Doctor Who/Characters/Aliens and Monsters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Classic Monsters

Daleks
There's a problem with the Daleks. They are the most famous of the Doctor's adversaries and the most frequent, which means they are the most reliably defeatable enemies in the universe.
—Steven Moffat, in 2011
Voiced by: Peter Hawkins (1963-67); David Graham (1963-66); Roy Skelton (1967, 1973, 1975-83, 1985-88);[1] Oliver Martin and Peter Messaline (1972); Michael Wisher (1973-74); Brian Miller (1984, 1988); Royce Mills (1984-88); Nicholas Briggs (2005-present)[when?]

A race of xenophobic mutants, native to the planet Skaro, whose general purpose for existence is to eradicate all non-Dalek forms of life in the universe. Created by a guy named Davros, although others have made their own Daleks as well. The Daleks' physical form is actually shriveled and weak, but make up for that by having each individual travel in a distinctive set of mobile armor. The first villainous alien race introduced in the franchise (in the SECOND serial, in fact), and one of the most enduringly popular.

  • Absolute Xenophobe: "There is only one kind of life that matters. Dalek life."
    • They're so xenophobic that even a small amount of non-Dalek material in their flesh drives them mad and/or suicidal. As cloning and/or genetic manipulation seems to be their primary means of reproduction, even being created from altered non-Dalek or non-Kaled cells is unacceptable for them. "Impure" Daleks will eagerly line up for disintegration to preserve the species' purity.
  • Exclusively Evil: Somewhat averted in the new series, particularly with Dalek Sec and to a lesser extent Dalek Caan. But they are generally the exception that proves the rule, and did not change on their own. The overwhelming majority are ruthless killing machines.
  • Arch Enemy: The species as a whole.
  • Attack Its Weak Point: The eyestalk. Hitting it with enough power will kill the Dalek, and blinding it will cause the creature to panic. Became much less of a Weaksauce Weakness in the new series; their force field protects it (the Doctor claims concentrating fire on it could work, but this appears to have mixed results), and trying to blind it with paint only worked for a second. River managed to kill one with a blast to the eyestalk, but this particular Dalek was already in such poor shape that it needed several minutes to recharge between shots.
  • Big Bad: Archenemies of the Doctor, and just about everything else in the universe that is not a Dalek. Quite fond of the Evil Plan in the new series, to the point where it's a surprise not to find them the masterminds behind the season's Apocalypse How. Main Antagonists of the 2005 and 2008 series.
  • Bond Villain Stupidity: All enemies of the Doctor suffer this to some extent, but the Daleks compound it with...
    • Wrong Genre Savvy: The Daleks are well aware the Doctor always has something up his sleeve, and they also know he's good at not getting killed, so being able to kill him effortlessly, they reason, is never going to happen, so they let the Doctor talk/screw around with the Sonic Screwdriver in the hopes they can anticipate whatever backup plans he had to screw them over, then they figure he can be killed. Often enough, there was never a plan to begin with.
  • Breakout Villain: They very nearly never appeared at all, but are now at least as iconic as the TARDIS.
  • Canon Discontinuity: Several bits of the Daleks' stories are continually discarded for one reason or another. This ranges from the time the producers tried to make them comic relief to that time the guy who made them forgot that they weren't robots.
  • Catch Phrase: "EX-TER-MI-NATE!"
    • There's also "EX-PLAIN! EX-PLAIN!", "I OBEY!", and "MY VISION IS IMPAIRED! I CANNOT SEE!"
  • Creepy Monotone: Averted. It sounds more like they're trying to choke back their disgust with all other life.
  • Conservation of Ninjutsu: One Dalek? You're so screwed. A full Dalek Empire? They're so screwed.
  • Cyber Cyclops: The production team has added pupils to the latest models, making the eye-stalk look almost organic.
  • Deflector Shields: The revival gave them personal force-fields that can melt bullets before they even hit home.
  • Determinator: They never give up. You have to admire a species that manages to survive even after being made extinct. Repeatedly.
  • The Dreaded: In a universe full of any number of beasties, |psychopaths and gods, the Daleks are consistently shown to be the #1 fear of those who've fought them. This includes the Doctor.
  • Everything's Better with Spinning: Averted with Daleks, who have a tendency to spin around in circles before they blow up.
  • Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: They feel this way about every single non-Dalek in the universe.
  • Immune to Bullets: They're vaporized by a forcefield before they can make contact.
  • Joker Immunity: Too iconic to ever kill off.
    • They've been completely wiped out to the last in their first appearance, and several times ever since. A that point, being completely destroyed only to return later is as much part of their character than their voices or their casings.
  • Master Race: Self-described as of Victory of the Daleks; the fundamental basis and belief of their entire culture.
  • Mutant Alien Cyborg Nazi
  • Nigh Invulnerability: They started out as pretty much tanks, and since the revival they have forcefields that make them immune nearly everything except their own weapons, only because there aren't any defenses against them. Earlier stories had their eyestalks, but that's a very small target (and the force field covers that now, too).
    • Energy Weapons of sufficient power seem to do the job; the modified defabricator blows them clean open, and the lightning guns from parallel Earth / Pete's World were at least able to disable them for a while. Other Pete's World weapons seemed specifically designed to kill them.
  • No Indoor Voice
  • Omnicidal Maniacs
  • Pure Is Not Good: obsessed with genetic purity and exterminating everything else.
  • Roar Before Beating: "EX-TER-MI-NATE!"
  • Scary Dogmatic Aliens: They're Nazis In Space!, with the odd religious fundamentalist overtone in the new series.
  • Significant Anagram: The Daleks were originally engineered from a race called the Kaleds.
  • Spikes of Villainy: Not on their cases, but on their DNA.
  • Starfish Aliens: What the Daleks are within their metal casings.
  • Talking Lightbulb: Their "ear-lamps" flash in time with their speech.
  • Turned Against Their Masters: They do this very often, mainly because Davros has no sense of pattern recognition.
  • Worthy Opponent: The Doctor. They hate him with a passion that burns with all the hate they can muster, but they also respect him so much that their equipment will accept his word on if an individual is a Dalek, even if their DNA is too degraded to actually register as one.

