Before we start i have to say that the villains in the list are only from the New Who stories but i will mention that they were also at the Classics. Also monsters like the Ice Warriors that were in New Who and in Classic Who will not appear in the list because there isn't any other story except "Cold War" that the Ice Waarriors were + the Zygons will be in the Series 9 story: "Invasion/Inversion of the Zygons" so i will count that as two stories. ( Also this is my opinion so if you don't like it just write your own )
Warning: Spoilers
Number 10: The Great Intelligence
Both the Great Intelligence and the Yeti appeared twice in the fifth season of the series as adversaries of the Doctor's second incarnation (Patrick Troughton). The 1967 serial The Abominable Snowmen depicts the Great Intelligence as having possessed the body of the High Lama Padmasamabhava (Wolfe Morris), ever since encountering the man on the astral plane some centuries ago. Using Padmasambhava the Great Intelligence moves small Yeti pieces around a chess-like map of the monastery and mountainside, with the Yeti protecting a cave hiding a pyramid of spheres that house the Great Intelligence. The Great Intelligence intends to create a physical body for itself, but these plans are foiled by the Doctor and his companions.
In the sequel The Web of Fear, aired in 1968 and set forty years after The Abominable Snowmen, the Great Intelligence returns when a control sphere is activated and enters a Yeti. The Great Intelligence uses an army of Yeti to take over the London Underground and begins filling London with a Web. The Great Intelligence primarily possesses the mind of Staff-Sergeant Arnold (Jack Woolgar) to sabotage the military resistance to the Yeti invasion. The invasion is revealed as a trap designed to draw in the Doctor so that the Great Intelligence can drain the Doctor’s mind, but it is again defeated and banished.
The 2012 Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) episode "The Snowmen" provides an origin for the Great Intelligence, whose voice is provided by Sir Ian McKellen. It reveals that the Intelligence originated as a crystalline organism that looks like snow and responds to the thoughts of others. The snow-like organism became influenced by the thoughts of a young boy named Simeon during the 1800s, forming a mental symbiosis. From there, the Great Intelligence had the adult Dr. Simeon (Richard E Grant) create "The Great Intelligence Institute" and orchestrate a scheme to obtain the DNA of a governess who froze to death in the Latimer family's pond. He intends to use her DNA to create ice-based lifeforms incapable of melting to take over the world. After the ice creature is destroyed, the Doctor uses a "memory worm" on Dr Simeon to erase his memories, expecting this to destroy the Intelligence. However, the Great Intelligence has existed long enough to become an independent entity and uses Simeon's brain-dead husk to attack the Doctor before withdrawing from his vessel when the Latimer family cries for the dying Clara, triggering his snow to melt. However it is implied these events lead to the Web of Fear as the Doctor shows a map of the London Underground in the future to the Great Intelligence.
The Great Intelligence appears in the 2013 episode "The Bells of Saint John", set in the present day. The Great Intelligence uses a woman called Miss Kizlet (Celia Imrie) to aid him in creating an organization based at the Shard to collect and harvest the minds of people using wifi for it to feed on. The Eleventh Doctor manages to upload Miss Kizlet into this "data cloud", forcing the workers to free the minds trapped in the data cloud and return them to their bodies. To preserve its secrecy and hinder UNIT's investigation, the Great Intelligence has Miss Kizlet wipe all memories of its existence from her and the other employees's memories. It communicated with humans on video screens using the likeness of Simeon.
In the Series 7 finale, "The Name of the Doctor", the Great Intelligence manifests through and manipulates dark creatures called the Whisper Men, changing the one it inhabits into the form of Dr Simeon. The Whispermen kidnap the Paternoster Gang, close associates of the Eleventh Doctor, taking them to Trenzalore, the site of the Doctor's future grave. Having thereby lured the Doctor to his own grave, the Great Intelligence gains access to Doctor's tomb (his future dead TARDIS), by threatening the lives of the Gang. It is revealed the Doctor's travels through time have created a temporal rift "body" inside the dead husk of the future TARDIS. The Great Intelligence claims that it plans on getting revenge on the Doctor for foiling its schemes by scattering itself along the Doctor's timeline. Through scattering itself, the Great Intelligence intends to overturn all of the Doctor's various victories and destroy him, even though this would destroy the Great Intelligence itself. After it has entered the rift, however, the Doctor's companion Clara Oswald follows him, likewise scattering herself along the timeline, saving the Doctor, who in turn enters his own timeline to rescue Clara. The Intelligence is presumed destroyed, though multiple versions of it are laced in the Doctor's timeline.
Number 9: Clockwork Droids
The Clockwork Repair Droids were androids that served on the SS Madame de Pompadour and its sister ship, the SS Marie Antoinette. The former stalked Madame de Pompadour in 18th century France, believing that they could repair their ship by taking her brain. The former wore 18th century French clothing to blend in with the people of the era and were clockwork instead of electric so they could function if their ship's power was depleted. The latter crashed in Earth's distant past and remained hidden until the Victorian era when their control node tried to repair the ship with both organic and mechanic material from Victorian London to take them to the "promised land". They disguised themselves using human skin taken from their deceased victims.
They followed camouflage procedures to blend into the surroundings. This could be as simple as dressing in appropriate costumes to match the time periods they found themselves in — despite looking somewhat unrealistic. (The Girl in the Fireplace) A more drastic procedure of camouflage was the harvesting of human skin and organs to outwardly appear human. (Deep Breath) They could be equipped with short range teleporters, scanners, tranquillisers and tools within their wrists for part removal. In the case of the Clockwork Droids aboard the SS Marie Antoinette, they were able replace their tools with local spare parts, such as sword blades. They could also heat themselves if they were frozen and empty unwanted fluids from their system. Whenever they entered a room, they made "tick tock" noises from their clockwork parts. They broke any clock in the room to avoid raising suspicion.
Number 8: Sontarans
The Sontarans made their first appearance in 1973 in the serial The Time Warrior by Robert Holmes, where a Sontaran named Linx is stranded in the Middle Ages. Linx uses a projector to bring back human scientists from the future to fix his spacecraft.
Another Sontaran named Styre appears in The Sontaran Experiment (1975), experimenting on captured astronauts on a far future Earth. Their third appearance is in The Invasion of Time, where they successfully invade Gallifrey, but are driven out again after less than a day. They appeared for the final time in the original series in The Two Doctors. The Sontarans also appeared in a skit for the BBC children's programme Jim'll Fix It titled "A Fix with Sontarans", along with Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and Janet Fielding as Tegan Jovanka. References are made in Sontaran episodes to the Rutan Host, an equally militaristic race with whom the Sontarans have been at war for thousands of years though the Rutans were not shown until the 1977 serial Horror of Fang Rock.
