First appearing in the seventh Doctor
01:19classic The Curse of Fenric, he was the original evil from the dawn of time. An earlier incarnation
01:25of the Doctor and Fenric first met in 3rd century Constantinople, where the Doctor defeated the
01:30intelligence in a game of chess and imprisoned him in a flask. From his prison, Fenric manipulated
01:36the seventh Doctor's timeline in order to free himself from his prison. The Doctor and Ace
01:40eventually defeated Fenric once more, but the old evil played a big role in the seventh Doctor's
01:45Big Finish series of audios. Fenric was intrinsically linked to the legendary Cartmall Master plan that
01:51would suggest the Doctor was more than a Time Lord. With that in mind, it wouldn't be beyond the realms
01:56of possibility for Fenric to have been defeated by Joe Martin's Fugitive Doctor in the employ of
02:01Division, or by another of the Timeless Doctors. Whichever Doctor defeated him first, it's surely
02:06time for another rematch. If only so the Doctor's last important chess game wasn't that awful one from
02:12Nightmare in Silver. 9. Eternals
02:15Enlightenment is one of the best Peter Davison serials. Taking place during an intergalactic
02:20yacht race, it introduces the Eternals as godlike beings that play games with dispensable human
02:25pawns for prizes. The Doctor is rightly horrified, and his confrontation with Stryker gives Davison
02:32some of his best material in the role. The Eternals have been mentioned in passing throughout the
02:37new series, but haven't yet made a return. Or at least not explicitly. In the 13th Doctor adventure
02:42Can You Hear Me?, the TARDIS team come up against Zelin, who can manifest people's fears and do weird
02:48things with his fingers. He tricks the Doctor into freeing his lover Rakaia, but is of course
02:52eventually defeated.
02:54While not explicitly referenced as Eternals on screen, a tie-in story entitled The Guide to the Dark Times was
03:01published in the official Doctor Who Annual 2021. Written by River Song, it outlines the history of
03:07the mythical Dark Times and suggests that Zelin and Rakaia were Eternals. Regardless of whether this was
03:13the intention of the original script, a Doctor Who story that tackles gods who treat human beings as
03:17toys would be fantastic. I mean, it's a regular fallback plot across the Star Trek series, so isn't it about
03:23time that the Doctor had their own queue?
03:26Number 8. Scarison
03:27The Zygons finally returned to Doctor Who in the 2010s, but when they did, their pet Scarison was
03:34nowhere to be found. In their original story, Terror of the Zygons, this terrifying creature was key to
03:40the story. The Scarison was revealed to be the actual Loch Ness Monster, and the Zygons themselves survived
03:46on the creature's milk. Loch Ness Monster Milk, a product that even the Scottish Tourist Board wouldn't
03:51even consider marketing. The realisation of the Scarison on screen was one of those notoriously
03:57ropey Doctor Who monsters, so it's perhaps unsurprising that the Scarison hasn't yet made
04:02an appearance in the new series. After all, it hardly fits with the Zygon invasion in Virgin's
04:07political allegory of terrorism and immigration. However, if Legend of the Sea Devils can reinvent
04:13the Mirka as a terrifying sea creature, then they can do the same for the Scarison. Perhaps a period
04:18adventure set around the time of the first Nessie sighting, where curious scientists accidentally
04:23awaken the Zygons under the loch a few decades early. Scotland is all too rarely visited in Doctor
04:29Who, so it is about time that it paid Nessie the Scarison a visit.
04:33Number 7. The Axons
04:35The John Pertwee serial The Claws of Axos is a bit of an underrated classic. It's the first story by
04:40Bob
04:41Baker and Dave Martin, who would go on to co-create K9 and tackle some very timely concerns around energy.
04:47With the world facing an energy crisis, alien visitors land in the English home counties
04:52to offer clean, renewable energy to humanity. Of course, their gift comes at a price, and soon
04:58the Doctor has to team up with the Master to avert their dastardly plans, trapping them inside a time
05:03loop. The Axons are still stuck in that time loop on screen, though they've occasionally escaped to
05:08wreak havoc in two big Finnish audios, the second of which is to be released later this year.
05:13As humanity continues to discuss the financial and environmental costs of fuel,
05:18surely the Axons are primed for a comeback. It would surely be a foolish endeavour for the
05:22Axons to try the same grift twice, but humanity's never been great at learning from their history.
05:28It would take the Doctor to pop in and save us from our own errors once more.
05:31They're an incredibly striking looking creation, though, sort of psychedelic golden gods. Their true
05:36form, all orange tendrils, would later be repainted to become crinoids, but more on those later.
05:426. Gods of Ragnarok
05:45In the greatest show in the galaxy, the Doctor and Ace visit the psychic circus,
05:50which has been taken over by the ancient gods of Ragnarok. These ancient beings crave entertainment
05:55and wear those in their employ down, demanding endless entertainment and new and more exciting
06:01and thrilling acts each time. The gods were clearly a metaphor for those higher up in the BBC at the
06:06time,
06:06when Doctor Who was on the way out. However, from a contemporary perspective,
06:10aren't they also a metaphor for the endless stream of TV talent shows? It's so crazy that during Russell
06:15T Davies' first era, when Doctor Who was regularly pitted against shows like Britain's Got Talent
06:20and The X Factor, that he never considered writing a satire of those shows. Given how willing everyone
06:26was to play along with the reality show satire in Doctor Who's very first season, it's strange that
06:31they never attempted it. But then maybe that's why, the worry that to have a greatest show in the galaxy
06:36sequel would be too similar to Bad Wolf. So it's a good job RTD's coming back then.
