Doctor Who: 10 Most Underrated Villains And Monsters
8. The Wire - The Idiot's Lantern
The Idiot's Lantern is sometimes unfairly seen as simple filler placed between two larger-scale Series 2 stories, Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel and The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, but this does it an incredible disservice. For one thing, it features one of frequent Doctor Who writer Mark Gatiss's most inventive and chilling villains.
The Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler arrive in 1953 London just before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and discover that people are being taken away and hidden by the police. These people are having their minds and faces removed through their televisions by an incorporeal entity known as The Wire.
Dame Maureen Lipman perfectly shows off her acting chops as she snarls, screams and laughs maniacally while consuming the essences of the human beings around her. This makes The Wire, and the horrible faceless people that she creates, truly scary and the idea that she can beam directly into your home at any moment and take you too is enough to keep anyone from switching the TV on ever again.