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Some Doctor Who villains are far more cunning than others...
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00:00When you stand back and look at Doctor Who, the majority of the villains weren't all-powerful
00:04beings. They're scavengers, taking advantage of whatever's to hand to make the most of a bad
00:09situation. Maybe that makes them smart, maybe that makes them lazy, but whichever way you look
00:13at it, you'd be hard-pressed to find a scheme that wouldn't have succeeded if it wasn't for
00:18the Doctor's intervention. Pretty much every villain the Doctor has fought would have got
00:22away with it if it wasn't for the Doctor or their companion saving the day. And some of them had
00:27some pretty smarty-pants plans that we're genuinely impressed by. And so, with that in mind,
00:33I'm Ellie with Who Culture, here with the 10 smartest villain plans in Doctor Who.
00:38Number 10. Miss Foster in Partners in Crime. One surefire way to invade without resistance
00:45is to trick the population into thinking you're offering them something they want.
00:48That's the tactic Matron Cophilia under the alias Miss Foster took when she was tasked with
00:53finding a new breeding world for the adipose. She capitalised on 21st century Britain's obsession
00:59with weight loss by distributing a too-good-to-be-true diet pill, which, when activated,
01:04turned excess human fat into adipose babies. It's the one plan on this list that, in fairness,
01:10might have actually benefited humanity under more agreeable conditions. Even the Doctor eventually
01:15admits that as a diet plan, it sort of works. It's just the same that using a level 5 planet
01:20for
01:20breeding is against galactic law. Besides, Miss Foster had her eyes on much more than just weight
01:25loss. Ultimately, she planned to conduct emergency pathogenesis, a process by which human hair,
01:31bones, and organs can also be converted, leaving nothing left. The Doctor was able to put a stop
01:36to the scheme by hacking the adipose computer, but there was nothing he could do about the adipose
01:41that had already been bred, other than let them live, which means that, to quote the Doctor himself,
01:45Miss Foster's plan sort of worked. 9. The Master in Frontier in Space
01:51The first Master, brought to life so brilliantly by Roger Delgado, had his fair share of evil schemes,
01:58from the bonkers to the brilliant. Frontier in Space most definitely falls into the latter category.
02:03In the 26th century, humans and draconians are able to exist alongside each other, but allegations of
02:09attacks on each other's territory are rife, heightening tensions between the two species.
02:14The real culprit? The Commissioner of Sirius IV, otherwise known as The Master, who is using a
02:20hypnosound machine to disguise ogrons as humans and draconians, with the intention of provoking a
02:26full-scale war. As revealed at the serial's end, this is part of a larger plan to pave the way
02:31for
02:32a Dalek invasion. Unfortunately, we never got to see the end result of this invasion, nor how The
02:37Master's alliance with the Daleks ended. In fact, Frontier in Space marks Roger Delgado's final
02:43appearance in the show, as he would tragically pass away shortly after the story first broadcast.
02:49Had he been around to feature in the following season, we might have seen an even more audacious
02:53scheme from this Master. But as things stand, this is definitely his most ambitious.
02:598. The Ravagers in Flux
03:01The Ravagers, otherwise known as Swarm and Azure, were the overarching antagonists of Series 13,
03:07and for a while, we were constantly in the dark about their true motives. But if you stand back
03:12and look at it, their plan, though technically complex, is actually pretty simple. Swarm and
03:17Azure are the ultimate scavengers. Their initial aim is revenge against the Doctor and Division for
03:22imprisoning them all those years ago, and how do they go about doing this? By using Division's most
03:27powerful weapons against it. After building a psychotemporal bridge capable of reaching Division's
03:33space, the pair are able to complete the first part of their plan, doing away with head honcho
03:38Tectaeun. But their ultimate goal is to do away with all physical things in the universe.
03:43And how? By hijacking the Flux to create endless destruction, and then using time to replay that
03:49destruction in an endless loop. If the Doctor hadn't managed to, in turn, hijack the Flux against
03:54them, the Ravagers would have succeeded, with devastating results for the entire universe.