Mondasian Cybermen

You belong to us. You shall be like us.

Voiced by: Roy Skelton [2] and Peter Hawkins (1966-68); Peter Halliday (1968); Christopher Robbie and Melville Jones (1975); David Banks (1982-88); Mark Hardy (1982-83, 1988); William Kenton (1983); Michael Kilgarriff and John Ainley (1985); Brian Orrell (1985-88); Nicholas Briggs (2010-11)

The Mondas/Telos Cybermen come from the tenth planet of the Earth's solar system ("Earth's long-lost twin planet").[3] Have been around for a while, first appearing in "The Tenth Planet" in 1966. Shown little consistency in appearance, other than usually having "handlebars" on the sides of their heads.

Ice Warriors

Played by: Bernard Bresslaw, Roger Jones and and Michael Attwell (1967); Tony Harwood (1967-69); Sonny Caldinez (1967-74); Steve Peters and Graham Leaman (1969); Alan Bennion (1969-74)

A race of reptilian aliens who come from Mars, the Ice Warriors were the third species of big bads in Doctor Who—resulting in several appearances throughout the Second and Third Doctor eras... but they basically vanished with the end of the Third Doctor's run on the show in 1974 (around the time that space probes in Real Life proved Mars to be barren). Efforts have been made to bring them back from time to time—but the final attempt was scheduled to be in the 1990 season of Doctor Who... and with the series canned/put on hiatus in 1989.

They did eventually get nods in "The Christmas Invasion" and "The Waters Of Mars" (though the former was a little more subtle), which makes some fans wonder if they will return at some point.

