Doctor Who meets Sherlock? Yep, that actually happened.
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00:00 There are hundreds of monsters The Doctor has fought with throughout Doctor Who's run.
00:04 Some are brilliant, some miss the mark, but some have the potential to be great,
00:08 but fall victim to lousy story writing or running out of air time for the episode.
00:13 While most of the monsters The Doctor battles are all great in their own unique way,
00:17 there are some that just seem to be wasted.
00:19 So with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with Who Culture,
00:22 here with 10 times Doctor Who wasted great villains.
00:27 Number 10 - The Whispermen
00:29 The Whispermen were a group of featureless human-like beings that appeared to serve the
00:34 great intelligence. After kidnapping The Doctor's friends, they forced the 11th
00:38 Doctor to travel to Trenzalore, the planet that lies as The Doctor's final grave.
00:43 While the Whispermen looked amazing and sent chills down your spine every time they said
00:47 one of their sinister rhymes or hissing, they didn't actually do a lot in the name of The
00:51 Doctor. Having creatures as scary as them, it was expected that they would have a bigger role,
00:56 especially after bringing The Doctor to his own grave. However, they were only there for pure
01:00 plot convenience and tension between The Doctor and the other characters surrounding him.
01:05 The biggest plot point they had in the episode was forcing The Doctor to say his own name in
01:09 order to be able to open his own grave. As The Doctor panics, explaining why he cannot say his
01:13 name, The Whispermen threaten him by stopping the hearts of Clara, Strax, Vastra and Jenny
01:18 until he says his name. However, in a little disappointing plot twist, it was a psychic
01:23 echo of River Song who said his name, causing the doors to open.
01:26 Number 9. Davros
01:28 The Daleks have always been The Doctor's greatest enemy, constantly coming back to cause havoc and
01:35 trauma in The Doctor's life. It was expected that the man who created the killer machines would be
01:40 the ultimate final showdown for The Doctor, as Davros single-handedly ruined the lives of many
01:45 people throughout the universe with his creations. Davros makes his first appearance in New Who
01:50 during The Stolen Earth and Journey's End. However, disappointingly, Davros was reduced
01:55 to being the Dalek's pet, having no power or control over his creations. Throughout the episodes,
02:01 he belittled The Doctor, claiming how he turned his companions into weapons and talking about a
02:06 prophecy which would never come true. All it took was an overpowered Donner to flick a few switches
02:11 to destroy him, an extremely disappointing end to what could have been the best villain that
02:15 came out of Doctor Who. We meet Davros again during Peter Capaldi's reign, as he realises
02:21 it was he who created Davros to become the evil genius he became. The episode had potential and
02:27 sees Davros manipulate The Doctor into using his regeneration energy to heal him, extending his
02:32 own life all while infusing every Dalek on Skaro with energy. It's not until The Doctor figures
02:38 out the Daleks have a concept of mercy that Davros somehow put a tiny bit of compassion
02:43 into the Daleks. Davros has always been said to be a crazy madman, and believes that removing
02:48 emotions makes you stronger. So, to have the character become easily beatable and compassionate
02:53 wastes the great potential we could have gotten from the character.
02:57 Number 8 - Henry Van Statten We were introduced to Henry Van Statten
03:03 when The Doctor and Rose found themselves in an alien museum. As a billionaire, Van Statten was
03:08 intelligent but very arrogant and selfish, constantly treating his staff horribly and
03:13 seeing them as expendable, to the point of mind wiping them when they're fired or resigned so
03:18 they could not share his secrets. Van Statten was obsessed with collecting all things alien,
03:23 finding himself in the presence of a broken Dalek. When he realises The Doctor himself was an alien,
03:29 he quickly tortured and examined him, making plans to use his binary vascular system in a
03:34 marketing venture. Despite The Doctor's pleas about the dangers of a Dalek, Van Statten continued
03:39 to ignore this and ordered his staff not to shoot it as he saw the Dalek more important than the
03:45 lives of his staff. Eventually, he agreed for The Doctor to stop the Dalek, but only for his
03:50 own protection. Henry Van Statten could have been a brilliant villain in the show with a much bigger
03:55 impact if he wasn't such a coward at the end. Although the greater villain in the episode was
03:59 the Dalek itself, having an episode centred around Van Statten and his obsession with alien
04:05 technology, Hunting Down The Doctor would have been an excellent episode to air on the show.
