Doctor Who: 10 Great Actors Who Were Completely Wasted

While we can give the Doctor Who team a little bit of a pass on this one - nobody really understood how brilliant Olivia Colman was until a few years after her debut in the Whoniverse - it's still true to say that this Oscar-winning actress was given a role that was completely and utterly beneath her.

Popping up in Matt Smith's first full-length episode back in April 2010, Colman played one of the human forms of Prisoner Zero, and while the handful of lines she does get are expertly delivered and dripping with playful wickedness, the role is completely one-dimensional, barely scratching the surface of Colman's incredible range.

All she has to do is stand still and be evil. That's it. No other emotions are required - no joy, no sadness, no remorse - and there isn't a shred of nuance on display.

None of this is Colman's fault, mind you - the character is what it is, and it serves its purpose within the story - but considering how far she's come in the last ten years, it's amazing to think that there was once a time when she would be stuck with a role as bog-standard as this one.

Even former showrunner Steven Moffat - who wrote this episode - thinks that Colman was wasted. The Moff has spoken.