Doctor Who: 10 Worst NuWho Villains

On a list like this, there could only be one winner. Fourteen years and thousands of hate comments later, it's become a bit of a cliché to dump on Peter Kay's misfire of a monster, almost like it's the #1 entry in the "How To Be A Doctor Who Fan" handbook.

But there's a reason why the Abzorbaloff receives so much criticism: it deserves it.

It's hard to know where to begin, but let's start with the green, slimy elephant in the room: that costume looks hilariously cheap. The fact that it was designed by a nine-year-old kid partly explains why it looks so wrong, but then again, why didn't the production crew do a better job of masking its shortcomings? When a costume looks this bad it should be shot in dark locations with sinister lighting, and yet, director Dan Zeff has poor Peter Kay running down wide open streets in broad daylight. Nice one.

And then, there's the awkward and misplaced humour. When Elton and Ursula confront the Abzorbaloff at the end of the episode, there's some menacing music playing, and the human characters seem really scared and distraught... and yet Kay is hamming it up to eleven, completely at odds with the rest of the scene.

The episode is a tonal mess, completely unsure whether it wants the Abzorbaloff to be a serious threat, or a lighter, funnier villain. Kay doesn't seem to be on the same page as everyone else, and it makes for a confusing and frustrating viewing experience.

It's a shame, because there's a seed of a great idea in here somewhere. A monster that can absorb people sounds terrifying, but the execution in Love & Monsters was a total disaster. Over a decade later... this one still hurts.