04:10 Number 7 - The Sontarens
04:13 The Season 4 two-parter reintroduced the Sontarens into the Doctor Who universe and was an incredible
04:19 disappointment. The classic Who monster was used as comedy relief throughout the episodes,
04:24 with the Doctor throwing many unfunny one-liners at them and how their only personality trait is
04:29 that they love to die in the name of war. The Sontarens used to be a fearsome threat in the
04:34 80s, but now they're just being used as dumb comedy relief with no added value to any storyline
04:40 they have been thrown into. When the Sontarens were reintroduced in the Sontaren Stratagem and
04:44 The Poisoned Sky, we see their master plan as they intend to poison Earth with Atmos in order
04:50 to create the perfect breeding ground for clones to fight in wars. This would have been a great
04:55 storyline for the classic monsters if it was done right. It felt very underwhelming when a random
05:00 scientific genius was the one who ended up defeating the entire Sontaren race, as he
05:05 conveniently figured out how to transfer the Doctor off the Sontaren ship while simultaneously
05:11 switching places with him before blowing up the entire fleet. The Sontarens deserved a better
05:16 storyline and reintroduction after being so loved during the classic Who era.
05:22 Number 6 - Lucy Saxon Lucy Saxon was the wife of Harold Saxon,
05:27 who was revealed to be the Master. Saxon had the same sadistic and sinister ideology as the Master
05:33 showed, as he appreciated his power and sense of morality, or lack of. Even when Lucy witnessed the
05:39 Master killing the American President, she showed no signs of fear or shock and remained calm
05:44 throughout the Master's reign of destroying and taking over the planet. She even enjoyed watching
05:48 the Choclophane kill one tenth of the human race as part of the Master's sadistic plan.
05:54 However, during the Year That Never Was, Lucy Saxon had a change of heart due to the abuse that
05:59 she received from the Master himself. This prompted her character to join the world when they started
06:04 to chant the word "Doctor", and she fatally shot the Master. The change Lucy experienced felt out
06:09 of character at the time, as she witnessed the Master murder and abuse the people who surrounded
06:14 them both, plus take over the entire planet. It's no surprise that someone as sadistic as the Master
06:20 turns out to be an abusive person, but the team up between Lucy and the Master could have been
06:24 Doctor Who's version of Bonnie and Clyde. Number 5 - Sycorax
06:29 The Sycorax attempts to invade Earth on Christmas Day, while a very newly regenerated Doctor is out
06:35 of action. Rose and her family are forced to fight the aliens, with the help of Harriet Jones,
06:40 who was the Prime Minister of Great Britain at the time. With the Doctor out of action,
06:44 the Sycorax should have been able to easily take over the planet, though they seem to have
06:48 procrastinated until the Doctor felt better to fight the leader in a sword fight, ultimately
06:53 defeating him by throwing a satsuma to a button which caused the leader to fall off his ship.
06:58 As the first villains in the Tenth Doctor era, they seem to be very easy to defeat,
07:03 with the Doctor literally besting them in under five minutes. Even without the Doctor,
07:07 Rose and her family seem to easily dodge the attacks the Sycorax plant, causing them to be
07:12 one of the weaker villains we've been introduced to in the Who universe. There could have been a
07:17 fully-fleshed alien invasion of the Sycorax, but instead they were watered down to easily
07:22 beatable villains. Number 4 - The Beast
07:25 Doctor Who introduced one of the most feared monsters in human history onto the show,
07:31 the Devil himself. The Beast claimed to have existed at the very beginning of time,
07:35 taking on the classic image of a red entity with horns. After his encounter with the Beast,
07:40 even the Doctor struggled to acknowledge the idea of the Beast truly being the Devil,
07:45 showing that the Doctor also fears some sort of religious devilish creature.
07:49 The Beast could control the minds of victims, possessing Toby and the Ood through a hive mind,
07:54 causing them to do all the dirty work for him, freeing him from the pit he was imprisoned in.
