History DoctorWho / TropesAToC

* AnimatedAdaptation: An unusual example, but some of the older serials haven't survived to the present day. To make them available to modern fans, some of them have been remade as cartoons.

* AnimatedAdaptation: An unusual example, but some of the older serials haven't survived to modern times. To make them available to modern viewers, they've been remade as cartoons.

** In The Vampires of Venice, the Eleventh Doctor goes to show his psychic paper credentials. Instead he pulls out his library card (which is so out of date it has a picture of first Nth Doctor on it along with his old London address).

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: During "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E3PyramidsOfMARS Pyramids of Mars]]" serial, The Doctor sombrely points out to Sarah-Jane that if Sutekh succeeds in escaping his prison not even the Time Lords will be able to stop him destroying every other living thing in the universe.

*** The First Doctor era, in which the Daleks were the only recurring monsters[[note]](bar IneffectualSympatheticVillain the Meddling Monk, whose second appearance sees him very much treated as a minor nuisance compared to the Daleks)[[/note]], plus the first season of the Second Doctor's era, during which they appeared in no less than '''six''' stories in four years. This gave rise to ''Dalekmania'', an era of extreme popularity among British children where toy Dalkes were all the range, and even led to two movies. This came to an end because their success was so great that their creator Creator/TerryNation withdrew permission of ''Doctor Who'' to use them, in the hope of setting up their own show.
*** The first Creator/RussellTDavies era (Series 1-4 of the revived show), i.e. the Ninth and Tenth Doctors' eras. They appeared in every full series, and three out of the four finales. Each time the Doctor would belive that he had ''finally'' killed off the Daleks for good, only for them to reappear. This is also the era in which the backstory of the Time War was introduced, adding a whole new layer of weight and angst to teh Doctor's relationship with them, since he had been forced to commit genocide against his own species to defeat the Daleks.

** The Valeyard was the BigBad of Season 23 (''The Trial of a Time Lord''), serving as the prosecutor of the Doctor's trial for alledged interference in the affairs of other planets. He is ultimately revealed as [[spoiler:a twisted future incarnation of the Doctor, who has been tampering with the evidence of the Matrix to make the Sixth Doctor look bad, so that the Time Lords will sentence the Doctor to death, allowing the Valeyard to steal the Doctor's remaining regenerations .

** The Sontarans slip into this role in the mid-70s when the Daleks, the Cybermen and the Master were all being rested, appearing in three stories (and influencing the events of a fourth) across five seasons, more than any other opponent during that period. They are the only recurring adversary in the Fourth Doctor#'s first four seasons, culminating in a GrandFinale in which they invade Gallifrey.

** Then there's the new British government that shows up in the ForWantOfANail timeline of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E11TurnLeft "Turn Left"]]. By the time the immigrants are being shipped off to "labour camps", WWII survivor Wilf knows ''exactly'' where it's going.

** Fenric is ultimately revelead to have been the Big Bad of the Seventh Doctor era, having manipulated events in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS24E4Dragonfire Dragonfire]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E3SilverNemesis Silver Nemesis]]" before appearing in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E3TheCurseOfFenric The Curse of Fenric]]".

** Foremost on the list are the Daleks; super-intelligent, genetically engineered, AlwaysChaoticEvil [[ANaziByAnyOtherName space Nazis]] encased in non-humanoid PoweredArmour. They were designed to feel no emotions other than hatred, prejudice, anger and cruelty. They also experience fear but try not to show it. They are utterly fanatical about their own [[FantasticRacism inherent]] [[MasterRace superiority]], to the point where civil wars have broken out amongst them if factions start displaying minor differences, and have chosen death when "contaminated" by foreign DNA. Their goal is nothing less than to ''[[CatchPhrase ex-term-i-nate]]'' all life in the universe (and, once, the {{multiverse}}). They often tend to find themselves dealing with Earth, which they hate. (But what ''don't'' they hate?)

* CatchPhrase: Nearly every Doctor has at least one. See the [[Characters/DoctorWho List of characters]].
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