Top 10 Most Hated Doctor Who Characters

While many might be hankering to have her alongside Jodie Whittaker, there are many others hoping that with Steven Moffat’s departure, River Song is gone for good. She was initially an intriguing character when the Doctor first met her, and actress Alex Kingston didn’t think she would reappear. But of course, she did, and we were given one of the most convoluted character arcs in the show’s history. River turns out to be Amy and Rory’s kidnapped daughter Melody, raised as an assassin bent on killing the Doctor who ends up falling in love with and marrying him, and then never quite managing to stay dead.

Murdering humans and wearing their skin a a disguise is a concept that definitely has the makings of a good villain, but the Slitheen design has always left much to be desired. They’re certainly unique, being big, green farting-machines that explode when doused in vinegar, but might have worked better if they never reappeared after the first series. Unfortunately, “The Sarah Jane Adventures” just had to keep bringing them back, and where they were once fast and formidable, they became slow, stupid caricatures of themselves. They got overused quickly, and the introduction of the Blathereen only made this worse.

In order to introduce an overarching conflict between Clara’s travels with the Doctor and her ordinary day-job, Danny Pink was brought in as her Doctor-hating boyfriend. We’ve already seen plenty of characters concerned about the danger of travelling with the Doctor, including both Jackie Tyler and Francine Jones, but Danny was immediately positioned at odds with him. When Danny finally kicked the bucket, it was because he didn’t look both ways when he crossed the road, and his character did little more than offer Clara a handful of slightly-interesting moments. And whatever happened to the hints that Orson Pink was Clara and Danny’s descendent?

The most polarising full-time companion in the revival, Clara is either loved or hated with little in between. What little substance she has is mostly down to Jenna Coleman’s worthy performance, as she tries to play a character who has, well, no character. Stunted in the seventh series by the ongoing mystery around her, she doesn’t really become a person until series eight and beyond. Even then, interesting questions about her mother’s death or what happened to all those echoes she made are simply forgotten – ironic, considering many regard Oswin and the Victorian governess Clara as vastly more endearing.

Time travel is a complicated beast, and before River’s non-linear chronology showed up, we first had Mel Bush, who was introduced to the Doctor as a witness at his own trial – though he had yet to meet her. But this arc, which was new and exciting at the time, isn’t the reason why people don’t remember her fondly; that has more to do with her entire personality. A straight-laced girl who always wanted to play by the rules was never really a great pick for a “Doctor Who” companion, and most audiences related more to Ace at the time – who also couldn’t put up with her.

It’s always going to be controversial to hate any of the Doctors, but the Sixth Doctor was one of many casualties of what many saw as poor show-running in the 1980s. Colin Baker certainly could have been memorable for all the right reasons with better scripts and creative guidance, but the show’s efforts to lighten the tone made him an unpleasant and angry Doctor to be around. It didn’t help that his ridiculous, brightly-coloured coat was completely at odds with his new sour personality, and the people who had just said goodbye to the much-loved Peter Davison were not happy.

He’s one of the few characters who actually got kicked off the TARDIS by the Doctor because of the way he acted! While Adam was okay – if slightly irrelevant – in his debut in “Dalek”, by the end of “The Long Game” fans were glad to see the back of him. Left on his own by the Doctor and Rose, he spends his day abusing time travel by trying to steal future technology. To top it all off, he goes and gets brain surgery, giving himself an info-spike. He even came back as a villain in the comics, resenting the Doctor for never letting him be a proper companion.

One obnoxious boy-genius leads into another, and before there was Adam Mitchell there was his even more despised precursor, Adric. The Doctor having a non-human companion doesn’t happen too often, which initially made him more interesting. But this Alzarian turned out to be an irritating know-it-all who thought he was cleverer than the titular Time Lord. Audiences had no idea why they decided to travel with him for so long, and their distaste was solidified when it turned out that Adric – by being less clever than he thought he was – failed to stop the extinction of the dinosaurs.

If the Sixth Doctor was a bad hero for the show’s run in the ‘80s, then the Kandyman was an even worse villain. “Doctor Who” has never been above having stupid villains, thanks to it being stuck with a relatively low budget for much of its duration, and audiences are always having to suspend their disbelief to get along with the episodes. But the Kandyman, an evil, robotic executioner clearly modelled off Bertie Bassett the liquorice mascot, is clearly the result of a horrible fever dream. Luckily, the Seventh Doctor managed to defeat him with a bottle of lemonade.

Credit where credit’s due, the Abzorbaoff was actually the creation of one lucky 9-year-old winner of a “Blue Peter” competition. But while it was an interesting concept, it never quite translated to screen. Despite landing Peter Kay for the role, the Abzorbaloff was nothing short of ridiculous, obsessed with “absorbing” the Doctor. “Love & Monsters” is one of the show’s most reviled episodes, partly because of it being the first Doctor-lite episode and partly because of the stupidity of its villain. The intriguing story of what happens to the people the Doctor leaves behind is overshadowed by this green man from Clom.