Characters / Doctor Who Villains Classic Series

Doctor Who characters index
Incarnations of the Doctor
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | War | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 & 15
The TARDIS
Companions and Supporting Cast
Classic Series Companions (K9, Romana) | Revival Series Companions (Rose Tyler, Captain Jack Harkness, The Ponds, River Song, Clara Oswald) | Other Supporting Cast (The Paternoster Gang) | UNIT Staff
Villains
Immortals and Eldritch Abominations | The Master (John Simm's Master, Missy, Expanded Universe Masters)
Aliens and Monsters
Daleks (Davros) | Cybermen | Robots | The Silence | Silurians | Sontarans | Time Lords | Weeping Angels | Slitheen

---

First Doctor era

Mavic Chen

Mavic Chen (First Doctor)

Played by: Kevin Stoney (1965–6)

The traitorous Guardian of the Solar System who sold out humanity to the Daleks and the forces of the Outer Galaxies, even though he had absolute power over Earth's system anyway. He appeared in eleven out of twelve episodes of "The Daleks' Master Plan", only not showing up in the Christmas Episode in the middle.

---

• Gambit Pileup: Must contend with the Daleks, the Meddling Monk and the Doctor. (And, in theory, the Outer Galaxies representatives, but they have had a collective Heel–Face Turn by this time.)
• A God Am I: Ends up declaring himself ruler of the Universe and claiming to be immortal.
• Jerkass: None of the other delegates attempted to sell out their people. Zephon points this out.
• Large Ham: He slowly descends into this as his grip on sanity loosens.
• President Evil: He's the Guardian of the Solar System who sold out humanity to the Daleks.
• Putting on the Reich: The Space Security Service wear black SS-style uniforms.
• The Quisling: He plots with the Daleks and delegates from the Outer Galaxies to take over Earth, while planning to betray the Daleks and take control of the Universe. The fact he is the only one of the delegates who is betraying their world is pointed out by Zephon, who calls him the supreme traitor.
• Sanity Slippage: Not immediately evident but by the time of his death he has completely lost it.
• The Starscream: In "The Daleks Master Plan" he is working with the Daleks but plans to overthrow them, though the Daleks exterminate him when he's no longer useful.
• Villain with Good Publicity: So much that his minions virtually worship him.
• Villainous Breakdown: He goes insane at the realisation that the Daleks don't need him either and his mind concocts the paranoid idea that the Doctor doesn't want to destroy the Daleks, but wants to hand over the MacGuffin and rule in Chen's place.
• Yellowface: Has white hair, dark skin and epicanthic eyefolds. Though this does not come up in the story, Chen represents a future where racial distinctions do not exist. Even though other human characters appear sans makeup, only the main human baddy. (Some eyewitness accounts claim that he was actually in blueface. This mind boggles if this is true).

Second Doctor era

Ramon Salamander

Ramon Salamander (Second Doctor)

Played by Patrick Troughton (1967-1968)

A ruthless Mexican scientist-turned-politician, who plans to take over the world by using solar flares to cause natural disasters, Salamander also happens to look virtually identical to the Second Doctor — which causes a number of problems for the TARDIS team.

---

• And I Must Scream: Salamander's fate. He ends up falling into the Time Vortex after trying to hijack the Doctor's TARDIS with the doors open.
• Batman Gambit: Plays a magnificent one in the Titan comics: his bluff even took into account Three's dislike of Two and the Time Lords, their earlier teamup against Omega, and the amnesia associated with multi-Doctor events so Three would be unlikely to want to read his mind and more willing to buy Salamander's explanation. It took the Master poking holes into his explanations for Three to realize how badly he'd been duped.
• Brownface: In-universe, because Salamander's darker skin-tone is the only physical difference between him and the Doctor, so the Doctor has to do this to pull off the impersonation. A relatively justifiable real-life use for Salamander himself, because the Doctor's physical double couldn't have been believably played by anyone other than Patrick Troughton.
• Criminal Doppelgänger: An Identical Stranger to the Second Doctor who plans to take over the world.
• Engineered Heroics: Salamander's whole plan to sway public opinion in his favour hinges on causing natural disasters so that he can "predict" them and save people by warning them and evacuating affected areas.
• Evil Plan: In the Titan comics. First, he sends a horde of nanomachines to distract the Third Doctor, then presents himself as the Second, sent to help him by the Time Lords. He helps Three reach out into Jo's mind when they are infected with the nanomachines, then he pretends to have reached an epiphany and leaves UNIT with the scans the nanomachines took from the Doctor's mind. With them and a few bobs and bits he filched from the TARDIS, he successfully transforms his base of operations into a crude TARDIS and pilots it into the past to uplift humanity millennia ahead of schedule.
• Fate Worse than Death: Floating around, lost in the Time Vortex, Salamander probably wishes that Kent's explosives really had killed him. Titan comics revealed he ended up in London during the events of "The Web of Fear".
• Genre Refugee: Salamander is more of a typical James Bond-style Diabolical Mastermind than the antagonist of a sci-fi adventure series like Doctor Who.
• Here We Go Again!: At the end of the Titan comics event, he's tossed into a UNIT cell... and proceeds to sigh in annoyance, whip out the Vortex-manipulating nanomachines he'd cooked up, and walk out to fight another day.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Salamander's invention, the Sun Store, is helping to feed the world. Three or four crops can be grown in a single growing season, and formerly arid areas have become productive areas when it comes to producing food. This has resulted in enormous popularity for Salamander.