Sporting an updated design, Sontarans returned to the revived series in the series 4 (2008) episodes "The Sontaran Strategem" and "The Poison Sky". The Sontarans plan to terraform the Earth into a new clone world, but their plans are averted by the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant). It is also revealed that the race was excluded from the Time War of the revived series' backstory. In "Turn Left", the same events are depicted in a parallel universe, where through exposition describes their plan as foiled by Torchwood (characters from the spin-off show of that name), at the cost of their lives, with Torchwood leader Jack Harkness being captured by the Sontarans. In "The Stolen Earth", UNIT is revealed to have developed a teleportation device based on Sontaran technology. A lone survivor from the events of "The Poison Sky", Kaagh (Anthony O'Donnell), next appears in The Last Sontaran, from spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures. Kaagh appears again in Enemy of the Bane. In Doctor Who 's "The End of Time, Part Two" (2010), a Sontaran sniper (Dan Starkey) briefly appears pursuing the Doctor's former companions Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke) and his wife Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman), but is defeated by the Doctor before he can assassinate them. Alongside the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith), Sontarans battle fleets are seen in series five (2010) finale episode "The Pandorica Opens", as part of an alliance of the Doctor's enemies. Series 6 episode "A Good Man Goes to War" (2011) introduces Strax (Starkey), a Sontaran nurse who has been assigned this role as a means of making penance. He fights on the side of the Doctor and his allies, which include the Silurian warrior Vastra (Neve McIntosh) and her lover Jenny (Catrin Stewart). Strax appears again in Christmas special "The Snowmen" (2012), now serving as Vastra and Jenny's butler, and assists them in their capacity as Victorian era detectives. This trio were featured also in the episodes "The Crimson Horror", "The Name of the Doctor" (both 2013) and "Deep Breath" (2014). A troop of Sontarans are also seen as invaders of the planet Trenzalore in the 2013 Christmas special "The Time of the Doctor".
Number 7: The Nestenes
The Nestenes are among the oldest beings in the Doctor Who universe, described as creatures which existed in the "Dark Times", along with the Racnoss, Great Vampires and Carrionites. Eventually, they sought to invade the Earth (in Spearhead from Space), using more human-looking Autons to replace key government figures, although these plans were thwarted by UNIT with the help of the Doctor, who also destroyed their invasion form, a multi-tentacled cephalopod.
The Nestenes subsequently returned in the first serial of Pertwee's second year as the Doctor, Terror of the Autons, which also featured the introduction of the Master. In this attempt, the Nestenes also made use of more mundane objects, animating plastic toys, inflatable chairs and artificial flowers in addition to their Auton servants. The Doctor convinced the Master that the Nestenes were too dangerous to be reliable allies, and they reversed the radio beam the invasion force was coming in on, sending it back into space.
Early drafts of The Five Doctors (1983) featured a scene where Sarah Jane Smith encountered some Autons and is rescued by the Third Doctor, but it was dropped before filming for reasons of time and expense. A third appearance was planned for the aborted 1985 season during Colin Baker's tenure as the Doctor, but never materialized. Titled Yellow Fever and How to Cure It, it was supposed to be set in Singapore, with appearances by the Rani and the Master. The story, which was to be scripted by veteran writer Robert Holmes, only exists in outline form.
Although the Autons only made two appearances during the original television series run, they remain one of the more memorable monsters associated with Doctor Who. The image of store mannequins coming to life in Spearhead, in full colour and shooting people down in the street, is one of the series' iconic moments, and is often cited as an example of the series' ability to make everyday things terrifying. The use of even more ordinary objects in Terror of the Autons — including the unmasking of a police officer as an Auton — caused public controversy about whether the programme was too frightening for children. The story also featured in a discussion in the House of Lords, where Baroness Bacon expressed worries about it being too frightening even for older children.
When the series was revived in 2005, producer and writer Russell T Davies chose the Autons as the first monster to be featured. The Nestenes infiltrated Earth once more, using warp shunt technology, in the opening episode of the 2005 series. In "Rose", it was revealed that the Nestenes lost their food supply in a war when their protein planets rotted. Their intent was to overthrow and destroy the human race, as Earth was ideal for their consumption needs, being filled with smoke, oil and various pollutants. They were eventually destroyed when Rose spilled a vial of the Doctor's "anti-plastic" solution into the vat of molten plastic which housed the main bulk of the Consciousness, causing it to explode. (The episode never mentioned "Autons" by name other than in the credits, but the Nestene Consciousness was specifically identified.)
"Rose" also featured an Auton facsimile that could change the shape of its features and limbs, and established that the Nestenes animate the Autons by means of telepathic projection. When duplicated, the originals are kept alive to maintain the copy (this is also seen in Spearhead from Space). It is not yet clear if the war mentioned was also the motivation behind their earlier invasions or a recent development, but it is likely to be the Time War that is featured in subsequent episodes of the series.
The Autons appeared in a segment of the 2006 series episode "Love & Monsters". The sequence, specifically filmed for the episode, was a flashback to the climactic events of "Rose".
The Autons returned in the 2010 episode "The Pandorica Opens", allying with the Atraxi, Blowfish, Chelonians, Daleks, Drahvins, Draconians, Sontarans, Cybermen, Haemogoth, Judoon, Slitheen, Silurians, Sycorax, Terileptils, Hoix, Roboforms, Uvodni, Zygons and Weevils to trap the Eleventh Doctor. The Autons in this episode were programmed to believe they were the soldiers of a Roman legion, among them Rory Williams, using the memories of Amy Pond. They were very realistic and far more sophisticated than the average Auton, and their hands contained futuristic laser guns rather than projectile weapons. As in the 2005 appearance, the name "Auton" was not used in dialogue; the phrase "Nestene duplicate" was introduced here to describe the copy of Rory. Due to the influences of the cracks in time, the Rory copy possessed the personality of the real Rory and helped save the universe. The Rory duplicate survived on Earth from A.D. 102 to 1996, demonstrating that Autons can have a long lifespan.
Number 6: Zygons
The Zygons first appeared in the 1975 serial Terror of the Zygons, where they planned to conquer Earth after the Zygon homeworld was destroyed in a stellar explosion. One such craft, whose occupants are led by warlord Broton, crash landed into Loch Ness. The Zygons intended to use a Skarasen, a creature whose lactic fluid they feed on and was called the Loch Ness Monster by the general public, to attack an energy conference in London as part of a bid to conquer Earth for colonization by a refugee fleet. The plan was foiled with Broton and his crew killed as a result of the intervention of the Fourth Doctor and the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT) while the Skarasen retreats to Loch Ness.
