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

8. Ashad

Doctor Who villains
BBC Studios

Appears in: The Haunting of Villa Diodati, Ascension of the Cybermen/The Timeless Children, The Power of the Doctor.

Ashad, aka The Lone Cyberman, is a massive upgrade on previous Cyber Leaders, thanks to Patrick O'Kane's magnificently malevolent turn. He strikes genuine fear with his ferocious focus in eradicating all organic life in the universe. Pff, and he still believes that suppressing emotions is the way to go.

It also helps that he looks and sounds bloody terrifying - with the whole Two-Face vibe going on and a uniquely chilling Cyber voice. But there's absolutely no Two-Face crisis of conscience with Ashad as he triumphantly tells Mary Shelley that he "did have children. I slit their throats when they joined the resistance". Now that's how a masked menace deals with unruly kids: none of that faffing about trying to convert them.

For such a vitriolic villain who "makes other Cybermen scream", Ashad's apparent demise is incredibly anticlimactic - a quick spin around by the Master and zap of his tissue compressor eliminator leaving Ashad nothing more than a humble figurine to add to your Doctor Who memorabilia.

He returns as a clone during Thirteen's regeneration episode, but is a pale imitation by comparison as one of the Master's Cybergrunts.

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The name's Colbourn, James - yeah, doesn't quite have the same ring to it.