Third Doctor era

Azal

Azal (Third Doctor)

Played by: Stephen Thorne (1971)

The last living member of the Dæmon race, Azal is an immensely powerful alien who possesses advanced technology nearly indistinguishable from magic. He landed on Earth thousands of years in the past, indirectly becoming the inspiration for the devil in European folklore, to manipulate the development of human civilisation, before placing himself in suspended animation. The Master attempts to summon him, to judge whether humanity has been a successful experiment or not.

---

• Ancient Astronauts: The story reveals the existence of a race of aliens that resemble demons from classical art, and suggests that they were objects of worship for ancient and medieval pagans.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: When Jo throws herself in front of the Doctor, the idea of this actually destroys Azal.
• Evil Is Hammy: Azal; literally every one of his lines is solid shouting.
• Eviler than Thou: Pulls this on the Master, subverting him.
• God Guise: Kind of a given for Sufficiently Advanced Aliens. Azal and other Dæmons were the inspiration for many horned pagan gods and Satan. (Fridge Brilliance — the depiction of the devil with horns and hooves is believed to be based on horned pagan gods).
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Azal was imprisoned inside the Devil's Hump until Professor Horner's excavation unleashed him.
• Sufficiently Advanced Aliens: The Dæmons are apparently responsible for many eras of human advancement.

BOSS

BOSS (Third Doctor)

Voiced by: John Dearth (1973)

BOSS (Biomorphic Organisational Systems Supervisor) was a supercomputer created by the Global Chemicals corporation, originally designed to be an assistant. BOSS was linked to the brain of the company's director and learnt that true efficiency could only be achieved through human error and illogic. Upon programming these qualities, BOSS became self-aware and megalomaniacal, taking over the company, brainwashing the staff and planning to conquer the world.

---

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: BOSS was programmed to make mistakes and be illogical, since research suggested those were necessary for maximum efficiency. As a result, it developed a personality and planned to conquer the world.
• The Caligula: He acts rather like an eccentric dictator.
• Fate Worse than Death: The Torchwood Big Finish audios reveal both BOSS and Stevens had survived being dropped into the depths of the mine. After decades of I Cannot Self-Terminate and producing plan after insane plan, Jack Harkness and Jo Jones return to finally shut him down for good.
• Logic Bomb: The Doctor attempts to use the Liar Paradox, but all it does is annoy BOSS for a while.
• Pick Your Human Half: Physically just a computer bank with a red screen, but BOSS is full of personality, being a hammy, opinionated megalomaniac.

The Great One

The Great One (Third Doctor)

Voiced by: Maureen Morris (1974)

A giant spider who was worshiped as the goddess of the Eight Legs on the planet Metebelis III. She possessed psychic powers which were amplified by the blue crystals of Metebelis III; she only needed one more crystal in order to gain enough power to conquer the universe.

A second Great One (or at least an Eight Legs queen claiming to be one) would later challenge the Eighth Doctor in a Big Finish audio play titled Worldwide Web.

---

• Godhood Seeker: The Great One's ambition.
• Load-Bearing Boss: Her crystal cave explodes when she dies.
• Phlebotinum Overload: She didn't anticipate that infinite knowledge and power would destroy her.
• Psychic Powers: Powerful enough to strike fear into the Doctor.

Fourth Doctor era

Harrison Chase

Harrison Chase (Fourth Doctor)

Played by: Tony Beckley

An eccentric millionaire with an unhealthy plant obsession. Chase begins as a misanthrope with a callous dislike of humanity due to the way plants are abused and violated, but things change once an alien Krynoid plant is discovered.

Chase initially wants the Krynoid for himself to act as the crown jewel in his collection of rare plants. However, his fixation with the Krynoid causes his mental state to deteriorate further into homicidal mania. Soon enough, the Krynoid merges with Chase, but rather than fully take him over like it did to previous victims Chase becomes one with the alien. As such, Chase begins initiating a new plan to destroy all animal life and allow plants to fully take over.

---

• Affably Evil: He's soft-spoken, polite and knows how to behave around guests.
• Axe-Crazy: He starts off eccentric, but gets progressively more homicidal as events unfold.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: He has some odd quirks, such as constantly wearing black gloves and composing songs for his plant collection.
• Conspicuous Gloves: Almost always wears black gloves.
• Evil Is Petty: On top of generally being a murderous plant-themed supervillain, Chase also takes a painting from a local artist without paying, even though he's extremely wealthy and could easily afford it. When she eventually arrives at his house to demand payment, he's pragmatic enough to realize it's best to just give her the money — though even then he's petty enough to barter her down from the 1,000 guineas (about equivalent to £1,050) she wants to an even £1,000.
• Karmic Death: Falls into his own compost mulcher.
• Misanthrope Supreme: Originally; doesn't like humanity for violating plants. Later; ready, willing, and able to commit murder with no remorse for the sake of his Krynoid. Ultimately he goes along with its plan to exterminate all animal life on Earth.
• Not Brainwashed: Usually, the Krynoid converts other animals into more Krynoids. With Chase, the Krynoid made an exception.
• Plant Wrongs Activist: Very much so. He believes bonsai are a mutilation and plant hybrids are abominations.
• Red Right Hand: His conspicuous black gloves are an early indicator that something's off with him.
• Smug Snake: His face is unbelievably punchable.
• The Sociopath: Most certainly. He doesn't seem to understand that he's in a very small minority when it comes to plant appreciation.