The Zygons are briefly mentioned (but not seen) in Eleventh Doctor episode "The Pandorica Opens" as one of the many races in an alliance against the Doctor. In the 2012 episode, "The Power of Three", a Zygon ship is beneath the Savoy Hotel where the Doctor takes Amy Pond and Rory Williams on their wedding anniversary. However, all the Zygons in the story are seen in the guises of hotel staff.
The Zygons returned in 2013 in "The Day of the Doctor", the 50th anniversary episode of the program. The episode hints the stellar explosion (said, in their origin story in 1975, to have destroyed their homeworld) was caused by the Time War. Having arrived in Elizabethan England, a squad placed themselves in suspended animation to bide their time until awakening in 2013 to infiltrate the Tower of London's Black Archive in the guise of UNIT members. The scheme is foiled thanks to the intervention of the Tenth Doctor, the Eleventh Doctor and the War Doctor- the Doctor who actively fought in the Time War, originating between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors- who arrange for a truce to be drawn up between the humans and their Zygon doppelgängers when UNIT threatened to detonate a nuclear bomb to prevent the Zygons gaining access to UNIT's archives of recovered alien technology.
On 8 May 2015, the BBC press office officially confirmed the Zygons would return in a 2 part story written by Peter Harness (later confirmed as being titled Invasion of the Zygons and Inversion of the Zygons) in the 9th series of the revived programme to be broadcast in the autumn of 2015
Number 5: The Cybermen
The Cybermen first appear in the serial The Tenth Planet in 1966, set in 1986, in which their origin story is given as follows. Millions of years ago, during prehistoric times, Earth had a twin planet known as Mondas. Mondas was knocked out of solar orbit and drifted into deep space. The Mondasians, already far in advance of Earth's technology and fearful for their race's survival, their lifespans shortening, replaced most of their bodies with cybernetic parts. Having eventually removed all emotion from their brains, to maintain their sanity, the natives installed a drive propulsion system so they could pilot the planet itself through space. As the original race was limited in numbers and were continually being depleted, the Mondasians – now Cybermen – became a race of conquerors who reproduced by taking other organic beings and forcibly changing them into Cybermen. These Cybermen fight against the First Doctor (William Hartnell) when the Cybermen attempt to drain the Earth's energy to make way for Mondas' return to the solar system. However, Mondas absorbs too much energy from Earth, destroying it and those Cybermen on Earth. The adventure takes its physical toll on the Doctor, forcing him to regenerate for the first time, becoming the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton).
Redesigned Cybermen next appear in The Moonbase (1967), set in 2070, opposite the Second Doctor, who discovers a crypt containing Cybermen during a visit to the Moon. They attempt to remotely destroy the Earth by affecting its weather patterns with a device called the Gravitron. However, the Gravitron is used against them, hurling them into space. Later that year, The Tomb of the Cybermen sees a 25th Century human expedition discover sarcophagi containing hibernating Cybermen on the planet Telos, where the creatures arise and attack. This episode introduces the cybermats, small mechanical scouts used by the Cybermen, as well as their leader, the Cyber Controller. In The Wheel in Space (1968), the Doctor and his crew face off against the Cybermen on a marooned Earth space station in the 21st Century. This episode introduces the Cyber-Planner, an immobile unit which directs the Cybermen. The Cybermen plan to take over the space station, after which their fleet will invade Earth. The Doctor uses an x-ray laser to destroy the Cybermen. In The Invasion that same year, the Doctor and his companions visit late 20th century England where he discovers an army of Cybermen are hidden on Earth, working with magnate Tobias Vaughn (Kevin Stoney) for their fleet to invade Earth. Their invasion is defeated by the Doctor and the military support of the newly formed United Nations Intelligence Taskforce.
The Cybermen were not shown to face the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) during his original run, but one is shown as part of an exhibit in Carnival of Monsters (1973) though he does encounter them in the show's twentieth anniversary special aired in 1983. The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) is next to encounter a small group of Cybermen in Revenge of the Cybermen (1975), for which they were once again redesigned. These Cybermen are depicted as the wandering remnants of a fallen empire, ravaged by the so-called Cyber-Wars against victorious humanity, which had crucially exploited the Cybermen's weakness to gold. These Cybermen attempt to restore the glory of their race by destroying the humans' gold-rich asteroid Voga. Another long hiatus preceded Earthshock (1982), in which the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) encounters Cybermen in Earth in the year 2526, who seek to destroy the planet with a large bomb while alien dignitaries visit Earth to discuss the ongoing Cyber-Wars. After the Doctor foils this plan, they decide to crash their freighter into the planet to much the same effect. The Doctor's companion, boy genius Adric (Matthew Waterhouse), is trapped on board and attempts to escape from the freighter, but inadvertently causes it to hurtle back in time. The freighter crashes into prehistoric Earth, killing Adric and triggering the K-T extinction event. The Cybermen appear once more in the Fifth Doctor's era, alongside the four previous Doctors, in The Five Doctors (1983), when they are all transported alongside other nemeses of the Doctor to his home planet of Gallifrey by the Time Lord President Borusa (Philip Latham). The Third Doctor observes a group of Cybermen being destroyed by the Raston Warrior Robot, providing a distraction and allowing Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) and him to escape the robot which was otherwise blocking their path. Other groups of Cybermen survive to threaten each of the other Doctors placed in the Death Zone.
Attack of the Cybermen (1985) is set much earlier in the Cyber-Wars than Revenge, during a time in which the Cybermen faced defeat following the human invention of the glittergun and the discovery of gold-rich Voga. The Cybermen attempt to use a time machine to avert the destruction of Mondas. Their plan fails, and they also lose their adopted homeworld of Telos to its original inhabitants, the Cryons, following the intervention of the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker). The Cybermen appeared for a final time in the classic series in Silver Nemesis (1988), in which a fleet of Cybermen warships assemble to convert Earth into a new Mondas. A Cybermen scouting party is sent to Earth in search of the legendary Nemesis statue, a Time Lord artefact of immense power, made of the "living metal" validium. The intervention of the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and his companion Ace (Sophie Aldred), however, ensures that the Nemesis destroys the entire cyber-fleet instead. Between the series' cancellation and its subsequent revival, they make one other brief appearance in the 1993 Children in Need special Dimensions in Time, as one of several enemies used by evil Time Lady the Rani (Kate O'Mara) to hunt the Doctor.