04:007. Scaroth in City of Death
04:03Scaroth, last of the Jaggeroth, is a textbook example of making the most of a bad situation.
04:09When his ship exploded in prehistoric Earth, he was flung into the Time Vortex and split into 12
04:14splinters of himself, scattered across Earth's history. Scaroth's 12th incarnation found himself
04:20in Paris 1979, a period where, obviously, time travel had not yet developed. However, there was
04:26nothing to stop him developing it prematurely by conducting his own experiments. There was just
04:31one problem. Time travel experiments aren't cheap. Fortunately, one of Scaroth's splinters,
04:36Captain Tancredi, was a contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci, who he persuaded to paint a further six
04:42copies of the Mona Lisa. These could then be sold in 1979 to make a quick buck. In the end,
04:48Scaroth's ultimate plan, to go back in time and prevent his ship from exploding, was sabotaged.
04:52But his plan was very smart, and he was successful in one regard. When most copies of the Mona Lisa
04:58are destroyed in a fire, including the original, the only copy left is one of Scaroth's fakes.
05:04So, in a sense, we've got him to thank for the fact that the painting still exists today.
05:086. Missy in Dark Water and Death in Heaven
05:12The Master's regeneration into a woman was the single biggest change to the character in their
05:18then 43-year history, as reflected by their temporary name change to Missy. But one thing
05:24that hadn't changed was the Master's knack for a good old evil plan. They'd always enjoyed playing
05:29the long game, but Missy took it to the extreme, establishing herself as a god-like figure and
05:34picking up the Doctor's departed friends in a series of cameos across Series 8, apparently set
05:39in heaven. Of course, the truth was a lot darker. In reality, this mystery location was the
05:45Nether Sphere, a cloud-based depository to which mines were uploaded and then downloaded into new
05:51Cyberman bodies. Missy's ultimate aim? To gift this new army of Cybermen to the Doctor as a birthday
05:58present. But there's more. How did the Doctor become embroiled in Missy's plan? Through his
06:03companion Clara, whose partner Danny was killed in a hit-and-run. Might Missy have been the one
06:08driving the car to ensure the whole chain of events was set in motion? Well, it's not the most
06:12unlikely headcanon. Number 5, Davros in Revelation of the Daleks. Missy wasn't the only one to take
06:19advantage of dead bodies. In fact, the Doctor's other nemesis, Davros, got there first, fashioning
06:24a new race of Daleks from the dead. And having established himself as the head of funeral parlor
06:29Tranquil Repose, he was perfectly placed to do so. This wasn't the only string to Davros's bow,
06:35however. Ever resourceful, he used the remains of these, well, remains, to create a revolutionary new
06:41food source for a famine-ridden galaxy. This, in turn, bolstered his reputation as the philanthropic
06:47Great Healer, which enabled him to continue his experiments unnoticed. Like Missy, Davros used one
06:53of the Doctor's friends to lure him to his lair, the late Arthur Stengoss. Unlike Missy, however,
06:59his aims were more traditional, to conquer the universe. What he hadn't counted on was two of
07:04Tranquil Repose's staff allying themselves with the rival renegade faction of Daleks who were intent on
07:10recapturing Davros and putting him on trial, a goal they managed to achieve. In the commotion,
07:15he lost his surviving hand, hence why the Davros of the Revival series has a metal gauntlet.
07:21Number 4. Rasmussen in Sleep No More
07:24Like Miss Foster, Professor Gagin Rasmussen came up with a solution to one of humanity's biggest bugbears.
07:31Sleep. The average person spends one-third of their life sleeping. Rasmussen sought to do something
07:35about this, and he succeeded. His Morpheus pods, named after the God of Dreams, were capable of
07:41concentrating a month of sleep into five minutes, enabling its user to spend more time awake. They
07:47were loved by some and hated by others, but you can't deny that, at least in principle, it's not
07:52a bad idea. But there was a catch. When we sleep, dust builds up in the corner of our eyes.
07:57The more time
07:58we spend asleep, the more this dust builds up, and the electronic signal transmitted by the Morpheus pods
08:03had the unfortunate catch of giving this dust sentience, creating carnivorous sandmen. Which
08:08is kind of gross when you think about it. I mean, the sleepy dust in your eyes making creatures?