  • Big Bad Ensemble: Before they vanished, these guys were the third biggest alien villains for the Second and Third Doctors.
  • Heel Face Turn: Their first two serials have them as the villains, but since Jon Pertwee's first brush with them they've alternated between friends and foes (one of them even became a companion in the Expanded Universe).
  • Last of Their Kind: Since Mars is somewhat unhospitable to them after some unspeakable event in their past, it's a little hard for the species to continue - especially when they keep getting wiped out whenever they encounter the Doctor.
    • To make matters worse, the Expanded Universe puts the Doctor essentially at fault for said unspeakable event. Whoops.
  • Monster Lord: their leaders are smaller, slimmer and less heavily-armoured than the usual soldiers. They are often referred to in fanon as "Ice Lords", although this is never used in on-screen dialogue.
  • Proud Warrior Race
    • Subverted in the Virgin New Adventures novel The Dying Days where the Ice Warriors encountered there claim to be this but are psychotic monsters.
  • Put on a Bus: They've basically vanished completely since 1974.
  • The Reptilians
  • Super Soldier

Time Lords
And what of the Time Lords? I always thought of you as such a pompous race. Ancient, dusty senators, so frightened of change and chaos...
—Brother Lassar

The Doctor's own people. They hail from the planet Gallifrey and claim to be the universe's first civilisation. Time Lords can travel through time and manipulate it to a huge degree. Though they generally operate under a policy of non-interference, they've also appointed themselves the guardians of the space-time continuum, and (at least in the Expanded Universe) look rather askance at attempts by the "lesser races" to develop time travel. The Doctor claims to have left Gallifrey in opposition to its xenophobia and stagnation.

Amy: You look human.
Eleventh Doctor: No, you look Time Lord. We came first.

Autons

Played by: Hugh Burden (1970), Hamilton Dyce (1970), Noel Clarke (2005), Marcus O'Donovan (2010), David Fynn (2010), Clive Wood (2010), Arthur Darvill (2010)

The Autons are evil living plastic servitors that are controlled by the squid-like Nestene Consciousness. Their best known trick is posing as shop dummies and bursting out of high-street windows, although their second appearance had them trying to kill people in increasingly bizarre ways. They don't need to be humanoid, either; any seemingly inanimate plastic object will do—chairs, toys, even a trash can. The Consciousness can also create more sophisticated "facsimiles" (referred to as "Nestene Duplicates" in the new series) that perfectly mimic the appearance of others... and may even believe their own cover story.

Nestene Consciousness

Rose: And this living plastic, what's it got against us?
Doctor: It loves you. You've got such a good planet! Lots of smoke and oil, plenty of toxins and dioxins in the air, perfect. Just what the Nestene Consciousness needs.

Nestene voiced by: Nicholas Briggs (2005)

The actual mind behind the Autons. After a couple of stabs at invading Earth in the Third Doctor's era, they returned in 2005 out of sheer desperation, having lost their 'protein planets' in a certain off-screen War.

Homo reptilians [5]

We are the last of our people.

Silurians voiced by: Peter Halliday (1970)
Silurians played by: Norman Comer, Stuart Blake and Vincent Brimble (1984), Neve McIntosh[6] and Richard Hope [7] (2010-11), Stephen Moore (2010)
Sea Devils played by: Pat Gorman and Peter Forbes-Robinson (1971), Christopher Farries (1984)

A bunch of intelligent creatures that evolved during the age of dinosaurs, the Silurians and Sea Devils are somehow part of the same species[8] that decided to go into hibernation upon hearing their world was under threat of destruction on the surface. It wasn't; the disaster never happened, but their disappearance cleared the way for humans to take over as the dominant sentient lifeform. Eons later, they awake, and fight the upstarts (read:us) for control of Earth. It never ends well. The twenty-first-century series gave the Silurians a very heavy redesign, with only two eyes, a more generally humanoid appearance (their battle armour has a mask that looks closer to the original face), and a Multipurpose, venomous tongue.