In 2006 for series 2 of the revied seriess, Cybermen were reintroduced with a new origin story set in a parallel universe. In the "Rise of the Cybermen"/"The Age of Steel" two-part story, the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) and his companions crash land in a parallel London where the Cybermen are being created on modern-day Earth. The Cybermen are created by the owner of Cybus Industries, the dying transhumanist mad scientist John Lumic (Roger Lloyd-Pack). Lumic's Cybermen successfully convert much of the world's population by placing their human brains into robotic shells. The Doctor and his friends free London from their control. A human resistance group, the Preachers, then sets about to clean up the remainder of Lumic's factories around the world. The Cybermen reappear in the 2006 finale "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday", exploiting a breach between universes to invade the Doctor's Earth. This breach is caused by a transport device belonging to the Daleks, who reveal themselves and trigger all-out war between the species. The Doctor ultimately re-opens the breach, causing the Cybermen and all but a few Daleks to become trapped inside before it is re-sealed. The episode "Cyberwoman" from spin-off programme Torchwood follows on from these events. Torchwood employee Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd) is shown to be hiding his girlfriend and colleague Lisa Hallett (Caroline Chikezie) at the organisation's Cardiff base as he tries to reverse her partial conversion. Lisa is killed by Torchwood's Cardiff agents after her programming asserts itself and she begins killing. Cybermen next appear in the 2008 Doctor Who Christmas special "The Next Doctor", emerging in 1851 London after the Daleks damaged the walls of reality in the previous episode. They attempt to raise a new army on Earth using period technology, but are again foiled by the Doctor.
After Steven Moffat took over the role of executive producer in 2010, Cyberman of essentially the design introduced by Davies continued to appear. No explicit reference is made to their origin, but generally the stylised 'c' (for Cybus Corporation) on their breastplate had been replaced by a plain circle, implying that they were not from the parallel universe. They appear in "The Pandorica Opens" (2010) alongside many of the Doctor's recurring enemies as part of an alliance dedicated to stopping him, arriving in cyber ships in 102 CE. They appear again in "A Good Man Goes to War" (2011), when the Eleventh Doctor's (Matt Smith) companion Rory (Arthur Darvill) demands the location of a secret asteroid base in a quadrant of space which they monitor in the 52nd century. The Doctor destroys a large fleet of their spaceships to indicate their seriousness. In "Closing Time", an old, long-since-crashed cyber ship beneath Earth's surface is reawakened by electrical work in 2011 Colchester; cybermats are reintroduced to the series. A Cybermen invasion is successfully repelled by the Doctor and his friend Craig (James Corden). Neil Gaiman's episode "Nightmare in Silver" (2013) depicts the re-emergence of the Cybermen in the distant future, following what was believed to be their complete eradication by humankind. These redesigned Cybermen have discarded many of their limitations, exhibiting increased speed, rapid upgrading to overcome weaknesses, and the ability to cyberconvert any biological organism into their ranks. The Eleventh Doctor undergoes a partial cyberconversion, and mentally duels with a Cyber-Planner for control of his body. The emperor of the galaxy (Warwick Davis) orders a planet's destruction to wipe out the Cyberman, but one intact cybermite (new, minuscule cybermat variants) is later seen floating through space. A dead Cyberman head is briefly shown in the UNIT Black Archive in "The Day of the Doctor", and in "The Time of the Doctor" they are among the many species which besiege the planet Trenzalore for centuries. In the latter episode, the Doctor also uses a disembodied Cyberman head, devoid of any remaining organic parts; named "Handles", he serves as the Doctor's personal assistant and confidant for several centuries until his eventual 'death' brings the Doctor to tears.
In finale of the 2014 series, "Dark Water"/"Death in Heaven", the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) learns too late that the Cybermen have formed an alliance with the Master (Michelle Gomez), who is converting the stolen bodies of the dead into an army. A cyberconversion process begins on all of Earth's dead. The Master offers the Doctor control of the Cybermen army so they can rule the universe together, but her plan is foiled when Danny (Samuel Anderson), the cyber converted boyfriend of the Doctor's companion, resists his programming and destroys himself along with all the other Cybermen.
Number 4: The Silence
The unexplained ominous phrase "Silence will fall" recurs throughout the fifth series of Doctor Who, in 2010. The plot thread is left open in the series finale, "The Big Bang", where the force responsible for the TARDIS' destruction is left unidentified. The Silence are then introduced—as a species rather than an event—in the two-part premiere for the show's sixth series. Later in the series, the Silence is revealed to be a religious movement composed of the species of the same name. The religion takes its name from the prophecy that when the oldest question in the universe is asked, silence will (or must) fall. As the Doctor is predestined to answer the question, the Silence made it their goal to make his death a fixed point in time and prevent this.
The species called the Silence is formally introduced in the "The Impossible Astronaut" / "Day of the Moon" two-parter; one Silent observes the death of a future Doctor (Matt Smith) in Utah. Soon after, and unaware that companions River Song (Alex Kingston), Amy (Karen Gillan), and Rory (Arthur Darvill) met his future self and witnessed his death, the Doctor takes them to 1969, where they confront the Silence as they manipulate the US government. By recording a Silent saying, "you should kill us all on sight," on a videophone—which the Doctor broadcasts during the Apollo 11 moonlanding—Earth's populace is conditioned to kill all Silence, though they will not remember doing so. In the process, the Doctor's group meets a mysterious girl in the same astronaut suit as the assailant who kills his future self. Later in the series, this girl is revealed to be Amy and Rory's daughter, Melody Pond, who is also a young River Song. She is kidnapped as a baby, in "A Good Man Goes to War", by Madame Kovarian (Frances Barber) in order to become a weapon against the Doctor—her Time Lord-like genetic traits make her an ideal candidate to kill the Doctor. "Let's Kill Hitler" establishes that the apparent "religious order" of the Silence, and its Academy of the Question, has brainwashed her to such an end, though River goes against her programming and saves the Doctor's life. After biding their time until the conditions were right, Kovarian and the Silence kidnap River in "Closing Time", and force her to enact her role in the Doctor's death at Lake Silencio as seen in "The Impossible Astronaut". In "The Wedding of River Song", many Silence appear in a parallel universe caused by River not shooting the Doctor. The eyepatches worn by Madame Kovarian and others are revealed to be "Eye Drives"—external memory units—permitting associates of the Silence to perceive and remember the species. The Silence reveal, however, that they have the power to remotely kill the devices' wearers—as such, they betray Kovarian by killing her. The Doctor also learns why they wanted to kill him — to prevent a predestined event where he will be forced to answer the oldest question in the Universe (which turns out to be the show's name itself, "Doctor who?"), a terrible secret he knows. Though the Doctor's death at Lake Silencio was thought to be a "fixed point" of history, it turns out he faked his death, with River imprisoned for it so that the Silence will believe him dead.