07:58 All the Beast does during the episode is play with the Doctor's mind, making him believe that
08:03 his friends and Rose will be killed. Although religion is a complicated subject to delve into,
08:08 especially in the world of Who, where many religions happen all at once,
08:12 witnessing the Beast at full power would have been one of the biggest stories in Doctor Who
08:16 history, as the Doctor would have found himself face to face against the greatest enemy in the
08:21 universe. In the end, it all came down to dumb luck in how the Doctor defeated the Beast.
08:26 By destroying the jars, it was only the Beast's physical form that was defeated,
08:30 but not his mind, so the Beast could still be out there manipulating and torturing people.
08:35 We could have seen some great episodes of the Doctor having to fight the Beast due to it only
08:39 being alive through the power of storytelling and an idea.
08:42 Number 3 - The Boneless
08:45 The Boneless were a unique monster that were introduced in Season 8, that had the ability
08:51 to make three-dimensional things into two-dimensional, including people. The creatures
08:56 were able to shrink the TARDIS, trapping the Doctor in there and giving a prime example of
09:00 how powerful a threat they could be. Although there was a lot of potential for these monsters,
09:04 they didn't do much during the episode, apart from stealing energy from the TARDIS and killing
09:09 some innocent bystanders. These monsters had the potential to be as interesting as the Weeping
09:14 Angels or the Sirens, due to their unique creation and backstory, but it sadly wasn't meant to be.
09:20 In order to defeat these monsters, the Doctor used the Boneless' power against them,
09:24 managing to power the TARDIS and causing him to cast them back into their own universe.
09:29 Although it sounds complicated, all the Doctor needed was his trusty sonic screwdriver to cast
09:34 an energy field, a way that seemed all too easy for the powerful creatures that they are.
09:39 Number 2 - The Sha'Kree
09:41 There are not many villains we come across that the Doctor fears, but when we do,
09:47 they're usually the best ones. The Sha'Kree were a race that the Doctor believed to be the stuff of
09:52 legends. He was taught at a young age that these monsters were the ruthless,
09:55 pest controllers of the universe. In a great lead-up, the episode The Power of Three spent
10:00 its time setting up the Sha'Kree's plan by slowly invading Earth for over a year with mysterious
10:06 cubes that came out of nowhere. Their plan was to stop the hearts of all humans in order to
10:10 wipe them out of existence. Not only is it massively disappointing when we finally saw
10:15 the Sha'Kree, but their plan fell apart when the Doctor did some easy magic with the screwdriver
10:20 and reversed the attack on Earth. The Sha'Kree were a cameo in their own episode, as we saw them
10:26 for all of about five or ten minutes before they disappeared into thin air. These could have been
10:30 one of the most complicated and biggest threats in Matt Smith's era, but they were wasted by what
10:36 felt like lazy writing just to show how powerful and mighty the Doctor is.
10:40 Number 1 - The Wire The Wire was an energy-based being that took
10:46 the essences and souls of people in Great Britain in 1953, during the time of Queen Elizabeth II's
10:52 coronation. The Doctor was never able to know what the Wire's true form was, as its physical
10:57 body had been destroyed before he arrived. But what did the Wire actually do? It sucked off
11:02 people's faces, causing them to become faceless and mindless, with their real faces appearing on
11:07 TV screens, yelling out for help. The Wire was hoping to use the energy it sucked from people
11:12 to manifest itself into a physical form once more. We learned at one point in the episode that the
11:17 Wire was sentenced to death, but survived its execution, escaping to Earth and preserving
11:22 itself through television. With its catchphrase "I'm hungry", the Wire doesn't do much throughout
11:28 the episode apart from suck people's faces off and traumatise a poor man who was forced to help
11:32 in order for him to survive. There seems to be a theme throughout Doctor Who that very complex
11:37 villains have a very simple way of being defeated. The Doctor ends up trapping the Wire on a Betamax
11:42 and taping over it so it would remain trapped for all eternity.
11:46 And that concludes our list. If you can think of any that we missed, then do let us know in
11:51 the comments below. And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that
11:54 notification bell. Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there @whoculture, and I can be found
11:59 across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with Who Culture,
12:04 and in the words of River Song herself, goodbye, sweeties.