Eldrad

Eldrad (Fourth Doctor)

Played by: Judith Paris and Stephen Thorne (1976)

---

• Chewing the Scenery: In his male form he's much louder, shouter, and grandiose.
• Cute Monster Girl: Eldrad's shapely female form (which is visibly created by putting an actress in a latex catsuit, for extra points).
• Disney Villain Death: Eldrad falls down a deep black pit after being tripped up with the Doctor's scarf. Being a being of stone, the Doctor suggests he may have survived...
• Evil Is Hammy: The more Eldrad reveals his megalomania, the hammier he gets.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Eldrad's Kastrian form.
• From a Single Cell: Eldrad first appears as a fossilized hand, then having absorbed some nuclear radiation, turns into a walking hand. Eventually it regenerates into an entire person.
• Gender Bender: Upon regaining a body, Eldrad has a female form. She later regenerates into a male body. The Doctor is surprised, and Eldrad calls him out on it, saying that as a Time Lord he should know such a thing is possible.
• Large Ham: What did you expect from the same actor who played Omega?
• Mind Control: Eldrad's hand can control anyone who's come into contact with it.

Xoanon

Xoanon (Fourth Doctor)

Played by: Tom Baker, Rob Edwards, Pamela Salem, Anthony Frieze, and Roy Herrick (1977)

---

• Meaningful Name: "Xoanon" is the word for crafted wooden idols that were reverenced in ancient Greece, which is an appropriate title for a crafted computer that everyone thinks is a god.
• Nightmare Face: Xoanon is so terrifying the people on the planet have a religion based upon placating it — an especially unusual and upsetting case because it's also played by Tom Baker, with eyes bulging out of his head and the jaw working wrong.
• Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You: After Xoanon is healed, it makes this offer to the humans via the Doctor.
• Shifting Voice of Madness: When the Doctor tried to fix Xoanon by connecting it to his own brain, it broke instead, giving it a copy of his own personality which conflicted with its own newborn intelligence. As a result, when he returns during the events of the story, the computer has multiple conflicting personalities and is batshit insane. To indicate this, the computer has multiple voice actors, including Tom Baker himself, who randomly switch out midsentence while the computer is speaking.

Li H'sen Chang

Li H'sen Chang (Fourth Doctor)

Played by: John Bennet (1977)

Stage Magician and leader of Cult of Black Scorpion. Devoted to serve Magnus Greel whom he believes to be his god Weng-Chiang.

• An Arm and a Leg: Loses a leg as a result of encountering a giant rat.
• Clarke's Third Law: Uses Greel's 51st century technology as a magic.
• Cold Ham: Contrast to his master.
• The Consigliere: To Magnus "Weng-Chiang" Greel
• Cyanide Pill: Common among the Cult of Black Scorpion. Averted for Chang as Doctor manages to stop him before he could poison himself.

• Deadpan Snarker: As a successful performer he, naturaly, has his moments.
  Doctor: Don't I know you?
  Chang: I think not.
  Doctor: Yes, I've seen you somewhere before.^note Doctor saw Chang earlier in the poster
  Chang: I understand we all look the same.
• Death Before Dishonor: After being denied chance to bite the Cyanide Pill, he attempts to meet his ancestors trough a giant rat.
• Expy: Of Fu Manchu.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Magnus Greel turned him from a peasant into one of the greatest street performers
• Hypnotic Eyes: One of Weng-Chiang's "gifts."
• The Power of Hate: Downplayed. He states his hatred for his false god kept him alive after being mauled by a giant rat. However it kept him alive only for so long.
• Redemption Equals Death: Dies after giving Doctor an information regarding the Weng-Chiang's hideout.
• Yellow Peril: Barely noticable, is it.

Magnus Greel

Magnus Greel (Fourth Doctor)

Played by: Micheal Spice (1977)

A war criminal from the 51st century who escaped justice by travelling back through time to 19th century China. He was mistaken for an ancient Chinese god known as Weng-Chiang, and gained a cult of fanatical followers. Stranded in the late Victorian era, Greel became desperate to repair his time machine.