The Silence's origins are revealed in "The Time of the Doctor" (2013). They are genetically modified priests belonging to the Church of the Papal Mainframe; penitents would confess their sins and then forget their confessions immediately after giving them. During the hundreds of years of stalemate above the planet Trenzalore, where the Doctor refused to give his name lest he unleash the full horrors of a renewed Time War on the universe, the Papal Mainframe became known as the Church of the Silence, making the Doctor's continued silence its primary mission. During this period, the "Kovarian Chapter" of the Church is said to have split off and attempted to destroy the Doctor before he arrived on Trenzalore, as seen in Series 6. Their first attempt to stop the Doctor's arrival there is revealed to be the destruction of his TARDIS in Series 5. Ironically, this action leads to the appearance of the cracks in the universe which brought the Church to Trenzalore in the first place. When the stalemate ends and Trenzalore is plunged into battle, the remaining Silence (who are loyal to the Papal Mainframe) fight alongside the Doctor to protect the planet's inhabitants from invading Daleks.
Number 3: The Master
Childhood:
In "The Sound of Drums" (2007) and The End of Time (2009–10), a flashback shows the Master at the age of eight, during a Time Lord initiation ceremony where he is taken before a gap in the fabric of space and time known as the Untempered Schism, from which one can see into the entire Vortex. The Tenth Doctor states that looking into the time vortex causes some Time Lords to go mad, implying that event to have been the cause of the Master's actions and the four-beat sound of drums, which the Master calls the "drums of war",[citation needed] and what Rassilon calls "a warrior's march". In The End of Time, the Master repeats this story himself, and both he and Lord President Rassilon confirm that the Untempered Schism is where the drumming noise began. The Chancellor describes the rhythm as something "history says is a torment that stayed with him for the rest of his life." The drumming is later revealed to be a signal retroactively placed in his mind by the Time Lord High Council during the Time War as part of Rassilon's plan to escape the Time Lock, as shown in The End of Time. Also in The End of Time, Rassilon identifies the signal to be a Time Lord's heartbeat. In "The Sound of Drums", the Tenth Doctor describes the Master as a "friend at first," while in "Death in Heaven" (2014), Osgood refers to the Master as the Doctor's "childhood friend".
Aims and character:
A would-be universal conqueror, the Master wants to control the universe (in The Deadly Assassin his ambitions were described as becoming "the master of all matter"), with a secondary objective to make the Doctor suffer. The Master, played by Roger Delgado, makes his first appearance in Terror of the Autons where he employs the Nestene Consciousness. But it resulted with the Master stranded on Earth by the Third Doctor as he becomes a reoccurring nemesis[disputed – discuss] who utilises his disguises and hypnosis to mingle among humans while enlisting the aid of alien races in his plans, which include the Dæmons. Delgado's last appearance as the Master was in Frontier in Space, where he worked alongside the Daleks and the Ogrons to provoke a war between the Human and Draconian Empires. But the scheme failed and the Master escaped after he shot at the Doctor.
Delgado was slated to return in a serial called The Final Game, which would have been the season 11 finale. However, he died in a car crash in June 1973 and the story was never filmed.
Quest for new life:
Played by Peter Pratt in his next appearance, with heavy make-up that makes him resemble an emaciated corpse, the Master returns in The Deadly Assassin (1976). Found by Chancellor Goth on planet Tersurus, the Master is revealed to be both in his final regeneration and near the end of his final life. The Master attempts to gain a new regeneration cycle by using the artifacts of Rassilon, the symbols of the President of the Council of Time Lords, to manipulate the Eye of Harmony at the cost of Gallifrey. But the Fourth Doctor stops the Master, who escapes after his assumed death.
The Master later returns in The Keeper of Traken, the role taken over by Geoffrey Beevers. Still dying, the Master came to the Traken Union to renew his life by using the empire's technological Source. Though the plot failed, the Master manages to cheat death by transferring his essence into the body of a Trakenite scientist named Tremas (played by Anthony Ainley) and overwriting his host's mind. From there, through Nyssa, the Master orchestrates the series of events that leads to the Doctor's regeneration into his fifth incarnation.citation needed The Master then appeared on and off for the rest of the series, still seeking to extend his life – preferably with a new set of regenerations. Subsequently in The Five Doctors, the Time Lords offer the Master a new regeneration cycle in exchange for his help. The Master's final appearance in the classic series is in Survival, having been trapped on the planet of the Cheetah People and under its influence, which drove its victims to savagery. Though the Master managed to escape the doomed planet, he ended up back on the planet prior to its destruction when he attempted to kill the Doctor.
Dalek Trial and 'Execution:
The Master appeared as a main character of the 1996 Doctor Who television movie, played by American actor Eric Roberts.
In the prologue, the Master (portrayed by Gordon Tipple) was executed by the Daleks as a punishment for his "evil crimes". But before his apparent death, the Master requested his remains to be brought back to Gallifrey by the Doctor. However, as posited in the novelisation of the television movie by Gary Russell, the Master's self-alterations to extend his lifespan allowed his continued existence as survived his execution by transferring his mind into a snake-like entity called a "morphant". This interpretation is made explicit in the first of the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels, The Eight Doctors by Terrance Dicks, and also used in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip story The Fallen, which states that the morphant was a shape-shifting animal native to Skaro.
Using his morphant body to break free from the container holding his remains, the Master sabotaged the TARDIS console to force the vessel to crash land in San Francisco at the start of Earth's new millennium. From there, the Master has the morphant enter the body of a paramedic named Bruce to take control of him. However, the Master finds his human host to be unsustainable as the body slowly begins to degenerate, although the Master has the added abilities to spit an acid-like bile as a weapon and a snake-like ability to hypnotise. The Master attempts to access the Eye of Harmony to steal the Doctor's remaining regenerations, but instead is sucked into it and supposedly killed.
