Doctor Who: A Brief History of Moffat’s Best Villains

Before Moffat was a showrunner on Doctor Who, he wrote episodes sporadically. Each episode contained a fascinating villain. Here we go through the villains of his time writing and as showrunner.

As we reach the end of Moffat’s time as run as showrunner on Doctor Who, we realize that there were things he could have done better, and things he did incredibly well. One of the things he did incredibly was write. We saw this before he even became showrunner, in just a few times he would come on as a guest writer. We wrote about the legacy of Moffat, but let’s delve in further.

Each time he came on, he had entire storylines, complete with their villains and characters, to help Doctor Who stay fresh. As the showrunner, he continued to do the same thing. His ability to create arcs and keep villains fresh over more than a two season arc, and then continuing to bring in aliens to keep things fresh.

The Classic Era is famous for all the villains we know that our Doctors grew up with. David Tennant and Peter Capaldi all talked about their favorite aliens from the classic day. Now, looking to the future, it will most likely be the aliens that Moffat wrote that will be remembered.

BBC

Gas Masks

For New Whovians, we still didn’t quite know everything that was going on in the episode that the Gas Mask child was introduced, The Empty Child. It was still our first season, but for us, this was the first episode we got a good scare of an alien that was new. While the Gas Mask Child wasn’t the only new alien, it gave us quite a scare.

The phone box ringing, the voice coming over the radio, always saying “Are you my mummy?”  All we wanted to do was help the poor boy who wanted his Mummy! It wasn’t until The Doctor went into the hospital where we realized something was very wrong.

Will anyone ever forget the horrible scene of the Doctor (played by Peter O’Toole) turning into a Gas Mask villain?We’d had our fun with the Slitheen, but now we were proper fans, able to get the scary villains.

I’d go as far as to say Moffat made the first new villain for the New Era that was scary. Of course, the episode played it off with the iconic Everybody lives Rose! as the Gas Mask Child finds his mommy and they’re cured.

But we’ll never forget our first true, scary alien.

BBC

Clockwork Androids

These villains are my favorite — not to mention they’re tied to my favorite episode, The Girl in the Fireplace as well as Peter Capaldi’s first episode Deep Breath.

In the season two episode, the Clockwork Androids are dressed the way people got to dress to go to fancy ballroom dances. They didn’t start out that way, though. The Androids were scanning the brain of a young child, the later Madame De Pompadour to use her brain for their ship. As they went through her timeline, punching holes in the universe, they continued to try to attack her. At one point, the Doctor tells her how they work:

You’ll always know if one’s around when you hear ticking, but you have a broken clock. Once the clock on the wall broke, the Doctor rushed to save Reinette. It turns out these Androids were saving a broken ship and using human parts to do so.

Later in the series, in Peter Capaldi’s first episode, we saw these creatures again. This time, they were scanning bodies for their best parts, to repair themselves – the androids. All trying to get to the promise land.

These Androids made my favorite list because I think they’re so inventive. Who would think to make a clock a potentially scary thing? It’s also almost an instinctive worry — that robots would somehow want to take over our bodies. They were almost like lesser-Cybermen!

BBC

Weeping Angels

Do we even need to talk about the Weeping Angels? These alien creatures that Moffat created are legendary. I don’t even know if Moffat would have had the power in the Who world to be show runner if he didn’t make up these absolutely iconic creatures.

We all know about the weeping angels, but for a brief overview. These creatures are quantum-locked, which means that you can’t look at it. It’s why even the angels will have their eyes covered so they don’t see each other. However, when you don’t keep your eye on them…you know the drill. Don’t Blink. Blink and you’re dead. You’ll end up in a different time period, and you never know where. It’s always completely random.

The first episode the Weeping Angels showed up in was an interesting episode Blink — it was an episode that didn’t feature the Doctor or Martha. It followed Sally Sparrow (Casey Mulligan) as she tried to find out what happened to her friend, a victim of the Weeping Angels.