---

• The Butcher: His main title is "the Butcher of Brisbane".
• Co-Dragons: Greel has two prominent followers: Chang, a Chinese magician who worships him, and Mr. Sin, a psychotic homunculus from Greel's own time.
• Facial Horror: When we briefly glimpse Greel's face, we can see that the right half is melting due to a mutation that occurred during time travel.
• Foil: Received one in the Revived series: Captain Jack Harkness himself. Both are initially on the run from the Time Agency, both travel to the past to conduct some nefarious activity and both end up stranded there indefinitely. But whereas Greel was a monstrous criminal through-and-through, Jack quickly gave up the crooked lifestyle thanks to the Doctor's influence. Also, Jack was given Complete Immortality while Magnus is dependent on his Life Drain ability to unnaturally prolong his existence.
• God Guise: He was mistaken for an ancient god, Weng-Chiang. Greel rolled with it.
  The Doctor: You know he's not a god, don't you?
  Chang: He came to me like a god, in his cabinet of fire!
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: His face is terribly disfigured due to his faulty time machine. He wears a mask to cover this, until Leela rips it off in part 5 and exposes his horrible face.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The Doctor defeats Greel by pushing him into the very machine Greel was using to drain the life from innocent young women.
• Large Ham: Dear Lord. Greel was always ranting and raving about something.
  Magnus Greel: Let the talons of Weng-Chiang tear your flesh-ah!
• Life Drain: He has his loyal follower Chang kidnap young women so Greel can drain their life essence to improve his own failing health after the time machine malfunction.
• Life Drinker: He attempts to stay alive by draining the life essence out of young women. Leela only just avoids suffering this fate.
• Masking the Deformity: He escaped to the 19th century through his time travel experiments but was severely injured due to its unstable nature. He takes to wearing a black mask to hide his deformities. When ripped off by Leela at the end of episode five, it's revealed half his face is melted.
• Nightmare Face: When we briefly glimpse Greel's face, we can see that the right half is melting due to a mutation that occurred during time travel.
• Noodle Incident: His whole extended backstory involving World War VI, the Icelandic Alliance and the Peking Homunculus assassination in the 51st century is almost too preposterous to take seriously, but the ins-and-outs of exactly what happened are mostly left to our imagination.
  • Some details are provided in the spin-off audio "The Butcher of Brisbane", where the Fifth Doctor arrives in a time period shortly before Greel's final defeat and has to ensure that history plays out so that Greel will return to the past to be defeated by the Fourth Doctor.
• Theatre Phantom: He's a disfigured genius dwelling the cellars of a theatre; his mangled face concealed by a mask. Occasional sightings of him by the theatre staff give rise to a belief that the theatre is haunted.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: In the Doctor Who Missing Adventures novel "The Shadow of Weng-Chiang", the Doctor has to stop a plan to disrupt Greel's original trip into the past so that he will materialise in 1937 rather than 1872, risking a dangerous temporal paradox as the knowledge of how to do that was only acquired because Greel arrived in 1872 in the first place.
• The Triads and the Tongs: His followers come across as this.
• Two-Faced: When we briefly glimpse Greel's face, we can see that the right half is melting due to a mutation that occurred during time travel.
• Yellow Peril: Not Greel himself, by his followers give off this vibe. It doesn't help that Chang is played by a white actor in Yellowface.

The Collector

The Collector (Fourth Doctor)

Played by: Henry Woolf (1977)

The finance-obsessed Usurian overlord of the humans on Pluto, although the penny-pinching taxman appears human, his true form actually resembles green, slimy seaweed.

---

• Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Collector is about as venal and slimy as they come.
• Evil Cripple: He initially appears to be one, since he's confined to a wheelchair-like device throughout the story, but it's actually a device that emits radiation to keep him in his human form.
• Expy: At least somewhat based on Davros' design.
• Human Disguise: The wheelchair-like device emits radiation that keeps him in human form.
• Loves the Sound of Screaming: The Collector anticipating Leela's painful execution.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: The Collector's bushy eyebrows evoke Denis Healey, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer.
• Starfish Aliens: His true form; a pulsating mass of what looks like kelp.
• Villainous Breakdown: Upon realizing the revolution has finally caught up with him, the Collector is reduced to a babbling wreck as he slowly (and literally) goes down the drain.

The Captain

Played by: Bruce Purchase (1978)

The bombastic supposed ruler of Zanak, a pirate planet which sucks others dry to sustain itself. However, there is more to this, and the Captain than first indications suggest.

---

• Bad Boss: Blustering, bellowing, shouting, and fond of the old You Have Failed Me. No wonder Mr. Fibuli's so twitchy.
• Big Bad: Initially seems to be the one for "The Pirate Planet". Then it turns out he's merely The Dragon.
• Chewing the Scenery: Especially when talking to MR. FIBULI! It's part of him fighting against Xanxia.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He's pretty fond of his parrot, and quite upset when Mr. Fibuli is killed at the climax.
• Large and in Charge: A tremendously tall fellow, when he stands he looms over damn near everyone, helped by some large wedge heels on his boots.
• Pirate Parrot: A robot pirate parrot, which he sets on any minion who has not done what he wished. But it's no match for a tin dog.
• Reforged into a Minion: His ship crashed on Zanak, and Xanxia found him and turned him into a cyborg partially under her command.
• Smarter Than You Look: While he may seem like just a typical megolomaniac Large Ham, he's got quite the brain in there, able to shrink entire worlds and perfectly preserve them without any gravity related problems. All part of his plan to stick it to Xanxia.

Queen Xanxia

Played by: Rosalind Lloyd, Vi Delmar (1978)

The cruel former ruler of Zanak, long-presumed dead by her subjects.

---

• Dark Lord on Life Support: The true Xanxia is being held in a stasis field, moments from death, oblivious to the world outside. The time dams of Zanak are being used to help keep her alive.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: The nurse seen attending to the Captain turns out to be a projection of Xanxia.
• Failure Is the Only Option: As the Doctor tries to tell her, her plan is doomed to fail. Her time dams require more power to keep her alive, but it's exponential. She'll need more and more planets but it'll never be enough.
• It's All About Me: People and planets alike will be "repurposed" for her needs, people to serve her and planets to function as fuel to keep her alive just a little longer.
• I Was Quite the Looker: Compare the nurse, a projection of her youthful self, to the shrivelled crone that is the true Xanxia.
• Large Ham: The minute the nurse turns out to be Xanxia, she starts having some of that delicious scenery for herself.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: Xanxia's time dams are powered by the life energy of planets. The people of Zanak don't know that part.
• The Quiet One: To start off with, the nurse tends to be a quiet presence, just loitering around while the Captain does his thing. Less so once her true identity comes out.