Professor Yana (Y.A.N.A)
When Doctor Who was revived in 2005, the Doctor believed the Time Lords all died on the final day of Time War with the Daleks. However, foreshadowed in "Gridlock" where the Face of Boe gives the Tenth Doctor a message before dying: "You are not alone", "The Sound of Drums" reveals that the Master was resurrected by the Time Lords to serve as their ultimate front line soldier in the Time War. But after the Dalek Emperor took control of "the Cruciform", the Master fled the war in fear, ignorant of its outcome. He disguised himself as a human through the same process the Doctor himself used in "Human Nature"—a Chameleon Arch that stores his Time Lord nature and memories in a fob watch and allows him to become biologically human—and hid at the end of the universe while aging into the scientist that comes to be known as Professor Yana. The professor was still plagued by the constant drumbeat in his head as he attempts to send the last remaining humans to Utopia.
The Doctor meets Yana in "Utopia", and a discussion of Time Lords and related issues by the Doctor and his companions (Martha Jones and Jack Harkness) causes Yana to recall his Time Lord essence. This, along with the increased intensity of the drumming in his head and Martha's curiosity about the fob watch, causes Yana to open the watch and become the Master again, in a scene that makes clear that YANA is an acronym for the Face of Boe's final words ("You are not alone."). Near the end of "Utopia", the Master is mortally wounded when his companion Chantho shoots him after he fatally injured her, regenerating into a new younger incarnation. The Master steals the Doctor's TARDIS and escapes, but the Doctor sabotages the TARDIS using his sonic screwdriver so that the Master is only able to travel between present-day Earth and the year 100 trillion.
Harold Saxon:
Following his escape from the end of the universe, he arrives in the United Kingdom 18 months before the 2008 election, prior to the fall of Harriet Jones. The Master assumes the identity Harold Saxon, becoming a high-ranking minister at the Ministry of Defence. He apparently holds this post during the 2006 Christmas episode, "The Runaway Bride", as the Army are said to be firing upon the Racnoss ship on Mr. Saxon's orders. During this period, he finances Professor Richard Lazarus' (Mark Gatiss) research and sets up the Archangel communications network, which allows him to influence humanity using a telepathic field, enabling him to rise to the office of Prime Minister. Before the events of "The Runaway Bride" in the show's adult-themed spin-off Torchwood, a "Vote Saxon" poster is seen on a wall among several other tattered posters in the episode "Captain Jack Harkness". In "Love & Monsters", an article about Saxon leading the polls can be seen when the Abzorbaloff first reveals himself.
After becoming Prime Minister, the Master uses the Doctor's TARDIS to recruit the Toclafane as allies, having them kill one tenth of the world population, and rules the Earth for a year, while he turns whole nations into work-camps and bases for a fleet of war rockets. Just as he is ready to wage war on the rest of the universe and forge an empire, the Doctor is restored to strength by the efforts of Martha Jones, using the Archangel network. The Doctor intends to keep the Master with him on the TARDIS; this plan is thwarted when the Master is shot by his wife Lucy Saxon (Alexandra Moen). The Master then dies after refusing to regenerate, unwilling to be the Doctor's prisoner. Since his death emotionally hurts the Doctor, the Master views this as a victory.
The Doctor cremates the Master's body on a pyre. His ring remains, which is picked up by a woman with long, bright red fingernails.
The Master Race:
In The End of Time (2009–10), the woman picking up the ring is revealed to be a disciple of the Master named Miss Trefusis (Sylvia Seymour). The ring, revealed to contain a piece of the Master's body, is used to conduct a resurrection ritual at Broadfell Prison, where Lucy Saxon is incarcerated, using this ring, along with a biometrical signature of the Master from Lucy. Lucy sabotages the ritual and the Master is returned to life with a failing, undead body and a ravenous hunger. He is able to manipulate bolts of electricity, move with phenomenal agility and jump great distances by manipulating his life force. Resorting to wandering the fringe of London and feeding on homeless people while being pursued by the Doctor, the Master is eventually captured by billionaire Joshua Naismith (David Harewood) in order to use his knowledge to repair an alien 'Immortality Gate' to make Naismith's daughter (Tracy Ifeachor) immortal. But the Master hijacks the device, using its original purpose as a planet-wide medical tool to overwrite the DNA of every human on Earth with his own and create a "Master Race". However, the gate fails to repair the Master's failing body as he attempts to get the location of the TARDIS from the Doctor.
By then, the Master realises that the drum beat in his head is a signal and uses his duplicates to triangulate the signal to its source: The Time Lord President Rassilon (Timothy Dalton). Having set up the signal in order to be released from the time-locked Time War, Rassilon sends a unique Gallifreyan diamond to Earth to help the Master create a link through which Gallifrey, the Time Lords, and all in the Time War could escape. After his attempt to overwrite his DNA on the Time Lord race is stopped while humanity is restored, the Master learns the true reason that the Doctor was forced to end the Time War to stop Rassilon from destroying all creation. The Master, upon finding out that he has been a pawn in Rassilon's scheme, attacks the Lord President after the Doctor destroys the link that keeps the Time Lords from returning from the Time Lock. Bent on revenge for a lifetime of manipulation, the Master continues attacking Rassilon as he disappears along with the High Council to Gallifrey before the planet was removed from the known universe
Missy:
The Master returns in the eighth series, in a new female incarnation called "Missy", which is short for "Mistress". In the series 7 episode "The Bells of Saint John", a "woman in the shop" brings Clara Oswald (Jenna-Louise Coleman) and the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) together when, according to Clara, the woman gives Clara "the best helpline out there, in the universe", which is the telephone number to the Doctor's TARDIS. In "Deep Breath" (2014), a cryptic note in a newspaper advertisement draws the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) and Clara Oswald together at Mancini's Family Restaurant, both believing that the other placed the advert in the newspaper. The Doctor speculates, based on this event along with the computer helpline bringing the Doctor to Clara, that there is a woman somewhere that is "very keen" that the two should stay together. Later in the episode, Missy, played by Michelle Gomez, is shown introducing the "Half-Face Man" (Peter Ferdinando), whom had recently fallen to his death, to a place she calls "Heaven", also known as the "Promised Land", a place that the Half-Face Man is looking for. She also recognises the Doctor, complimenting his new accent, and telling the Half-Face Man that he loves her. In "Into the Dalek" (2014), Missy is shown welcoming Gretchen Carlisle of the Combined Galactic Resistance (Laura dos Santos) to "Heaven" after Gretchen sacrifices her own life. The episodes "Flatline" (2014) and "In the Forest of the Night" (2014) show that Missy has been secretly monitoring the Doctor and Clara's adventures together. While observing Clara in "Flatline", Missy mentions to herself that she has chosen well.
