10 Doctor Who Villains Who SHOULD Return

8. The Zarbi

Doctor Who the Headless Monks
BBC Studios

For all its flaws, Series 12's Arachnids In The UK demonstrated that Doctor Who's special effects are now capable of depicting anything in a convincing way. With this in mind, why not go all the way back to the beginning, to give one of the show's most lacklustre practical effects a modern re-do?

The Zarbi are essentially giant ants that were first seen in 1965's The Web Planet, a First Doctor serial. They hail from the planet Vortis - which is also home to other species of large insect - and were controlled by a mysterious creature known as Animus, until it was defeated at the end of the story.

This means that the Zarbi are now free, which is the perfect reason to go back and revisit them. What happened after Animus was defeated? Did its power have any lasting effect on the Zarbi? It would be cool to see them grow smarter, which, combined with modern technology, could make for an incredibly chilling episode.

Even better, let a small group of Zarbi loose inside the TARDIS's labyrinthine corridors, forcing the Doctor to venture into the heart of the machine in order to weed them out. A bug hunt set inside the TARDIS! Sign everybody up.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.