  • The Cameo: In "The Pandorica Opens".
  • Extra Eyes: The Silurians have a third eye, which glows when they exercise psychic powers (in their first appearance) or when they talk (in their second). It has, however, utterly vanished from the newest incarnation of the species appearing in The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood and A Good Man Goes to War, who are handwaved as being a different branch of the species.
  • Last of Their Kind: Pretty much every named Silurian in the episodes they show up in will make this claim. It was more understandable in the original series (and subsequent expanded universe tales), where it was literally a few dozen at best who survived. When a captive Silurian tries to claim this on the Doctor in the new series, he shuts her down pretty quickly.
  • Multipurpose Tongue: Useful both for defending oneself and...um...
  • Non-Mammal Mammaries: Well... the modern ones have them, anyhow.
  • Rage Helm: Their faceplates are organic in appearance, and could easily be mistaken as a real (albeit scarier) face.
  • Red Scare: Warriors of the Deep is largely ham-fisted with Cold War metaphors up the wazoo. The Silurians were also a metaphor for the Soviets at the time, according to Word of God. The Sea Devils may have been this as well, but it doesn't seem as likely.
  • The Reptilians
  • Taxonomic Term Confusion: Homo Reptilia? Considering the Homo genus is mammalian.
  • Technical Pacifist: The Silurians in Warriors of the Deep claim they're fighting a defensive war.
    • Of course in their first two stories they have no qualms about killing humans, and the new-series Homo Reptilia have an actual soldier class to do the fighting.
    • The warrior caste in the new series seems to be made up of the female Silurians, which is actually pretty clever since in real life lizards the females are more aggressive and territorial.

Sontarans

Sontar HA! Sontar HA! Sontar HA!

Played by: Kevin Lindsay (1973-75), Stuart Fell and Derek Deadman (1978), Tim Raynham and Clinton Greyn (1985), Christopher Ryan (2008, 2010),[9] Dan Starkey (2008, 2010, 2011)[10]

A race of the ultimate soldiers, the Sontarans are a clone race that live for war. Humanoid in appearance, the Sontarans are short, stocky, and insanely strong. They also look somewhat like potatoes, for some reason. If they show up, the plot is somehow tied to their never ending war against the Rutans (a race of... intergalactic jellyfish). Arguably the third most popular alien race of the franchise, behind the Daleks and Cybermen.

  • Asskicking Equals Authority: Those in power? They fought their way up there.
  • Attack Its Weak Point: The "probic vent" on the back of a Sontaran's neck is their only weakness.
    • The Sontarans, characteristically, don't consider it a weakness since it forces them to always face their enemies.
  • Author Appeal: Their entire creation was to appeal to author Robert Holmes (one of the best writers on the show, ever) and his distaste of militarism and colonialism. Also a bit of a Take That against America at times, according to some people.
  • Badass Boast: They tend to do this.
  • Bald of Awesome / Bald of Evil: In equal amounts.
  • Blue and Orange Morality: Their values system resembles that of Ancient Sparta. To wit: "I hope someday to meet you in the glory of battle, where I shall crush the life from your worthless human form" is apparently a high compliment.
  • Combat Medic: Considered a Fate Worse Than Death by them for obvious reasons. (That's not to say they can't be good at it, though.)
  • Genius Bruiser: They don't posses the raw intelligence or knowledge of the Daleks or Cybermen, but underestimate their cunning at your own peril-they're quite subtle and farsighted if need be.
  • Faux Affably Evil: For all their violent, militaristic ways, they are unfailingly well-mannered to anyone they aren't currently engaged in killing.
    • Strax from "A Good Man Goes to War" is much more affable than most of his species, partly because of his time spent as a medic having made him less single minded and Ax Crazy than most of his species
  • Honor Before Reason: As they don't see death on the battlefield as a particularly bad outcome, they aren't opposed to giving their enemies a sporting chance... usually.
  • Large Ham: They are well known for their bombastic speeches and "come at me, bro" attitude, which accounts for much of their popularity.
  • Lawful Stupid Chaotic Stupid: Played utterly straight in that if you challenge a Sontaran to a contest... any contest... they have to take that challenge. This weakness has actually made them a favorite of many authors.
    • Subverted in "The Two Doctors" when a Sontaran tells the Doctor that he doesn't need to accept his challenge to an honorable duel because the Doctor isn't a Sontaran, and is thus below him.
  • One-Gender Race: To the point that the first Sontaran we meet mistakes Sarah Jane for a member of a different species to male humans. They are a clone race with their progenitor being a very militaristic general with a huge ego.
  • Proud Warrior Race Guys: The Doctor Who representatives of the trope.
  • Sociopathic Soldier: They live for war. They die for war. And God help you if you get in their way or fight back.
    • Subverted in A Good Man Goes To War by Strax the Combat Medic - the 'sociopath' side of this trope is apparently not a fixed racial trait, but something resulting from a lack of perspective.
  • Super Soldier: They are this trope.
  • Younger Than They Look: We eventually learn, 38 years after their initial appearance, that due to being war-happy clones, they consider 12 years to be a pretty good run.

