He is the Doctor’s Moriarty: a renegade Time Lord who may be the hero’s intellectual equal, but who is also his moral opposite. While the Doctor wants to explore the universe, the Master wants to own it. First played by Roger Delgado, he debuted in a 1971 episode called Terror of the Autons. Since then, he’s been played by six different actors, his initial suave demeanour eventually collapsing into theatrical insanity when John Simm (pictured here) took on the role between 2007 and 2010. It was a portrayal, according to Simm, that was inspired by a mix of the Joker from Batman and Tony Blair. Photograph: Adrian Rogers/BBC
The Master may be the most notorious, but he isn’t the only Time Lord to give the Doctor grief. They are the stately grandfathers of the universe, and this superiority has been known to breed megalomania. The Rani (Kate O'Mara, above, with Anthony Ainley as the Master), for example, experimented on “lower” life forms with a sense of psychotic entitlement in the 80s; the insane and bitter Omega, who debuted in the 1970s, tried to destroy the universe. Meanwhile Rassilon, one of the founding fathers of the Time Lords, sought to end time itself rather than face the destruction of his people in a 2009 episode. With friends like these, who needs enemies? Photograph: BBC
Did you forget about them? Steven Moffat’s most recent addition to Who mythology (thought by some to be too scary for children) are terrifying not only to look at, but psychologically too. With their ability to erase themselves from the memory of anyone who’s seen them, they have been able to control humans from the shadows. The show’s creators have had fun with this idea. For instance: was the thin, faceless form of the Silence inspired by Edvard Munch’s The Scream – or was he, subconsciously, inspired by them? A brilliant, frightening creation… Wait, was I saying something? Photograph: BBC
What does it mean to be human? And at what point do you cease to be one? These are the challenges at the (non-existent) heart of the Cybermen. Conceived in 1966 by scientist and science-fiction writer Kit Pedler – an adviser on the programme, on this occasion inspired by innovations in prosthetic surgery – his cyborg villains would go on to take two forms: the original 1960s Cybermen, who came from the planet Mondas and looked like they were built on Blue Peter; and the shinier 2006 versions (above), led by Roger Lloyd-Pack for their dramatic return to the show in the David Tennant era Photograph: BBC
“What does hate look like?” Matt Smith once asked as the Doctor, his Dick Dastardly chin aquiver. “It looks like a Dalek.” Creator Terry Nation, who grew up during the second world war, based the iconic Daleks on Nazi ideology, seeing the villains as the manifestation of hatred and conformity. Even the humanoid race, the Kaleds, that we saw spawn the Daleks in 1970s episode Genesis of the Daleks were deliberately Nazi-like. So the pepper-pot appearance of the Daleks may have become the stuff of parody over the years, but the ideas buried underneath that shell are no laughing matter Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive
As creator of the Daleks, he thought of himself as a god. Instead, Davros became a Dr Frankenstein, pathetically losing control of his catastrophic creations. As befits the Daleks’ Nazi undertones, the sadistic scientist practised eugenic experiments on his own Kaled people in pursuit of racial perfection; an obsession partly brought on by his own disability and disfigurement. After years of storylines involving death, betrayal and Dalek civil war, it’s said that Davros died leading his “children” in a Time War against the Time Lords. He returned, however, in 2008 to be vanquished by… Catherine Tate, playing the Doctor’s assistant at the time. Photograph: Adrian Rogers/BBC
It’s not that Scaroth, as a character, is particularly terrifying. But such is the brilliance of Julian Glover (above) playing a villain (see also The Empire Strikes Back and Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade), he’s become a fan-favourite. Appearing in Douglas Adams’s superbly written City of Death serial that broadcast in 1979, he plays the last of the Jagaroth – a one-eyed alien race apparently made out of seaweed – posing as a sleek, art-dealing aristocrat in Paris. Inadvertently responsible for the creation of life on Earth, he now wants to undo his accident. Too bad Tom Baker’s fourth Doctor stands in his way Photograph: BBC
Despite their grotesquely barnacled appearance, the true horror of the Zygons isn’t physical. Instead, it lies within their shape-shifting ability to replicate human beings. Making their first and last appearance in 1975 as a small band of dispossessed aliens, they set about building a robotic monster after crash-landing into Loch Ness in Scotland (something that wouldn’t be noticed by the wider world at all, obviously). With advanced technology, a lust for world domination, and voices that rose just above a whisper, they would go on to be adored by fans – including a young Who watcher, sitting in front of his telly at home, called David Tennant Photograph: BBC
They are Steven Moffat’s greatest triumph. Embodying the writer’s knack for psychological tricks, the Weeping Angels are statues that can only move when not being looked at – meaning that, even with the slight flickering of a victim’s eye, they can pounce. The Angels immediately became the stuff of legend when they first appeared in 2007 episode Blink, seen by many as the pinnacle of “New Who”. To conjure a fear of blinking – because in those milliseconds of blindness, the killer statues could creep nearer and nearer – was an amazing achievement. In that episode, they terrorised a pre-fame Carey Mulligan. Photograph: BBC
Russell T Davies’s tenure as show-runner didn’t exactly blow minds in terms of new villains – the farting farce of the Slitheen, anyone? But 2006 two-parter The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit (written by Matt Jones) changed all that with the introduction of the Beast, an imprisoned demon that claimed to be the basis of the devil as he appeared across all religions. It was a bold idea, and one that dragged the show to much darker places, challenging not only the Doctor’s own faith in logic and reason, but the profound mystery of religious origins in general Photograph: BBC