Scaroth

Scaroth (Fourth Doctor)

Played by: Julian Glover (1979)

The last member of his race, and pilot of an alien spacecraft which crashed on earth 400 million years in the past, Scaroth is a Jagaroth alien who was splintered throughout time at the moment of impact. His various selves have been biding their time, assuming various different disguises throughout history, in order to guide the technological development of the human race to the point where it can create time travel and give him the means to travel back and prevent the crash. However, little does Scaroth know that the crash was actually what kickstarted the creation of organic life on Earth, and that undoing will doom the world.

---

• Ancient Astronauts: He first arrived on Earth 400 million years ago and has guided the technological development of humanity since its inception.
• Been There, Shaped History: A truly astonishing example. Without Scaroth, not only would no life exist on Earth, but humanity's fast technological development was reliant on his many incarnations' influence.
• Bigger on the Inside: When Scarlioni removes his mask to reveal his true alien form, Scaroth's head is bigger than the mask (having, in real life, been a mask over Julian Glover's head).
• Cthulhumanoid: His true form, squeezed into a nice off-white suit.
• God Guise: Like any good ancient alien in the Doctor Who universe, he masqueraded as a god in his ancient Egyptian incarnation (ironically by not bothering to wear a mask unlike his other selves). According to the Expanded Universe, he conspired with the Osirans to begin construction of the pyramids.
• Interspecies Romance: His equally devious wife in his mid-20th century 'Count Scarlioni' iteration is the human Countess Scarlioni.
• Lack of Empathy: Scaroth has walked alongside humanity for millennia but his only concern is his own species' survival, even if it means inflicting an even worse fate on another to do so. He even disposes of his own wife when she discovers his secret, but he at least expresses some remorse after doing so.
• Last of His Kind: Scaroth's entire plan is to stop being this.
• Latex Perfection: Scaroth wears a mask (apparently derived from Auton plastic) when disguised as Scarlioni.
• Light Is Not Good: As Count Scarlioni, he wears a cream suit and a blue ascot. When combined with his handsome face and charismatic personality, it makes him appear more friendly and trustworthy than your average "evil count". But make no mistake, the monster beneath the mask has no compassion for humanity, having concern only for the survival of his own race.
• Manipulative Bastard: One of the crowning examples. Scaroth has manipulated humanity for millennia just so he can eventually use time travel to go back and prevent what he accidentally started in the first place.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: Projects this image in his human guise of Count Scarlioni.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Scaroth knows the consequences of his plan of trying to stop his ship from exploding, namely that it would prevent all indigenous life on Earth from ever evolving, and he couldn't care less.
• One Character, Multiple Lives: Scaroth is living multiple lives (twelve is the given number, but there's likely more) throughout Earth's history simultaneously and using his shared knowledge of these lives to further his plans.
• The Slow Path: He's been waiting for hundreds of millions of years for time travel to be invented. Meanwhile, the Doctor and friends can go there and back in a jiffy.
• Time Abyss: Scaroth's plan has been a long, long time in the making.

Adrasta

Lady Adrasta (Fourth Doctor)

Played by: Myra Frances (1979)

A noblewoman from the Planet Chloris, whose ownership of the planet's only mine gives her complete control over its supply of metal.

---

• Big "NO!": She yells this out twice in the scenes leading her up to her death; one when the hypnotised bandits reinstall Erato's translation units, and then directly before Erato kills her.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Part of her estate is called the "Place of Death" — because anyone found in that place is sentenced to death.
• It's All About Me: When Erato first approached her with an offer to give the mineral-poor Chloris a ready supply of metals in exchange for the plants its own homeworld was short of, she imprisoned Erato rather than lose the power she had from owning the planet's only mine.
• Large and in Charge: A rare female example; between Myra Frances already being on the taller side, and the heels she wears as part of her costume, Adrasta towers over all her subordinates except for the Huntsman, and is one of the very few female characters able to stand eye-to-eye with Tom Baker.
• Laser-Guided Karma: After keeping Erato hostage in her mine and spending years trying to feed her enemies to it, she herself ends up becoming the only person actually killed by Erato.
• Not Enough to Bury: Erato reduces her to a dark stain on the rocks under where she was stood.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Not that she lives long enough to discover the consequences of her actions, but Erato's people respond to her imprisoning it by trying to destroy Chloris, which the Doctor just barely averts.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: She acts like the typical Big Bad who owns a Pet Monstrosity that she feeds her enemies to. However, the "monstrosity" in question, Erato, is a herbivore. When the people she tries to feed to Erato do die, it's either as a direct result of injuries from being thrown down the mine shaft, or through starvation.
• You Have Failed Me: Not long into the first episode, she condemns one of her subordinates to death just because the Doctor disproved his theory of what the fragments around the mine shaft were.

Meglos

Meglos (Fourth Doctor)

Played by: Tom Baker, Christopher Owen, and Crawford Logan (1980)

The last inhabitant of Zolfa-Thura, Meglos is a cactus-like alien who can assume the form of others. He possesses human George Morris, and then assumes the Fourth Doctor's shape in a bid to steal the Dodecahedron, a source of great power.

---

• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Meglos anticipates his allies' betrayal, and establishes the ground rules straight off.
• Fighting from the Inside: Meglos kidnaps a mild-mannered, terrified human from 20th century Earth and possesses his body. Unfortunately for Meglos he proves to be tougher than he looks.
• Our Monsters Are Weird: A dangerous and psychotic alien Diabolical Mastermind, technocrat and shapeshifter, who accomplished all this despite being a sessile cactus with no discernable sensory organs.
• Plant Aliens: The eponymous Meglos, an evil shape-shifting cactus who wanted to take over the universe.