Zygons

Played by: John Woodnutt (1975), Ian Marter (1975), Lillias Walker (1975), Malcolm Stoddard (2008), Tim Brooke-Taylor (2008)


The Zygons were a race of metamorphic humanoids.

Rutans

Played by: Colin Douglas (1977), Emilia Fox (2011)

The Rutans (or Rutan Host) were a race of amorphous green blobs who waged war with the Sontarans.

  • Arch Enemy: To the Sontarans.
  • Electric Jellyfish
  • Face Stealer: the Rutan dissects the first two lighthouse operators in order to learn enough human physiology to take the form of Reuben for the final two episodes. Later victims it just kills.
  • Insignificant Little Blue Planet: the Doctor is quite surprised by the Rutan's interest in Earth. It turns out to be fairly mild.

Fourth Doctor: Why invade an obscure planet like Earth? It's of no value to you.
Rutan: The planet is obscure, but its strategic position is sound.


Revival series monsters

The Slitheen family [11]
Victory should be naked!
—Jocrassa Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen

Played[12] and voiced by: Annette Badland, David Verrey, Rupert Vansittart, Eric Potts and Steve Spiers (2005)

The first recurring aliens original to the revitalized Doctor Who franchise, the Slitheen are basically a family of Used Car Dealers and Con Men. IN SPACE! Their family hails from the planet of Raxacoricofallapatorius, where pretty much most of the family has been sentenced to death for being rather annoying and kinda evil. Unlike most alien baddies, they're a crime family, not an Exclusively Evil species—the other Raxacoricofallapatorians are, according to the Doctor, rather peaceful. While they mainly only showed up during the Ninth Doctor's tenure (and an unidentified Raxacoricofallapatorian cameoing at the end of the Tenth's), the Slitheen also made it over to The Sarah Jane Adventures. Perhaps the most unique feature about the Slitheen is their habit of skinning humans and using said skins as disguises.

  • Bizarre Alien Biology: They're made of calcium, able to smell fear and pheromones produced by humans, they can expel poison through their fingernails or their breath...
  • Hannibal Lecture: In "Boom Town" one of them was trapped in the TARDIS and she tried to guilt him into letting her go with typical deconstruction. Jack told him not to answer back, "its what she wants."
  • Egomaniac Hunter: The family Slitheen seems to be this, and the entire species seems to do this as well.
  • Evil Plan: The family Slitheen seems to be rather good at this in concept. It's just that they don't count on the Doctor showing up. Or Sarah Jane Smith.
  • The Family That Slays Together
  • Fat Bastard: The actors portraying the "human forms" of the Slitheen tend to be similar to this, as the Slitheen have to compact themselves to fit into humanish forms. And still look huge.
  • Gasshole
  • Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: They really like hunting humans.
  • Toilet Humor: The best way to spot a disguised Slitheen? They fart. A lot.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Vinegar. Go figure.

Roboforms

Played by: Paul Kasey (2005-06), George Cottle (2005)

Roboforms were scavengers who travelled alongside invaders who took anything on the planet of value to them before the main threat arrived.

Sycorax

Played by: Sean Gilder (2005)

The Sycorax were a superstitious race of warriors. They had skeletal faces.

  • The Cameo: In "The End of Time" and "The Pandorica Opens".
  • Historical In-Joke: The Doctor feeding Shakespeare his own lines. Specifically, it resolves the Brick Joke of the Sycorax set up in "The Christmas Invasion"; Sycorax is a witch mentioned in The Tempest, and where Shakespeare got the name is a bit of an academic mystery—as far as anyone can find she's not a figure from mythology, and if it's a Meaningful Name it's far from obvious what the meaning is. "The Christmas Invasion" used it as the name of an alien species, with no explanation/comment, and this episode has Shakespeare hear the Doctor talking about them and likes the sound of it.

