Top 20 Greatest Doctor Who Villains

The members of this religious order are, as their name implies, entirely lacking in the dome department. The cloaked beings that make up the order are somehow able to continue living without a brain. Allied with a futuristic military branch of the Church, the Headless Monks engage in a plan to kidnap Amy and Rory’s daughter, while also attempting to kill the Doctor. With their creepy cloaks and ominous chanting, which they somehow achieve without mouths, they bring to mind the specter of Death. Their ability to wrap their swords in energy and fire blasts from their hands make them rather threatening. Still, they’re ultimately side players in their only major appearance.

Of the many malignant beings the Doctor has encountered, the Black Guardian is among the most powerful. The embodiment of chaos, evil, and darkness, he stands forever against his opposite, the White Guardian. While he may be more of a behind-the-scenes villain, the Black Guardian’s ambitions have nearly won him artifacts of unimaginable power, such as the Key to Time and Enlightenment itself. He’s even coerced one of the Doctor’s companions into acting as his spy! Although his appearances happened years ago, the Black Guardian’s machinations may have had long-lasting consequences for the Doctor and his other enemies.

When the Doctor and Romana first encounter “Count Scarlioni,” he appears to be scheming to sell supposedly counterfeit versions of the Mona Lisa. But the Doctor soon discovers that the “count” is present in multiple time periods. Scaroth is an alien who was involved in a time vortex accident, causing different versions of himself to be flung across Earth’s history. He’s influenced human development with the goal of eventually traveling back to undo the explosion that caused his condition – even if it means simultaneously undoing human existence. Scaroth may be a one-off villain, but his unique circumstances and ability to match wits with the Doctor make him a particularly memorable one.

The Doctor has encountered many species over the years capable of altering their appearance, and the Zygons are among the most iconic. A race of orange, sucker-covered beings, Zygons are best known for their ability to shapeshift into other intelligent species. Through their technology they can imitate other people, though they usually need the person in question alive for it to work. They’re also able to shoot lightning from their hands. As creepy as they are, Zygons have been cast in a sympathetic light in recent years, with their attempts to integrate into humanity being mostly benign. Plus, we have them to thank for the Loch Ness Monster. Probably.

Some of the best “Doctor Who” monsters take something innocuous and make it scary. In this case, it’s water. When the 10th Doctor goes to humanity’s first Martian base, he arrives just as the astronauts have discovered that they shouldn’t have used ice from the planet. Within it, a viral lifeform, known as the Flood, begins taking over their bodies. The infected humans’ dead-eyed expressions, cracked faces, and ability to generate water make them visually terrifying. While the Doctor and the astronauts manage to contain the threat, we can’t help but think about what may be lurking in our own water.

Another nuclear family of villains, the Family of Blood are from a gaseous race. Able to possess humans, the Family is able to track the Doctor across time and space through scent alone. Even the Doctor turning himself human isn’t enough to throw them off his trail. The mother, father, son, and daughter (of mine) are all ruthless in their pursuit of what they want: longer lives. It’s a mark of what great villains they are that the Doctor decides to give it to them – even if they come to regret it.

This race of humanoid aliens come from the war-obsessed Sontaran Empire. A stocky species with incredible strength, their ranks are made up entirely of clones. With their sole purpose in life being to wage war, they are ruthless and fearless adversaries. Interestingly, they’re able to produce a million clones every four minutes, and their many plans have included making Earth a breeding planet. Despite how much these militaristic aliens love to fight, they were kept out of the Last Great Time War, since neither the Daleks nor the Time Lords trusted them enough to fight alongside them.

This famous monster’s early appearances may be lost to the BBC archives, but he’s made numerous later appearances during Matt Smith’s tenure in the TARDIS. A strange, disembodied consciousness living in the Void, even the Doctor wasn’t sure what the Great Intelligence actually was, only that it was evil and out to get him. After trying to take over Victorian London with an army of snowmen, and then trying to suck people into the wifi, his last attempt to end the Doctor was much more ambitious, travelling into the Doctor’s time stream in order to kill him thousands of times across his history.

An obscenely powerful alien warlord, Sutekh the Destroyer is the basis for the Egyptian god Seth. While he may be imprisoned in a pyramid and basically immobile, the malevolent villain still manages to use his formidable mind to dominate even the Doctor’s will, with the Time Lord only able to escape by dying - temporarily. Sutekh’s intimidating presence and unforgettable voice have made him a perennial favorite antagonist for decades. “Doctor Who” even brought back his voice actor for another character we’ll be discussing shortly. We still have to kneel before Sutekh’s might!

