[Spoilers!] In part 1, I laid out the challengers for the season. Now I’ll rank them, with some commentary. Disagree? Comment!
12. The Santa robots, from Episode 0: “The Christmas Invasion” (Russell T. Davies) are just the forerunners of the Sycorax, but as I’ve mentioned, the two don’t really connect. The idea of deadly Christmas characters and ornaments is neat, and yeah, they kill a few humans, but they’re no match for the Doctor, and they know it.
11. The Sisters of Plenitude, Cat-nuns from Episode 1: “New Earth” (Russell T. Davies) who are artificially creating humans to test their cures. Though they have power (and claws), they aren’t particularly troubling–or engaging.
10. The Abzorbaloff, from Episode 10: “Love & Monsters” (Russell T. Davies), absorbs people into its body–but not so that they’re dead. More that they’re symbiotically attached–he’s living off them, they’re living off him. This isn’t even dramatic irony, as it’s unclear what the monster gets from his victims–aside from continuous existence [can’t he just have a sandwich?] yet they seem to maintain some autonomy. [I’m just sayin’, a sandwich has never questioned my life choices…]
9. The Krillitanes from Episode 3: “School Reunion” (Toby Whithouse) are allergic to their own bodily secretions, and have a large supply of Krillitane oil on hand to make the children of an English prep school smart enough to decode the “Skasis Paradigm,” a theory of everything. So points for dramatic irony in that their medium of victory is also the cause of their defeat, but negative points in this competition–they really should have seen this coming, with or without the Doctor.
8. “The Wire,” from Episode 7: “The Idiot’s Lantern” (Mark Gatiss) is an alien converted to electricity that wishes to use televisions to consume minds (and faces), hoping to rebuild its body. While scary–furthering the premise that television [is sucking/]can be used to suck out our souls [I know The Bachelor and the national news suck mine] and perhaps some of our vitality (faces?)–and close to success, “teamwork makes the dream work,” and the Doctor easily defeats it. Any villain that can be trapped on Betamax is not worth worrying about.
7. “The Beast,” from Episodes 8 & 9: “The Impossible Planet”/”The Satan Pit” (Matt Jones), is thought to be the origin of myths of evil incarnate, Satan, etc. While “The Beast”/Satan is apparently all-powerful and “ooh-scary,” the solution is staring everyone in the face: drop it into the black hole. Why is this an issue? Of course, if the being/Satan existed before there was matter to form black holes, what good would any of that do? [Did the Doctor just release evil back into the world?!? Was it ever really gone? Frankly, the being is trapped in a small backwater of reality, and easily defeated by people other than the Doctor, so what’s the problem?
6. The Sycorax, a Klingon-esque race from Episode 0: “The Christmas Invasion” (Russell T. Davies) that wants to enslave half the population, or it will kill roughly a third. First off, negative points for being derivative. And then there’s the fact that, rather than seizing control, they’re basically waiting for permission to take over–“Give us power or we’ll kill 1/3”, not “We are in control and you will yield or die.” Plus, while their blood-control is scary to humans, ultimately it’s not dangerous. Sure, the leader cuts off the Doctor’s hand, and is a bit treacherous, but really, they’re not much of a threat.
5. The Cybermen from Episodes 5 & 6: “Rise of the Cybermen”/”The Age of Steel” (Tom MacRae) and from Episodes 12 & 13: “Army of Ghosts”/”Doomsday” (Russell T. Davies) take many forms over the years, as they are classic Dr. Who nemeses, first seen opposite the 1st and 2nd Doctors (William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton, respectively) in The Tenth Planet (1966). These iterations are creations of John Lumic, who is dying and seeking a path to immortality through cyborg technology. So why do they have lasers and no emotions? Well, obviously, the lasers are because people might not “get” his vision–duh. And the emotions are necessary, as it turns out, to combat the crushing sadness they feel when they discover what they are–again, dramatic irony; their biggest strength (lack of emotion) is their biggest weakness (the return of emotions). Similarly, the technology that allows them to take over all humans creates the network that can be used for their downfall. Further, they are as annoying as the Dalek, and with these fatal flaws, easier to defeat, which pre-sages the battle to come.
4. The Dalek from Episodes 12 & 13: “Army of Ghosts”/”Doomsday” (Russell T. Davies), particularly the Cult of Skaro–a small band tasked with improving the Dalek species–keeps returning like a bad penny. The Cult of Skaro have created a Void Ship–which the Doctor says is impossible–and captured Time Lord technology, a Genesis Ark, which turns out to be a space-time prison containing millions of Dalek. So, their ability to create new tech makes them terrible, but, ultimately–through another bit of dramatic irony–still susceptible to the fatal flaw that sends them all to the Void.
3. The Ood, the subservient aliens from Episodes 8 & 9: “The Impossible Planet”/”The Satan Pit” (Matt Jones) are a bit creepy. Whom are they really meant to serve? Where do their loyalties lie? And when they mass together, they can really cause a problem. Still, I “love an Ood.”
2. The Isolus, from Episode 11: “Fear Her” (Matthew Graham) is a bit scary. The insatiable, childlike need for friends, and the lack of understanding of what it’s doing are horrific. Imagine if someone could trap everyone they could cyber-stalk…. Further, the Doctor has no solution, save getting it out of the universe by reinvigorating its ship. Or perhaps the Doctor could have destroyed it, but chose to give it its ship back–still, that’s not the way its framed.
1. The Werewolf–or rather, “lupine wavelength haemovariform“–from Episode 2: “Tooth and Claw” (Russell T. Davies) is an alien entity that infects humans through bites, has an aversion to mistletoe, and likely infects the royal family through Queen Victoria. The Doctor is no match for this being, and it’s devout group of warrior monks. [When did the Shaolin invade Scotland again?] The only way he could do it was with the posthumous help of Prince Albert, who built the trap into Torchwood. So the “lupine wavelength haemovariform“/human hybrid is on second only to the Reapers when it comes to beating the Doctor–they still have an exploitable flaw, but one it takes a lot of planning to defeat.
In Series 1, I chose interaction with the Doctor over classic creatures, most dangerous and most frequently appearing. Here, none of the aliens–save the Sisters of Plenitude–interacted with the Doctor on an individual level, which is unfortunate. And their interaction wasn’t helpful to the solution. The aliens of this season were mostly adversaries and Others, not fellow beings. For me, it was the Doctor’s difficulty in overcoming the alien that turned the decision his season.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Disagree? Let me know!