Cybus Cybermen

YOU WILL BE DEL-E-TED

Voiced by: Nicholas Briggs (2006-08),[13] Tracy-Ann Oberman (2006)

The New Series's Parallel Earth Cybermen (or Cybus Cybermen or Cybusmen, after the evil corporation that created them). These Cybermen come from a parallel universe. Have been around for a while, first appearing in "Rise of the Cybermen" in 2006. Get sent into the Void between dimension, from where they neatly spill over into the regular timeline.

Ood

The circle must be broken, so that we can sing.

Voiced by: Silas Carson (2006-10)

A race of telepathic humanoids native to the Ood Sphere (which is in the same region of space as the Sense Sphere). They were used as slaves during the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire, until they were liberated by the Doctor, Donna and a spy for the Friends of the Ood.

Judoon

FO! SHO! RO! KO! BLO!

Voiced by: Nicholas Briggs (2007-10)

The law enforcement arm of the Shadow Proclamation, Judoons look like bipedal rhinos in Badass Biker gear. They are extremely fond of rules and regulations, as seen in The Sarah Jane Adventures, and a bit thick.

Weeping Angels
In the sight of any living thing they literally turn to stone. And you can't kill a stone. 'Course, a stone can't kill you either, but then you turn your head away. Then you blink, and oh, yes it can!
—Tenth Doctor
"Beware lest a statue slay you."
—Thus Spake Zarathustra

"Voiced" in a manner of speaking by David Atkins as Angel Bob (2010)

Quantum-locked creatures so ancient, even the Doctor doesn't know where they come from. As long as they are being observed, the Angels turn to stone. The "Weeping" in their name comes from their habit of holding their hands over their eyes so as not to accidentally see each other. But as soon as they are unobserved, they move with Super Speed to overtake their prey. If need be, they'll transport their victims back through time and then feed on their lives spent in the past. If they're not feeling quite so creative, they'll just snap their victim's neck like a twig. One of the creepiest aliens in the history of the series.

  • Affably Evil: Even the Doctor notes that living out the rest of your life in a different time period isn't that bad. Even when stealing people's voices/brains, they use them to speak in an eerily polite manner.
  • And I Must Scream: In their first appearance, the Doctor tricks four of them into looking at each other, implying they will be trapped in their stone form forever.
  • Exclusively Evil: Though their usual method of "killing" isn't all that bad, they only employ it because that is how they feed. In their second appearance they find another, better source of nourishment...and proceed to act like the sadistic psychopaths that they are—snapping necks, playing mind games, and ripping out vocal cords. Why?

For fun, sir.

  • Bizarre Alien Biology: Creatures of the abstract. They turn to stone when anyone is looking. Ultimate defence mechanism.
  • Cameo: Two of them appear in the video game The Witcher III: Wild Hunt. Standing in a church yard near a small shrine by each side of the door, looking away. If Gerald enters the shrine, where they are out of his line of vision, and comes out again, he finds they are now several feet away, looking at him. Move past them and look back, and he'll find that again, they have turned around, and are looking at him again. Fortunately, they aren't dangerous, only there to freak the player out.
  • Creepy Changing Statue
  • Eldritch Abomination: It is implied that they are, in fact, sapient ideas which have come to life to kill people. It doesn't help that ideas of them (photos, visual memory) literally can come to life to kill people.
  • Evil Laugh: Is not even recognizable as laughter, so much as horrible screeching.
  • Fate Worse Than Death: Not in their first appearance, where they "kill you nicely" and get enthusiastic testimonials from their victims. But played dead straight in their second, where while they kill most of their victims, they partially reanimate Sacred Bob into a mouthpiece for the Angels.
  • For the Evulz: The reason they give for making Amy Pond count down to her own death.
  • The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: In "The Time of Angels", where "an image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel".
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: The Doctor tricks them into looking at each other, freezing them forever.
    • In their second appearance, they try to draw energy from one of the omnipresent 'cracks in the universe' to become a universe-devouring army of death. This backfires badly on them. The crack is 'the end of the universe' and releases time energy which wipes anything it consumes out of existence. They drain all of the power from the ship to try and escape... which switches off the artificial gravity, resulting in them all being hurled into the crack and erased from time.
  • Light Flicker Teleportation
  • Light Is Not Good: They look like statues of angels.
  • Made of Iron: Though the obvious logic would just be to smash them into dust as stone statues, they are a lot tougher than statues should be. A group of soldiers unloading on them doesn't even scratch them.
    • You can't kill a stone. They probably are not true stone, or being quantum-locked makes their stone form harder than diamond.
  • Nobody Here but Us Statues
  • Offscreen Teleportation: Their explicit super-power.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: The actual name of the species, if there is one, is unknown.
  • Scare Chord: Their Leitmotif.
  • Super Speed: They need only the time it takes to blink to dart forward and slay their victim.
  • Taken for Granite: Whatever they are in their natural state, they turn to stone if looked upon.