Since then, they’ve shown up in The Time of Angels, The God Complex, The Angels Take Manhattan, The Time of the Doctor, mostly during Eleven’s time as the Doctor. Each time, they’ve spread chaos wherever they’ve flown. They’re also responsible for Amy and Rory leaving the Doctor.

BBC

Vashta Nerada

Not much is known about the Vashta Nerada. They’ve only been in one episode, Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead. They live in the shadows of the dark, and they are described as “shadows that melt the flesh”. Currently, James has done two audio reviews that flesh out the villain more than in the television show, using Older Doctors, where Four and Eight both have separate dealings.

The interesting thing about the Vashta Nerada is that they’re basically harmless. They’re always there around you, but hardly ever in numbers that are dangerous. It’s only when they get into large swarms can they hurt you, or kill you.

In Silence of the Library, the characters had to watch their steps, because the Vashta Nerada made their own shadow to confuse people. If a person stepped into the shadow, they would die. According to the Doctor, they live everywhere. “Where there’s meat, there’s Vashta Nerada.”

BBC

Silence

Silence…will…fall….

That phrase was a huge part of the fifth and sixth season of Doctor Who. The Silence showed up in the first episode of season six. Originally, they are a religious order from Tasha Lem. The Silence’s mission was to kill the Doctor before he could decide to go to Trenzalore, his final resting place.

However, we first met the Silence in America, when Amy continued to see them. The difficult part about the Silence, and possibly the most brilliant, is that you only remember them when you see them. It turns out that these creatures had been manipulating humans.

The Silence weren’t just villains that followed the Doctor. They also continued to follow Melody Pond, Rory and Amy’s daughter, also known as River Song. She was taken from Amy as an infant and trained her to be the person who killed the Doctor. The chapter and Madame Kovarian followed her all the way to the day she became a Doctor (PhD), where they kidnapped her and put her in a space suit. It was her destiny and her job to kill the Doctor, a fixed point in time.

These villains are synonymous with everything to do with the Eleventh Doctor. The cracks in the wall from the first episode were from the Kovarian chapter trying to go back and kill the Doctor before he went to Trenzalore, breaking time in the process. They even had something to do with how the Doctor meets his wife, River Song. Everything that the Doctor fought during his tenure was because of these Priests and the chapter of the church of Tasha Lem.

BBC

Missy

Did we save the best for last? Possibly. Probably. Because if none of those other aliens make it through the next four years (at least) of Doctor Who History. If nothing else Moffat does is ever remembered, he will be remembered for one thing: He made Missy.

Who is Missy?

GIPHY

That is Missy. Missy is the female regeneration of the Master. She started giving the Doctor trouble the minute he regenerated into his Twelfth Doctor face (not including Warrior and Ten Too). She was using  ‘The Promised Land’ or ‘Nethersphere’ or ‘Heaven’. to build an army of Cybermen just for the Doctor.

Obviously, that didn’t work out. After that, the two shared a frenemy relationship that only the Doctor and the Master could ever have. One moment, Missy got offended that she wasn’t his archenemy, then she would be trapping Clara in a Dalek suit. Missy was by far the most entertaining Master, as you had no idea what she was going to do next. She was crazy, manic, funny, hysteric, unpredictable — perfect for a villain.

This will truly be Moffat’s legacy, making one of the most iconic Masters. Not because of gender. But because you never saw anything coming. Perfect for the Doctor’s ex-friend.

He will also go down for one of the most tragic endings. After two seasons of an evil Missy, The Doctor finally begins to change her. She begins to see all the destruction she’s caused and begins to change. This causes a former regeneration of the Master to come back and stop her by killing her before the Doctor will ever know.

So Moffat will be remembered for:

• A new regenerated Master
• Turning that Master good
• Killing that Master before the Doctor would know

Next: Did Bill's tear help the Doctor regenerate?

It’s no wonder Moffat’s great with villains. He truly has made some of the best that Doctor Who has ever seen. He will go down in Who History for multiple ways he improved the show. But nothing is as good as the villains he created for the Doctor throughout ten seasons. Both as showrunner, and as a writer.