In "Dark Water" (2014), the apparent afterlife which Missy is shown presiding over – the Nethersphere – turns out to be a "Matrix Data Slice" hosting a virtual afterlife trapping the conscious minds of the recently deceased in order to eventually be resurrected as an army of Cybermen. Missy greets the Twelfth Doctor in this episode, and reveals her true identity as the Master; "Missy" being short for the more feminine-sounding "Mistress". In "Death in Heaven" (2014), Missy claims that she was the woman who gave Clara the phone number to the TARDIS and had also manipulated the Doctor and Clara into staying together, and the Twelfth Doctor realises that Missy likely has a TARDIS to upgrade dying minds from every period in human history that has the concept of an afterlife. Missy later tries to hand over control of her Cyberman army to the Doctor and goads him into conquering the universe as part of an overall plan to win the Doctor back as a "friend" by dragging his morality down. However, proclaiming himself as only an 'idiot' who goes around helping people, the Doctor turns down the offer and passes control of the army to the partly Cyber-converted Danny Pink (Samuel Anderson) so he and the Cyberarmy would self-destruct to save humanity. When Clara then attempts to take revenge by executing Missy, the Doctor takes this task upon himself to save his companion of the moral burden. Regardless, giving him a false hope about Gallifrey's location, Missy accepts her death as she still forces the Doctor to sink to her level. Just before the Doctor can act, Missy disappears in a blue flare, seemingly disintegrated by a Cyberman revealed to be a converted Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
Steven Moffat has however, hinted at a return for the Master despite her apparent end: "Supervillains don't die, do they? So I wouldn’t trust anything about that character’s ability to lie down and stop breathing." Michelle Gomez has also confirmed that she will return for series 9. During an exclusive interview with the RadioTimes Steven Moffat, Showrunner of Doctor Who, stated that he has asked Michelle Gomez to reprise her role as Missy. He stated in his interview that "I can't imagine anyone who's ever watched this genre being convinced that she's dead". Moffat then went on to say, "The Master is never dead, no matter what happens to him or her. She's entirely unzappable!"
In February 2015, it was confirmed that Missy would return in "The Magician's Apprentice" / "The Witch's Familiar", the opening episodes of the ninth series.
Number 2: Weeping Angles
According to The Doctor, the Weeping Angels "are as old as the universe (or very nearly), but no one really knows where they come from." He also describes them as "the deadliest, most powerful, most malevolent life-form ever produced." Weeping Angels are unusual as predators in that they neither kill nor directly parasitize their prey. Their usual mode of feeding is to make use of time paradoxes - with a single touch, a Weeping Angel can send a person into the past to a point before his/her own birth, and can then feed off the "potential energy" of the years which that victim would have lived in the present. The Doctor describes the Angels as "the only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely" because their victims are otherwise uninjured and may live out their lifespans in the past.
In their usual form, Weeping Angels resemble silent human-sized stone statues in the form of winged angels in draped clothing (such as might appear as tomb statuary in a Victorian graveyard). Apart from the wings, their standard form appears to mimic Earth humans (two arms, two legs, two eyes) even when they are infiltrating worlds on which the inhabitants differ from this form. Generally their facial features are bland and serene and their proportions human-normal. However, as they close in on more aware victims they transform to a more horrific, bestial and demonic aspect with wide-open mouths, vampiric teeth and clawed hands. In the episode "The Angels Take Manhattan", another form of Weeping Angel is shown, the cherubim.[2] Unlike the Weeping Angels, the cherubim are not silent, making a childlike giggling and having audible footsteps. It is not explicitly stated that these are young Angels, but they are referred to as "the babies". It is also implied that Angels can mimic the forms or dimensions of a broader range of statuary if required: in "The Angels Take Manhattan", one Angel takes the form (or hijacks the existing form) of the Statue of Liberty (manifesting as a full-size Liberty with Weeping Angel features) and the final moments of "Blink" suggest that any statue might be a disguised Angel.
When they are not being observed by another being, Weeping Angels can move very quickly and silently. Their phenomenal speed allows them to close distances of metres literally in the blink of an eye. However, when they are being observed they become "quantum-locked", occupying a single position in space and becoming stone. In this state, they are frozen and difficult to destroy. They cannot suppress this reaction. If two Weeping Angels were to look at each other at the same time, they would be trapped in stone form until an outside force moves them apart. To prevent this, they often cover their eyes while moving, which makes them look as though they are weeping. When stalking a victim, Angels will generally take advantage of their speed to avoid being trapped in the quantum lock, moving to an unseen or darkened area before being frozen again.
Weeping Angels are very physically strong, although they rarely physically kill a victim since this wastes the time-potential energy which the Angels would otherwise consume. One exception to this behaviour is when an Angel or group of Angels wishes to communicate with other beings - in these instances they select a victim and snap their neck prior to "rearranging the brains" for their own purposes; the Angels are then capable of speaking and conversing via their victim's voice and senses. In the episode "The Time of Angels", a soldier of the Church nicknamed "Angel Bob" suffers this fate, becoming the "voice" of a group of Angels and explaining their motives and thoughts to the Doctor. Before disappearing in the rip in the fabric of time and space.
Weeping Angels appear to have little culture or motivation other than those serving their basic predatory requirement of gaining energy. The Doctor has described them as the loneliest beings in the universe, since their quantum-lock reaction makes it impossible for them to socialise with other creatures. However, Angels are capable of communication, as they often work in groups and clearly communicate with each other. On those occasions when they have chosen to communicate with their prey or foes (using the gruesome proxy method mentioned above) they have demonstrated a cold and impersonal intelligence, but exhibit no empathy and no emotions beyond hunger, determination and occasional predatory sadism. While Angels can recognise individuals in other species when the situation requires it, they themselves speak collectively and appear to have little or no concept of themselves as individuals.
Weeping Angels prefer to take their energy from live victims, but if required they can drain other forms such as that from electric lights (as seen in "Blink") or other electronics. In "Blink," the Angels attempted to steal the Doctor's TARDIS after trapping him in the past. The engine of the vehicle contained enough time energy to feed them forever, but The Doctor stated that the possible damage they could cause "could switch off the sun". Without power, an Angel will start to decay and revert to a stone state even when not being watched. While still initially capable of movement, its speed will also be extremely hindered when close to a starvation point (as seen in "The Time of Angels"), with its range lessened from meters to a partial step. The effects of starvation can be undone by providing the Angel with energy, but it is implied that Angels can no longer acquire energy themselves in this state. A starving Angel becomes less and less active, and if dormant for too long will erode as a stone statue does, or even lose its physical existence altogether (although it can still exist in an image-based or conceptual state).