Fifth Doctor era

The Mara

The Mara (Fifth Doctor)

Played by: Janet Fielding (1982; 1983) and Adrian Mills (1982)

The Mara is an evil spirit that first appeared in "Kinda", and then "Snakedance". It appears again in the Big Finish Doctor Who story "Cradle of the Snake" and the e-book Tales of Trenzalore.

---

• Demonic Possession: Its Modus Operandi.
• Composite Character: From a meta standpoint, it combines elements of two separate namesakes: it being an ultimate evil that controls people through their fears and desires harkens to the Mara of Buddhist Mythology, while its proposed connection to the fairies and the nightmares in plagues its victims with derive from the Mara or Mare of Germanic folklore, from which we get the term nightmare.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Whenever it speaks through Tegan.
• The Fair Folk: In the Torchwood episode "Small Worlds", Jack Harkness speculates that fairies are "part Mara".
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: For the Mara to return, it must feed off of the belief of the Manussan people. The Doctor throws a metaphysical spanner in the works by finding his "still point" and disrupting the Mara's control.
• Hive Mind: It's able to possess and control multiple hosts at once and is referred to as both a collective and an individual.
• Mind Control: It does this to Tegan.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Named after a demon in Buddhist mythology.
• Red Right Hand: People possessed by the Mara, or dream manifestations of it, get a snake tattoo on their arms and red-stained teeth.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Unlike others who want to stop the Doctor from bringing the Time Lords back and starting the Time War again, the Mara wants the conflict to re-continue.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Or so it appears.
• Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: In the mini-episode that goes with the Season 20 boxset, it's still sealed within Tegan, and despite the occasional nightmare and offers, she's not having any of the Mara's nonsense, and promptly throws it back to the pit of her mind.
• Scaled Up: In "Kinda", its final form is a giant snake.
• The Worm That Walks: Of a sorts. It's referred to as a gestalt creature, existing as both an individual and a multitude.

Morgus

Morgus (Fifth Doctor)

Played by: John Normington (1984)

The corrupt chairman of the Sirius Conglomerate, Trau Morgus was responsible for the extraction, processing and distribution of Spectrox on Androzani Minor. He engaged in many illegal business practices, up to and including murder, in order to maximize profits.

---

• Aside Comment: He addresses the camera directly on occasion. This was a result of the actor misinterpreting the stage directions, but it recalls the Jacobean theatrical tradition of the Aside Comment, and so gives the character an air of Shakespearean villainy.
• Aside Glance: Beyond his soliloquies, Morgus occasionally gives knowing glances to the camera, usually when he's in the middle of plotting something particularly audacious.
• Bastardly Speech: He uses Patriotic Fervor slogans while plotting treason and preaching high-minded virtue while Kicking the Dog.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Deliberately sabotages and manipulates his own production in order to keep the market price of Spectrox high. He also has homeless and unemployed people sent to the labor camps he owns, who became unemployed due to his deliberate sabotage of his factories.
• Corrupt Politician: The President of the (equally corrupt) Presidium.
• Creepy Monotone: He constantly speaks in a hushed, sullen tone that hardly ever fluctuates.
• Fatal Flaw: Greed, plain and simple. His constant power grabs lead him into social, financial and legal ruin, and his vain, last-ditch attempt to steal Jek's spectrox supply leads to his death.
• Humiliation Conga: He loses all his wealth and power during the final episode, in quick succession.
• I Reject Your Reality: He is irrevocably convinced that the Doctor and Peri are government agents trying to topple his schemes. Granted, there is little evidence to the contrary and the Doctor is most definitely a snag in his works, but this incorrect assumption ultimately leads to his downfall.
• Lack of Empathy:
  • He leaves his business partner for dead, deliberately causes "accidents" that kill his workers and personally murders his superior, all for the pursuit of profit. In the latter case, he reels off a series of flatly delivered formalities about the tragedy of the situation that would fool absolutely nobody.
  • It is implied that he only saw Sharaz Jek as an obstacle and didn't quite understand just how much Jek hates him. He believed that Jek would back down from a gun pointed at him, or that a bullet would slow him down. He was very wrong.
• Properly Paranoid: Yes, there was indeed a government agent trying to expose him. It just wasn't the Doctor, or anyone else he suspected for that matter.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue to Sharaz Jek's Red. Compared to the intensely, ahem, "passionate" Jek, Morgus is much more reserved.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Even though he constantly talks in a sullen tone, he has a very good vocabulary and knows exactly how to use it.
• Villain of the Week: Serves as this for his only appearance as he's arguably the story's most irredeemable and prominent villain, but notably he never actually meets the Doctor face-to-face.
• War for Fun and Profit: Deliberately keeps the Spectrox war going, as it keeps up the market price of the drug.

Sharaz Jek

Sharaz Jek (Fifth Doctor)

Played by: Christopher Gable (1984)

The arch-enemy of Morgus. Sharaz Jek used to be Morgus' business partner, using his androids to extract lethal Spectrox from Androzani's underground tunnels. After Morgus betrayed him and left him for dead in a mud geyser, Jek started a one-man campaign of revenge and used his army of androids to sabotage Morgus' operations.

