Doctor Who: 10 Most Underrated Villains And Monsters
6. The Gangers - The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People
For the final two-parter of Series 6's second half, showrunner Steven Moffat turned to acclaimed writer Matthew Graham, best known as the co-creator of sci-fi police drama Life on Mars. Moffat specifically asked Graham to write a story about "avatars that rebel" and Graham truly ran with the concept.
The Eleventh Doctor, Amy, and Rory land on a remote island in the near future that houses an acid mining facility inside an ancient monastery. The crew of the facility use avatars, called 'Gangers', to safely handle and transport the acid. But when a solar storm strikes, their Gangers gain sentience and a tense standoff begins.
This story often gets a lukewarm reception among Doctor Who fans, which is totally unearned. The Gothic location, the horrific appearance of the Gangers in their true forms, the philosophical dilemmas at the heart of it all.
The Gangers are excellent monsters of course, utterly terrifying as they chase our heroes up and down corridors. But it's not every day that one of the gruesome creatures hunting the Doctor and friends actually makes you care for them.
The Gangers believe they are just as human as their counterparts and all they want to see their families again. The overall plot may be too close to a rehash of the Doctor negotiating between humans and Silurians for some, but the Gangers are distinct enough in their struggles to stick out among Series 6's monsters line-up.