Vashta Nerada

These are our forests. They are our meat.

Also known as "The Shadows that Eat the Flesh", the Vashta Nerada are tiny scavengers that hide in the shadows, any shadows, before consuming their prey. They are found on every world, including Earth.

  • Darkness Equals Death: If you enter a shadow that the Vashta Nerada occupies, you will be devoured.
  • Living Shadow: Trope Namer. A swarm of Vashta Nerada looks like a dark shadow moving across the ground. They can even form the shape of a humanoid of shadow to animate spacesuits.
  • Primal Fear: The species is implied to be the reason that many species have a natural fear of the dark.
  • Stripped to the Bone: When they devour humans and a chicken leg, all they leave are bare bones.
  • The Swarm: They're thousands of microscopic carnivores working in unison.
  • Zombie Gait: It's not like space suits are designed to be piloted by swarms of thousands of miniscule creatures that ate the previous occupant.

The Silence

This world is ours. We have ruled it since the wheel and the fire. We have no need of weapons.

Played by: Marnix Van Den Broeke (2011)
Voiced by: Barnaby Edwards (2011)

The leaders and faces (creepy, creepy faces) of a religious order called "the Order of the Silence", these aliens are the Big Bads of series 5 and 6. In the same vein as the Weeping Angels, you're never safe if you're not looking at the Silence, but for a different reason: as soon as you look away from a Silent, you forget you ever saw it.

  • Alien Invasion: The invasion is long over. They've been controlling the planet for the last 10,000 years.
  • Amnesia Danger: They cause it.
  • Badass Boast: See the above quote. Immediately subverted when the one saying it gets shot just to prove him wrong.
  • Badass in a Nice Suit: You have to admit, those suits are pretty stylish even on nightmarish aliens.
  • Big Bad: One of, if not the most dangerous of the Doctors' enemies, enough that they've effectively eclipsed the Daleks. In a rather unique example, they indirectly caused the majority of problems in series 5, but didn't make their first on-screen debut until the premiere of series 6.
  • Ceiling Cling: They sleep hanging upside down. In packs.
  • Four-Fingered Hands
  • Gambit Roulette: Their plans to kill the Doctor are always incredibly convoluted and extreme. But given who they're dealing with...you can kinda understand.
    • Their initial plan involves using post hypnotic suggestion and subterfuge to convince all the Doctor's enemies that he will destroy the universe, and to stop him they have to build the ultimate prison, the Pandorica. They also set it up so this ultimate prison will have a restoration field that will stop anyone in the prison from dying, and also happens to be a way to restart the universe if it should be destroyed. They then use a lower level time machine to sneak a member of their race aboard the TARDIS, wait till the Doctor has been sealed in the Pandorica, and then proceed to destroy the universe by blowing up the TARDIS. At this point they expect the Doctor to use the Pandorica and the exploding TARDIS to reboot the universe, which will save everyone but trap him in the void between realities in the process. And if any part of this plan hadn't worked, they'd have blown up the entire universe for good, the exact thing they're apparently trying to kill the Doctor to prevent. Unfortunately for their planning, The Doctor ends up using some interesting Clap Your Hands If You Believe magic from his Touched by Vorlons companion to escape.
    • Their second plan involves stealing one of the Doctor's companions and her unborn child, then replacing the companion with a programmable flesh avatar to prevent the doctor from realizing the kidnapping. After that they begin genetically modifying the unborn child, who was conceived on the TARDIS, to be a human Time Lord (as opposed to a Galifreyan one). Then, after first surviving an assault by the Doctor himself to save the child when it's born, they transport her from the far future to 1960s america, where they used post hypnotic suggestion again to cause the moon landing. This is so the humans develop a space suit they can use to keep the child healthy and alive, and they can train her to kill the Doctor. Then, after the child manages to escape, and decides she doesn't want to kill the Doctor, and then saves his life, they keep tabs on her for several thousand years (thanks to her time traveling with the Doctor). At which point, they wait till she graduates from university to put her back in the space suit they developed in the 1960s, time travel her back to 2011 Utah, and put the suit on auto-pilot to force her to shoot the Doctor when he arrives there. Along the way the Silence are nearly wiped out by the Doctor and end up creating another universe ending time paradox when the child tries to resist shooting the Doctor. And after all that, The Doctor uses a fairly simple Tricked-Out Time gambit to survive getting shot.
  • Glass Cannon: They can easily disintegrated people and break through thick glass and heavy doors, but they're not Immune to Bullets.
  • The Greys: Pretty much. According to Word of God, the idea is that stories of alien abduction by The Greys, among other things, represent half-retained memories of the Silence when on occasion people don't quite forget everything.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: The Doctor drives them off Earth by tricking one of their own into ordering the entire human race to kill them on sight.
  • Hidden Agenda Villain: Partially. We have no idea why they destroyed reality in series five, but they want the Doctor dead because they fear what will happen if he's allowed to reach a certain planet and be forced to answer the oldest question in the universe: Doctor Who?.
    • Also, the viewer initially gets the impression that they want "Silence to Fall" across the Universe, but in reality, they want The Doctor's silence to fall, in death.
  • Kick the Dog: The first time we get a real scene with a Silent, it blasts a woman to death in front of Amy for no real reason, providing this little pleasant exchange.