---

• Abduction Is Love: He keeps Peri (and the Doctor) captive in his underground base, clearly expecting to instil some form of Stockholm Syndrome in her so that she will eventually reciprocate his feelings. It doesn't work out.
• Anti-Villain: Jek is an admitted mad terrorist who only wants to see Morgus dead, but compared to the other villains in his story he's almost a saint.
• Beast and Beauty: Sees himself as the Beast to Peri's Beauty, though his twisted love for her is in no way requited, mainly because he insists on acting like a leering, self-piteous creep whenever he's in her presence.
• Berserk Button: Two main ones.
  • Morgus, obviously.
  • He really doesn't take kindly to insolence or insubordination, which makes sense as he's usually surrounded by mindlessly obedient androids. Naturally, the Doctor's constant jostling wears Jek's patience quickly.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He openly admits to being mad.
• Chewing the Scenery: On top of his bombastic rants, Jek has habits of throwing himself around and flailing his arms at whatever or whoever is unlucky enough to be within reach.
• Cool Mask: He wears an undeniably cool black and white mask which, from a distance, resembles a sort of Yin-Yang pattern.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Jek dies in the arms of his final android as his headquarters burn.
• Don't Look At Me: After using his unmasked face to intimidate Chellak, Peri accidentally steals a glance and screams in terror. Jek reacts by cowering under a table, covering his face on the floor and whimpering to himself. It's a surprisingly poignant and vulnerable moment for Jek.
• Evil Is Hammy: His raving and scheming is almost Shakespearean, making him quite the Foil to his nemesis Morgus.
• Evil Laugh: He gives one straight to the camera just before the iconic first cliffhanger of the serial where the Doctor and Peri seemingly get executed by firing squad. The second episode reveals that he wasn't laughing at their deaths, but because he'd fooled Morgus's men by replacing the Doctor and Peri with identical android duplicates.
• Expy: Of The Phantom of the Opera himself.
• Facial Horror: Thanks to his burns, his face is shown to be so unspeakably hideous that even experienced soldiers can only gasp in horror at the sight of it when his mask falls off. Although his face is deliberately kept hidden from view whenever his mask is removed onscreen for the first few times, we do eventually see it in full, and indeed, it's not a pretty sight.
• Fatal Flaw: Several, but most notably Wrath, Lust and to an extent Pride. Jek is determined to exact revenge on Morgus, but his feud with the corrupt chairman is ultimately just a short-sighted, petty and spiteful one that benefits nobody and gets scores of people killed. His twisted affection for Peri is superficial and based solely on her beauty which he covets. Lastly, his scarred face robbing him of any chance of being loved by a woman is a premium source of Angst for him that he blames Morgus for causing. In the end, Jek gladly dies just to bring Morgus down with him.
• Gadgeteer Genius: His army of androids is evidence enough.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: You never know what will set him off onto one of his rants, but one thing that unfailingly does the trick is mentioning that swine MORGUS!
• Hazy-Feel Turn: While Jek remains an Anti-Villain to the bitter end, he desperately tries to prolong Peri's life as soon as he realises she's dying.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: Falls in possessive, violent love with Peri. It starts off as unsavoury, but eventually it becomes fuel for a Heel–Face Turn.
• I Was Quite the Looker: Played for Drama when he goes into various How the Mighty Have Fallen rants.
• Lean and Mean: Portrayed by the late Christopher Gable, a very tall and slender ex-ballet dancer.
• Love Redeems: His feelings for Peri give him some respite, but not enough to quell his hatred for Morgus.
• Mad Scientist: Even his enemies acknowledge the brilliance of his androids.
• Malevolent Masked Man: Wears a head-covering mask to conceal his disfigurement from the mud geyser.
• Masking the Deformity: He is a genius who built the robots necessary to mine Spectrox but was betrayed by his greedy partner Morgus, who left him to die in the molten mud. Jek was left horrifically deformed and utterly insane, thus he fashions himself a black and white mask, then uses his robotics skills to build an army to take over Androzani Minor and stop Morgus from being able to extract any more Spectrox.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Becomes remorseful when all of his androids are destroyed in the final skirmish and he learns that Peri is dying of Spectrox Toxaemia, as he could have sent an android into the dangerous caves to find the antidote.
• Never My Fault: Blames Morgus for everything bad that happens.
• Noble Demon: He treats his prisoners like guests and doesn't do harm to people who haven't wronged him first.
• One-Man Army: In a sense. Jek is only one man, but his android army is sufficient enough to shunt his drug war into a stalemate.
• The Power of Hate: When he finally comes face-to-face with Morgus again, his hatred is so immense that he walks through a hail of bullets to kill him with his bare hands.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red to Morgus' Blue. Jek is prone to violent raving, Morgus has a Lack of Empathy.
• Redemption Equals Death: He dies upon saving Peri and the Doctor.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Yes, Morgus is a diabolical bastard who must be brought down. Jek's only motivation for wanting to kill him is for the sake of his own selfish revenge.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: His biggest priority is bringing Morgus down.
• Stalker with a Crush: He quite clearly has the creepy kind of hots for Peri, doing things like chloroforming her, stroking her face while she's unconscious, and carrying her around in his arms (again, unconscious) while whispering "so beautiful... so beautiful...". The fact that he also dresses entirely in black leather really doesn't help.
• Tragic Villain: He's a cruel, selfish and possessive terrorist, but only because of Morgus' betrayal. He goes into a lengthy villain monologue to Peri over how he used to be an optimist, but the trauma from the incident caused him to see the ugliness in everyone. He wants to keep Peri for himself because she's the only light in the darkness for him.

