10 Doctor Who Villains Who Should NEVER Return

Cybernetically augmented humanoids, stripped of all emotion and hell-bent on converting (or upgrading) all of humanity as part of the next stage of their evolution. The Cybermen have been a classic Who-villain since their first appearance back in 1966's The Tenth Planet. Since the 2005 reboot, the Cybermen have been back multiple times in different guises and have always given the Doctor a run for their money.

Under Russell T Davies, the Cybermen were brought back in 2006 in the two-part story 'Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel', and they didn't half make an impression. Set in a dystopian backdrop of a parallel universe, the Cybermen start rounding up humans and taking them to conversion centres, where their victims are seemingly sliced up and stuffed into robotic shells that are impervious to human weaponry, and can’t be negotiated with.

But as time has gone on, the writers and showrunners have tried to find new and interesting ways of developing the Cybermen further with questionable results. The turning point was in Series 7's Nightmare in Silver, where the Cybermen were given a new makeover and ‘additional’ abilities, including some kind of technology that slowed down time, thereby allowing them to move at great speed, which started to undermine the unstoppable, bulletproof tank-like nature of these villains.

They then came back with a new look in Series 8’s Dark Water and Death in Heaven, a new look in World Enough and Time and The Doctor Falls (Series 10) and then again in Ascension of the Cybermen and The Timeless Children (Series 12).

With the Cybermen normally being such a strong villain to fall back on (should the writers run out of ideas), it feels like they have been reinvented (or tried to be reinvented) one too many times, and with the exception of the Lone Cyberman, none of them have really stuck the landing-with the Cyber-Time Lords in the most recent season finale (The Timeless Children) being the final straw. It is hard to think of a new way that will bring the Cybermen back to their full glory, which is why they should be left alone for the foreseeable future.