Doctor Who: EVERY NuWho Villain And Monster Ranked Worst To Best

Appear in: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances.

We really ought to be blaming those nanogenes for accidentally creating a plague of gas mask-wearing zombies, who continually pose the second most famous question in Doctor Who (after Doctor who?): "Are you my mummy?". But, hey, they could only work with what they had at the time: a dead child (Jamie) wearing a gas mask, who was killed by a German World War II bomb.

This is classic Steven Moffat at his absolute best when taking ordinary elements and turning them into something memorably scary. With bug-eyed lenses and a protruding breathing apparatus, these particular gas masks actually look alien, especially when we see the torturous transformation of Doctor Constantine, and army officer Algy as the gas mask morphs and grafts itself onto their faces.

Throw in some old-school frights where the Empty Child transmits his calls for his mummy via the TARDIS telephone, a radio, in sync with a cymbal-banging toy monkey and a typewriter, you wonder how Moffat could ever top these marvellously menacing monsters...