This unnamed creature may only appear once, but it’s still one of the most horrifying things the Doctor has ever encountered! While on a tour bus on a supposedly uninhabitable diamond planet, the Doctor and his fellow passengers hear a knocking sound. The sound increases until the creature making it possesses one of the passengers and rips off the cockpit. The being toys with the passengers and steals the Doctor’s voice right out of his mouth. It very nearly convinces the passengers to kill the Doctor. Can you imagine being forced to order your own murder? This thing still sends shivers down our spines!

What other reason could there be for the doomed planet of Krop-Tor to endlessly orbit a black hole, other than the devil living in its core? A monstrous, fire-breathing humanoid supposedly from before the universe began, this entity claimed to be the inspiration for Satan and demonic imagery, leading to the Doctor having an existential crisis for much of the story’s climax. More sinister was the way the telepathic mind of the beast controlled the vulnerable people above, including Toby the creepy archaeologist and the otherwise-benign Ood in their first appearance. He was defeated after Rose managed to throw him into the black hole itself.

Lots of people are already scared of the dark, but “Doctor Who” manages to make it even more frightening. Vashta Nerada are swarms of microscopic predators. These “piranhas of the air” live in shadows and darkness and can strip flesh from bones in less than a second. The best way to escape them is to stay in the light and count how many shadows someone is casting. As intelligent as they are deadly, Vashta Nerada can puppeteer their victims after death to pursue their prey into the light – meaning nowhere is safe. Perhaps the biggest indicator of how deadly they are is the Doctor’s advice on how to deal with them: [QUOTE]

Taking more than a few cues from what was, at the time, the internet’s most widespread creepypasta, bringing an army of Slenderman-clones to the small screen was more than some kids could handle. Indeed, the Silence were deemed by many to be too scary for “Doctor Who’s” family audience, towering over their victims and making them forget they were ever there. The TARDIS crew find themselves adorned with sinister tallies counting how many of the Silence they’ve seen but can’t remember. Every episode they appeared in was certainly a frightening watch, made worse by the fact we didn’t even find out what they were until the Eleventh Doctor’s regeneration.

What would a sci-fi series like “Doctor Who” be without an alien who follows in the footsteps of Dr. Frankenstein? Davros is responsible for the creation of the Daleks. Davros rivals the Doctor in terms of intellect and is among his most insane and dangerous foes. Once the Dalek emperor, few others in the series can claim to have caused the loss of trillions of lives. Despite their antagonism toward each other, Davros considers the Doctor more of a colleague than an enemy, since he’s the closest thing Davros has to an equal.

There are two different strains of Cybermen out there. In the Doctor’s universe, they originate from Earth’s long-lost twin planet, Mondas, which drifted too far away from the sun and froze over; in order to survive the harsh temperatures, the residents turned themselves into Cybermen. In NuWho, they generally come from Pete’s World, a parallel universe, created by John Lumic as a route towards immortality. Their obsession with “upgrading” all living things to fit their robotic world view has put them up against the Doctor numerous times as one of their most enduring foes.

Hailed as one of the revival series’ best creations, the Weeping Angels made their debut in the spine-chilling series 3 episode “Blink”, itself often claimed to be one of the show’s best ever stories. The frightening statues that only move when they’re not being observed made for some tense moments and a handful of jump scares, feeding on the temporal energy left behind after zapping their victims into the past. The closing reveal that every statue in the world could secretly be a Weeping Angel added a new layer of horror to these fan-favorites – even if their later appearances did get increasingly ridiculous.

You can’t have the Doctor without the Daleks, and you can’t have the Daleks without their creator Davros. Contrary to popular belief though, the Daleks didn’t appear until the second-ever serial – aptly named “The Daleks”. Since then, they’ve had a few showdowns with every Doctor, and remain just as weird but deadly as always. Their creator didn’t appear until much later, not until the Fourth Doctor’s lorded serial “Genesis of the Daleks,” where their origins as radioactive mutants were fully explained. Regardless of where they come from, that cone-shaped exterior and maniacal voice will always be iconic.

The Doctor’s arch-nemesis, long-time rival and frenemy, the Master has had numerous incarnations as the evilest Time Lord in the universe. And despite dying on-screen numerous times with seemingly no hope for return, they always come back. Roger Delgado was the first and often-cited as the best, but NuWho versions have also put their own spin on the iconic role. John Simm’s Master showed up as the Tenth Doctor’s ultimate foe on more than one occasion, while Michelle Gomez became the first female Master – nicknamed Missy – who had a love-hate relationship with Twelve until meeting a grisly demise at the hands of her previous self.