08:13Grim. The Doctor managed to destroy the Morpheus pods which hadn't yet been distributed,
08:17and sought to destroy all those that had. But Rasmussen, being a genius, had one more trick up his
08:22sleeve. A video recording into which the Morpheus signal was encoded, infecting anyone who watched it.
08:28And not just any video recording, but the very episode of Doctor Who we'd all just witnessed.
08:33Does anyone else feel like they need to rub their eyes now?
08:36Number 3. Rassilon in the Five Doctors
08:39As one of the founders of Time Lord Society, it was important that Rassilon maintained his position.
08:45So he designed a test, the game of Rassilon, for anyone who sought to usurp him. And in fairness,
08:51it worked. The challenge? To reach Rassilon's tomb in the Death Zone on Gallifrey. The reward?
08:57The Ring of Rassilon, which bestows immortality upon its wearer. At least this is what fellow Time Lord
09:02Berusa understood the game of Rassilon to be. But there was a catch. A riddle hidden in plain sight,
09:08inscribed on an obelisk in the tomb. To lose is to win, and he who wins shall lose.
09:14Though that clearly sounds like a warning, Berusa doesn't care one bit. As he discovers,
09:19the Ring of Rassilon does indeed grant its wearer immortality, albeit not in the form of perpetual
09:24regeneration, but perpetual imprisonment. As a mummified face on the side of Rassilon's sarcophagus.
09:30It is quite different to the other plans on this list, since the Doctor was quite happy to stand
09:35back and let it reach fruition. But no less ingenious.
09:39Number 2. The Slitheen in Aliens of London and World War 3
09:43Let's face it, the Slitheen are remembered for one thing and one thing only. But forget about the
09:47flatulence, and you're left with a surprisingly canny, watertight plan. This was 21st Century Who's
09:54first fully-fledged alien invasion. And showrunner Russell T. Davis certainly pulled out all the stops,
09:59coming up with something truly special. It all begins with that iconic shot of a spaceship
10:04scuffing the side of Big Ben before landing in the Thames. Its pilot? A spacesuit-clad pig,
10:10designed to distract from the real aliens while they establish themselves at the heart of the
10:14British government. Their goal? To incite enough panic to initiate a third world war, reducing the
10:20Earth to smithereens which can then be sold on the black market. Meanwhile, they can escape in their
10:25spaceship conveniently parked at the bottom of the Thames. Staging a fake alien invasion in order
10:30to further your own is a frankly genius move, and quite unlike anything we'd seen in the show up to
10:36this point. It's never going to be the thing the Slitheen are best remembered for, but that doesn't
10:40stop it from being a genuinely brilliant plan. Number 1. The Monks in The Monk Trilogy
10:46The Monks are, without a doubt, the most duplicitous race to ever stage an invasion of Earth. For one
10:52thing, they had a lot of practice, using a highly sophisticated simulation of the planet to determine
10:57the optimum time and place to strike. For another, they rule not through force, but through a contract
11:03of consent. Once they've secured that consent by, for example, posing as saviors in the face of a
11:08genuine natural catastrophe and framing their dominion as the least worst option, there's no
11:13going back. The monks had used this strategy to conquer a multitude of planets, and Earth was no
11:18exception, the catastrophe in question being the accidental creation of a deadly bacteria.
11:23Fast forward six months, and they've subjugated the planet's population. For a time, it seems even
11:28the Doctor has fallen under their spell. Ultimately, though, Bill is able to corrupt the Monks' propaganda
11:33with memories of her mother, but if it wasn't for that, their reign might never have ended.
11:38What's more, unlike most villains on this list, the Monks escaped with their lives, and arguably in a
11:43stronger position than they were in before. It's surely only a matter of time before they just strike again.
11:48And that concludes our list. If you think we missed any, then do let us know in the comments below,
11:53and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe, and tap that notification bell so you
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12:01as well. I've been Ellie with Who Culture, and in the words of Riversong herself, goodbye, sweeties.