Amy: "Why did you kill her?"
Silent: "Joy. Her name was Joy."

Amy: You're really ugly. Has anyone ever told you that?

Gangers

It's us or them.

Played by: Karen Gillan, Harrison Mortimer, Madison Mortimer, Marshall Lancaster, Mark Bonnar, Sarah Smart, Raquel Cassidy, Leon Vickers and Matt Smith (2011)

The Gangers were a clone race created by humans from an artificially created organic substance called the Flesh.

Gangers were primarily created so workers who had extremely dangerous jobs could work without body harm or death. The actual subject is "mindlinked" to a Ganger body and their conciousness is basically injected into it. If a Ganger is destroyed or gets mortally wounded, another Ganger is created for the consciousness to inhabit. Well, that's how it's supposed to work, at least. In the episode they initially appear in, a glitch in the program causes the originals' minds to go back to their body...with a replica of all their memories and personalities still in the Gangers, turning them into perfect replicas of them at that moment (mentally, at least). They immediately understand what has happened, and plot to escape the base, not particularly caring if the originals get killed in the process (after all, they aren't actually different. At all).

  1. ↑ Did not appear in Frontier in Space
  2. ↑ Did not appear in The Tomb of the Cybermen
  3. ↑ Both the airdate, and the year the story was set in, was before IAU redefinition of what a planet is, so Pluto was still a planet then.
  4. ↑ The icon is of Chancellor Flavia in her Time Lord robe and collar
  5. ↑ also known as Silurians and Sea Devils, the Doctor's name for the people, despite being full of problems, but we're going with the Monster Files name for the species here.
  6. ↑ Did not appear in "The Pandorica Opens"
  7. ↑ Did not appear in "The Pandorica Opens" or "A Good Man Goes to War"
  8. ↑ The picture is of a twentieth-century Silurian.
  9. ↑ Did not appear in The End of Time
  10. ↑ Did not appear in "The Pandorica Opens"
  11. ↑ "The Slitheen" for short; their race is called Raxacoricofallapatorian
  12. ↑ in their human skins, not the prosthetic
  13. ↑ assumed; The Cybermen in "The Pandorica Opens" (2010) have a C on their chest, but have technology closer to that of the Mondasian Cybermen
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Doctor_Who/Characters/Aliens_and_Monsters?oldid=1958899"