It's a surprise to exactly no one that Doctor Who has accumulated a vast treasure trove of murderous monsters and humanoid foes. But not all of these villains have been entirely effective. When a Season 1 foe such as Kal the caveman from the tribe of Gum is compared with, say, the Aztec High Priest of Sacrifice, Tlotoxl, from only a few weeks later, the deficiencies of the palaeolithic pest become hard to ignore. Similarly, when the evil wizard, Kalid, from Time-Flight is stacked up against the giant pink snake that was the Mara in the very same year's Kinda, even the decidedly ropey serpent scores a win. With that said, let's embark on a quest through the most god-awful enemies the Doctor has ever faced to single out the worst of the worst, the lamest of the lame and the silliest of the silly. But don't expect this list to feature merely risible alien animals or incidental characters. To qualify for this list a foe must be an intelligent, scheming villain. No slythers, shrivenzales or giant clams genetically engineered by Davros here. No sir, no matter how funny they are. Naturally, plenty of Whovians will disagree with these choices, but that's not a bad thing. By the end of this list, though, rest assured that you will be need a memory worm or a Black Archive memory filter, just so all recollection of how terrible these characters were can be wiped away forever! You have been warned.
Mike has lived in the UK, Japan and the USA. Currently, he is based in Iowa with his wife and 2 young children. After working for many years as a writer and editor for a large corporation, he is now a freelancer. He has been fortunate enough to contribute to many books on Doctor Who over the last 20 years and is now concentrating on original sci-fi & fantasy short stories, with recent sales including Flame Tree, Uffda, and The Martian Wave. Also, look for his contribution on Blake's 7 to "You and Who Else", a charity anthology to be released later this year.
You can find him on Tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/culttvmike