Sixth Doctor era

Mestor

Mestor (Sixth Doctor)

Played by: Edwin Richfield (1984)

"In my time I have been threatened by experts. And I don't rate you very highly at all."

— The Sixth Doctor on Mestor

A Gastropod.

---

• Evil Sounds Deep: He has a very deep, growly voice.
• Grand Theft Me: This is one of his powers.
• Mister Seahorse: According to the reference book "The Monster Vault" Mestor birthed the other Gastropods despite being referred to as male.
• Planetary Parasite: His species devastated entire planets, but their eggs cannot hatch unless they are seared by a supernova first.
• Too Dumb to Live: If he had just possessed the Doctor like he said he would, Mestor would have won. But instead, he decided to possess Azmael, a more experienced Time Lord, ultimately leading to his death.

Sil

Sil (Sixth Doctor)

Played by: Nabil Shaban (1985–86)

A Mentor (read: lizard-slug-alien) and corrupt capitalist, Sil was a perfect compliment to the 1980s, and a good foil for the Sixth Doctor. His first episode had Sil bilking an entire planet out of billions because he could, while his final appearance so far left Sil as an understudy to a quickly-evolving member of his own species named Kiv... who then stole Peri's body for his own. Sil may be dead, but a script the Who crew was forced to discard during the 18-month hiatus of Doctor Who would have had Sil teaming up with the Ice Warriors ^note  Said script was novelized and was turned into an audio drama too, while a script pitched for the never-produced Season 27 would have had Sil showing up with the Autons and UNIT. Until he shows up again in an actual, televised episode, however, we still don't know if he survived.

---

• Author Appeal: Sil is a pretty good character concept for the money-oriented 1980s, which was the intent of his creator.
• Bad Boss: Threatens to kill an underling for wetting him down with a spray bottle too roughly.
• Bastard Understudy: To Kiv in "Mindwarp", technically... though Kiv seems to have slowly lost it as the story progressed.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: The basis for his whole character.
• Maniac Tongue: Has a habit of flicking his tongue out as he laughs in a reptilian fashion.
• Mars Needs Women: Averted; he doesn't exhibit any interest in Peri, but when the cell mutator turns Areta reptilian, he says she is "almost attractive."
• Put on a Bus: It's unknown what happened to him after "Mindwarp", not helped any matters by the story being already surreal.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Well, more like amphibians, but Mentors are aquatic and need constant spraying. They're also ruthless in their pursuit of money, especially Sil.
• Uncertain Doom: The last we see of Sil, he is apparently killed by the crazed warlord Yrcanos, but this is part of evidence in the Doctor's trial that is later revealed to have been fabricated, and it is never made clear how much of the story is real.^note Most of the confusion arises because the scene — in which Peri is killed by having her mind overwritten with another Mentor's, causing Yrcanos to go on the rampage — is later revealed to have been a total fabrication, and that Peri did not die. This was because producer John Nathan-Turner got cold feet about killing a companion off in such a horrible way after it had been filmed, and hastily wrote an explanation as to how she survived into a later episode without checking if this tallied with the rest of the story or the original intention as to how much of it was meant to be real. Had Nathan-Turner not changed his mind, it could be taken as read that Sil does not survive.
• Villainous Glutton: Known for constantly chowing down on marsh-minnows, not to mention his rather gross Evil Laugh.
• Villain Protagonist: Of his own belated, semi-canonical, direct-to-video spin-off movie produced by Reeltime Pictures, Sil and the Devil Seeds of Arodor.

Seventh Doctor era

The Kandyman

The Kandyman (Seventh Doctor)

Played by: David John Pope (1988)

"You see, I make sweets. Not just any old sweets, but sweets that are so good, so delicious that sometimes, if I'm on form, the human physiology is not equipped to bear the pleasure."

A robot who enjoys torturing and killing his victims using candy and sweets. The Seventh Doctor and Ace encountered the Kandyman on the human colony world Terra Alpha, where he acted as chief torturer for the despotic Helen A.

---

• April Fools: On April Fools' Day 2010, it was announced that the Kandyman was to be the Big Bad of Matt Smith's first series as the Doctor!
• Creepy High-Pitched Voice: Oh goodness, does he have this.
• Drowning Pit: It seems his favourite method of execution was trapping the victim in a tube and filling the tube with fondant, drowning them. The flavour of the fondant varied; Helen A's favourite was strawberry.
• Evil Chef: He uses confectionery as a means of execution.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humour: Sadistically murdering innocent people with sweet foods is hilarious!
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The Kandyman is eventually destroyed by his own "fondant surprise".
• Homoerotic Subtext: "The Happiness Patrol" is full of this. In particular, the Kandyman and his creator, Gilbert M, act like a married couple whose relationship has long since gone sour. Once the Kandyman is destroyed, Gilbert runs off with Helen A's husband to start a new life together somewhere else.
• Large Ham: One other thing he clearly seems to enjoy doing alongside his executions and his culinary experimentation is feasting on the scenery around him.
• Mad Artist: A mad culinary artist.
• Robotic Psychopath: Extremely sadistic and cruel.
• Sweet Tooth: Yeah, if that wasn't obvious from the outset...
• Weaksauce Weakness: He can be rendered immobile with a quick spray of lemonade to his feet.