Weeping Angels have also exhibited a startling ability to project themselves through images, suggesting that they are as much conceptual entities as physical ones. A warning in an ancient book on the Angels, found by River Song, states that "that which holds the image of an angel becomes itself an angel". Using this ability, the Angels appear to be able to hijack both audio-visual equipment and organic memory. In "The Time of Angels", an Angel trapped in the vault of the starship Byzantium took advantage of a video screen which was playing footage of it elsewhere in the vessel: the creature escaped by overriding the screen controls and nearby electronic equipment, took over the screen, and passed through it to physically manifest in another location. Weeping Angels can also imprint a mental image of themselves into a person's mind by looking straight into their eyes: the image then gestates and takes over the person's body to manifest as a new Angel. Amy Pond was infected in such a manner where an involuntary verbal count-down indicated her remaining open-eyed moments as a human. She was able to suspend the Angel's gestation (but not eliminate it) by closing her eyes, refusing to let it breach the 'filter' of her optic nerve. In the novel Touched by an Angel, a starving angel is reduced to the point where it no longer has a physical being, and instead exists in the image viewed by cameras. As such, whatever is within the sight of the camera is within range of the angel which retains fast movement, but at the cost of range. Normally, as in "The Time of Angels", the Angel image would walk right out of the screen; but when it is starving, it cannot do so. To stop movement, simply viewing the screen is enough to lock the angel.
The Weeping Angels are well known to Doctor Who companion River Song, who appeared in two of the three major stories to date. River has mentioned that she studied the Weeping Angels and wanted to learn more about them.
In the seventh series episode "The Angels Take Manhattan", despite being removed from New York's history, a lone angel gained a small victory in permanently trapping the Doctor's companions, Amy Pond and her husband Rory Williams, in the past.
The Time of the Doctor, the finale for the Eleventh Doctor, had at least two Weeping Angels being present on the planet Trenzalore when the Doctor and Clara Oswald teleport down. The Angels emerge from the snow-covered ground of a frozen forest, the swirling blizzard causing both Clara and the Doctor to be unable to see the approaching creatures clearly thus allowing them free movement in the snow storm. However, they were able to escape the angels.
Number 1: The Daleks
Dalek in-universe history has seen many retroactive changes, which have caused continuity problems. When the Daleks first appeared in The Daleks, they were presented as the descendants of the Dals, mutated after a brief nuclear war between the Dal and Thal races 500 years ago. This race of Daleks is destroyed when their power supply is wrecked. However, they reappear in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, where they have conquered Earth in the 22nd century. Later stories saw them develop time travel and a space empire. In 1975, Terry Nation revised the Daleks' origins in Genesis of the Daleks, where the Dals were now called Kaleds (of which "Daleks" is an anagram), and the Dalek design was attributed to one man, the crippled Kaled chief scientist and evil genius, Davros. Instead of a short nuclear exchange, the Kaled-Thal war was portrayed as a thousand-year-long war of attrition, fought with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons which caused widespread mutations among the Kaled race. Davros experimented on living Kaled cells to find the ultimate mutated form of the Kaled species and placed the subjects in tank-like "travel machines" whose design was based on his own life-support chair.
Genesis of the Daleks marked a new era for the depiction of the species, with most of their previous history either forgotten or barely referred to again. Future stories in the original Doctor Who series, which followed a rough story arc,[84] would also focus more on Davros, much to the dissatisfaction of some fans who felt that the Daleks should take centre stage rather than merely becoming minions of their creator. Davros made his last televised appearance for 20 years in Remembrance of the Daleks, which depicted a civil war between two factions of Daleks. One faction, the "Imperial Daleks", were loyal to Davros, who had become their Emperor, whilst the other, the "Renegade Daleks", followed a black Supreme Dalek. By the end of the story, both factions have been wiped out and the Doctor has tricked them into destroying Skaro, though Davros escapes.
A single Dalek appeared in "Dalek", written by Robert Shearman, which was broadcast on BBC One on 30 April 2005. This Dalek appeared to be the sole Dalek survivor of the Time War which had destroyed both the Daleks and the Time Lords. A Dalek Emperor returned at the end of the 2005 series, having rebuilt the Dalek race with genetic material harvested from human subjects. It saw itself as a god, and the new Daleks were shown worshipping it. These Daleks and their fleet were destroyed in "The Parting of the Ways". The 2006 season finale "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday" featured a squad of four Dalek survivors from the old Empire, known as the Cult of Skaro, led by a black Dalek known as "Sec", that had survived the Time War by escaping into the Void between dimensions. They emerged, along with the Genesis Ark, a Time Lord prison vessel containing millions of Daleks, at Canary Wharf due to the actions of the Torchwood Institute and Cybermen from a parallel world. This resulted in a Cyberman-Dalek clash in London, which was resolved when the Tenth Doctor caused both groups to be sucked back into the Void. The Cult survived by utilising an "emergency temporal shift" to escape.
These four Daleks - Sec, Jast, Thay and Caan - returned in the two-part story "Daleks in Manhattan"/"Evolution of the Daleks", in which whilst stranded in 1930s New York, they set up a base in the partially built Empire State Building and attempt to rebuild the Dalek race. To this end, Dalek Sec merges with a human being to become a Human/Dalek hybrid. The Cult then set about creating "Human Daleks" by "formatting" the brains of a few thousand captured humans, with the intention of producing hybrids which remain fully human in appearance but with Dalek minds. Dalek Sec, however, starts to become so human that he changes the DNA to make the hybrids more human. This angers the rest of the Cult, resulting in mutiny and the death of Sec, Thay and Jast as well as the wiping out of all the hybrids. This leaves Dalek Caan as the last Dalek in existence. When the Doctor makes Caan realise that he is the last of his kind, Caan uses emergency temporal shift and escapes once more.
The Daleks returned in the 2008 season's two-part finale, "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End", accompanied once again by their creator Davros. The story reveals that Caan's temporal shift sent him into the Time War whence he rescued Davros, in the process gaining the ability to see the future at the cost of his own sanity. Davros has created a new race using his own body's cells. The episode depicts a Dalek invasion of Earth, which with other planets is taken to the Medusa Cascade, led by a red Supreme Dalek, who has kept Caan and Davros imprisoned in "The Vault", a section of the Dalek flagship, the Crucible. Davros and the Daleks plan to destroy reality itself with a "reality bomb" for which they need the stolen planets. The plan fails due to the interference of Donna Noble, a companion of the Doctor, and Caan himself, who has been manipulating events to destroy the Daleks after realising the severity of the atrocities they have committed. The Daleks returned in the 2010 episode "Victory of the Daleks", the third episode of the series; Daleks who escaped the destruction of Davros' empire fell back in time and, by chance, ma