06:415. Rootans
06:43The Sontarans' mortal enemies may look like balls of snot, but they're deadly shapeshifters with
06:49plenty of unrealised potential. While they've been name-checked in the new series, they've never
06:54actually appeared in an episode. However, they have appeared in multiple comic strips, novels,
06:59fan films, and even video games. It's perhaps the Rootans' jellyfish-like appearance that has barred
07:04them from returning to the series after the horror of Fang Rock. How to effectively realise their
07:10appearance without being totally embarrassing probably makes Doctor Who's practical and visual
07:14effects team wake up in a cold sweat. However, the Rootans are shapeshifters. The horror of Fang
07:19Rock is essentially John Carpenter's The Thing in a lighthouse. No one's sure who's who as this deadly
07:25alien works their murderous way through the inhabitants of the lighthouse as they assess
07:29the strategic importance of planet Earth. While the Zygon invasion-slash-inversion has already done
07:35the shapeshifting political thriller, there's surely plenty of scope for another shapeshifter
07:39story in modern Doctor Who. Or perhaps given Flux's epic space battles, the time is right to finally
07:45see what a Sontaran and Rootan war actually looks like.
07:494. The Wirren
07:51Stephen Moffat and Russell T. Davies have both sang the praises of The Ark in Space
07:55over the years, so it's odd that there's never been a sequel. Perhaps they felt the pressure
07:59of following a story that has such a lauded position in the canon. It's a shame because
08:03the Wirren are suitably horrifying creations that could be realised to great effect with modern
08:08visual effects. The Wirren are human-sized insect creatures that breed by using cattle species to
08:14grow their eggs. In The Ark in Space, this is the crew of the Nerva Beacon and is portrayed to
08:19horrifying effect with some of the most creative use of green bubble wrap that you'll ever see.
08:24It's so effective that a recent Bruce Willis film called Breach has practically the same plot,
08:29but couldn't come close to matching the horror, despite the slightly more advanced effects work
08:33and a higher age rating. Maybe this is key to why the Wirren haven't yet returned to the series,
08:39as any Doctor Who production team is wary of recreating the alchemy of those early Tom Baker
08:43stories. Regardless, these creepy-crawlies are long overdue a return.
08:483. Sutek Everyone forgets that the fourth episode is actually a bit rubbish,
08:53but Pyramids of Mars is a stone-cold Doctor Who classic. It pits the Doctor against an Egyptian god
08:59imprisoned on Mars and introduces the Assyrians, god-like aliens in the Doctor Who universe.
09:05There had been demonic aliens introduced in the Third Doctor era, but here was the show
09:09tackling the gods themselves. Sutek has never returned to the TV series, but one of his relations
09:15travelled with the Tenth Doctor in the comics. Gabriel Wolf, who played Sutek in Pyramids of
09:20Mars, has returned to the series, playing the voice of the Beast in the Impossible Planet
09:24slash the Satan Pit. To date, however, no Sutek. Having the Doctor take on an Egyptian god would be an
09:30epic season finale, so it's strange that it's not happened yet. Now that the MCU is making Egyptology
09:37cool again with their Moon Knight series, maybe the Fourteenth Doctor will be taking on the Assyrians
09:42in a future episode. It would certainly push the show in a much-needed new direction, away from the
09:47alien invasion plots that have become overly familiar. 2. The Dream Lord
09:53Arguably, the Dream Lord is the Valiard, the embodiment of the Doctor's worst impulses. However,
09:59his genesis is different, the product of spores that find their way into the TARDIS systems.
10:04The Dark Doctor is an incredibly compelling concept, so much so that the Matt Smith era tried it again
10:09with much less success in Neil Gaiman's difficult second story, Nightmare in Silver. It's odd that
10:15the Dream Lord hasn't returned in the series. There certainly appeared to be unfinished business
10:19at the end of Amy's Choice. The availability of Toby Jones needn't be a problem either,
10:24as you could have a different Dream Lord for each Doctor actor. We've had opportunities for the Doctor
10:29actors to play darker versions of themselves over the years since Amy's Choice, but nothing that's
10:34captured the Doctor's self-loathing and anxiety. It's strange that a story like Can You Hear Me,
10:39which was all about mental health, didn't reintroduce the Dream Lord as the embodiment
10:43of the Doctor's own anxieties and mental health concerns. Perhaps the introduction of the Fugitive
10:48Doctor put Paige to that idea, so for now, the Dream Lord is still out there, waiting.
10:541. The Crinoid The Seeds of Doom is an absolute cracker of a Tom Baker story.
10:59It begins by riffing on The Thing From Another World, long before John Carpenter and Kurt Russell
11:04did to great acclaim in 1982. After the Doctor and Sarah's Antarctic sojourn, they return to the UK
11:11to stop unhinged millionaire Harrison Chase from playing in his green cathedral and unleashing the
11:17terrifying Crinoid upon the world. The Crinoid are a great creation by Zygon creator Robert Banks
11:23Stewart, carnivorous plant life that consume animal life. Their pods can transform other
11:28beings into plant life too, prompting the Doctor to recall that on planets where the Crinoid take
11:32root, all animal life cease to exist. The Crinoid have dug their tendrils into various bits of Doctor
11:38Who spin-off media, but haven't yet returned to the series. As plant-based diets have become
11:43increasingly popular in recent years, and with the return of Russell T Davies to the show,
11:48the time is surely right for a Crinoid return. It's in RTD's wheelhouse to use an old Doctor Who
11:54monster to comment on our contemporary society, and a story about plants that eat humans feels
11:59relevant at a time where we're all questioning our impact on nature.
12:03And that concludes our list. If you have any other suggestions, then do let us know in the
12:07comments below, and while you're there don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.
12:12Also head over to Twitter and follow us there, at WhoCulture, and I can be found across various social
12:17medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with WhoCulture, and in the words of
12:22River Song herself, goodbye, sweeties.
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