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Doctor Who – Immortals and Eldritch Abominations
(aka: Doctor Who Ashildr)

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The various Doctor Who foes who qualify as immortals and/or Eldritch Abominations. As with all Doctor Who characters, they also appear in the Expanded Universe.


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For the Pantheon of Discord see their page.

First Doctor era debut

    The Animus 

The Animus (First Doctor)

Characters in Doctor Who – Immortals and Eldritch Abominations

The Animus, also known as Lloigor, Pwodarauk, the Voice, and the Intelligence, was a Great Old One from the pre-universe race known as the Lloigor. It was the only Lloigor to cross into this universe, afterwards landing on the planet Vortis. It could take over any living creature that was in contact with gold and manifested itself within an organic, self-healing palace called the Carsenome.


  • Meaningful Name: Animus is a word meaning both a spirit and hatred or hostility.

Second Doctor era debut

    The Great Intelligence 

The Great Intelligence (Second and Eleventh Doctors)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Great_Intelligence_1305.png
Played by: Wolfe Morris (as Padmasambhava) (1967); Jack Woolgar (as Staff Sgt. Arnold) and Jack Watling (as Prof. Travers) (1968); Sir Ian McKellen (2012); Richard E. Grant (as Walter Simeon) (2012–2013)

"Now the dream outlives the dreamer and can never die. Once I was the puppet... Now I pull the strings!"

The Great Intelligence, which usually referred to itself simply as the Intelligence, was a disembodied sentience who attempted to find a body and physical existence. It first (from its own perspective) encountered the Eleventh Doctor, followed by the Second, and it got quite complicated from there.


  • Aborted Arc: "The Web of Fear" strongly implies that there will soon be a third encounter with the Intelligence. In fact, such a story was being worked on under the working title of "The Laird of McCrimmon" (as the name suggests, it would also have been Jamie's farewell story). This was abandoned following Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln falling out with The BBC over the abridgement of "The Dominators", and a dispute over the ownership of the IP relating to the Quarks. Nonetheless, the arc was un-aborted decades later in stories with the Eleventh Doctor.
  • And I Must Scream:
    • Padmasambhava is fully conscious while the Intelligence spends hundreds of years using his body to carry out its plans.
    • In "The Bells of Saint John", the Great Intelligence's plan involves hijacking human souls via the WiFi where they are then trapped in a Data Cloud... until the Great Intelligence is ready to feed on them.
  • Arch-Enemy:
    • To Clara Oswald, who spends most of her reincarnated lives stopping the damage that it did to the web of time.
    • The fact that the Great Intelligence has attacked the Doctor at essentially all points in his lifetime means that it is the third contender for the Doctor's archenemy, alongside The Master and Davros, fourth if you count the Valeyard and Sutekh.
  • Bad Boss: Eats the hired hands who obtain samples for it in "The Snowmen", and mindwipes its minions in "The Bells of Saint John" once the Doctor ruins its plans.
  • Big Bad: For "The Abominable Snowmen" and "The Web of Fear" of the original series. It returns as this for Series 7 of the revival, which showcases the Intelligence's first and last encounters (from its point of view) with the Doctor.
  • Body Surf: One of its goals is to obtain a suitable physical body for itself.
  • Brain Food: Feeds on human minds.
  • The Bus Came Back: Became the main antagonist of Series 7 after disappearing from the show for 44 years.
  • The Chessmaster: It can play the role of a puppetmaster and manipulate countless humans to carry out its endeavours. It is responsible for a large amount of the events in Series 7. As of "The Name of the Doctor", technically it was partially responsible for everything that ever went wrong for the Doctor.
  • Complete Immortality: The Intelligence has no physical form that can degrade or be destroyed. This has allowed it to survive despite losing multiple "receptacles" since the 1800s. Scattering itself across the Doctor's personal timeline, though, is implied to have finally killed it, unless it truly is the consciousness of Yog-Sothoth, in which case it's likely that it simply was reabsorbed into its original body, which exists across the fabric of time and space.
  • The Corrupter: In Series 7, the Great Intelligence is shown to seek out humans to corrupt and use as pawns for its own schemes, before disposing of them when their usefulness runs out.
  • Create Your Own Hero: The Great Intelligence throwing itself into the Doctor's timeline to undo all his victories is what led to Clara Oswald throwing herself into the time stream after it, creating all the echoes of her including the Victorian Clara who helped the Doctor against the Great Intelligence's plot in "The Snowman" and who inspired the Doctor to take on the original modern-day Clara as his companion, which is what led to that Clara being in the position to foil the Great Intelligence's plan in the season finale and... yeah...
  • Death Seeker: In its final appearance, the Great Intelligence has grown weary of eternal life, and is quite pleased to have found a way to end it. That it can take a cruel revenge on the Doctor in the bargain just makes it all the more irresistible.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Prior to its appearance as the arc villain of Series 7, the Great Intelligence was a formidable recurring but not omnipresent threat to the Doctor; certainly not on the same level of personal enmity as the Master, Daleks or Cybermen. Even during its grand comeback in the revived series, the Doctor only foils two of its plans (that we know of). The Great Intelligence's response? Break into the Doctor's entire timestream and replace all of its victories with defeats, an action that would cripple the entire timeline and certainly destroy the Intelligence in the process.
  • Eldritch Abomination: In "The Abominable Snowmen", it was introduced as a monster that existed outside time and space that possessed Padmasambhava through Astral Projection for 300 years. The Expanded Universe even suggests it is the disembodied conscience of Yog-Sothoth.
  • Everything's Deader with Zombies: What it did to Staff Sgt. Arnold, and Edward Travers.
  • Evil Counterpart: Moffat's reinvention of the Great Intelligence is a dark mirror of the Doctor, taking young "companions" it manipulates and feeds on for its own ends.
  • Evil Genius: It's the Great Intelligence, so of course it's very cunning and manipulative.
  • Evil Has Good Taste: Likes wearing Victorian-era dress suits. Its minions in "The Bells of Saint John" and "The Name of the Doctor" also dress in nice suits.
  • Evil Is Hammy: In "The Snowmen", Ian McKellen's portrayal sees the Great Intelligence pile on a bit of ham, although afterwards, Richard E. Grant sticks to a cold-blooded, Soft-Spoken Sadist performance.
  • Evil Is Petty: To take revenge on the Doctor for his interference in its plans, the Great Intelligence tries to avert every single one of the Doctor's victories throughout his life, not caring in the least that it's destroying itself in the process, or that doing so will mean the end of time and reality themselves.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: Ian McKellen's portrayal has a deep, booming voice.
  • Faux Affably Evil: The very image of a polite Victorian gentleman. Doesn't stop it from eating human minds and treating its minions like dirt.
  • Forgotten First Meeting: The Doctor's first two encounters (from his point of view) with the Great Intelligence were while he was the Second Doctor. By the time of "The Snowman" however, the Eleventh Doctor appears to only vaguely recall either of his previous encounters with the Great Intelligence, them having been, from his perspective, several centuries ago.
  • Have We Met Yet?: The Great Intelligence meets the Eleventh Doctor, the Second Doctor (twice) and... well, then things get really, really complicated as it is ripped into a million pieces across the Doctor's entire timeline.
  • Hell-Bent for Leather: Wears very stylish leather gloves, and makes a point of grabbing the Doctor's face with them.
  • Hypocrite: Claims in "The Web of Fear" to be above revenge, yet by the time of "The Name of the Doctor" the Doctor's repeated victories over the Intelligence have gotten under its skin to the point where it was willing to destroy the entire universe just to spite him.
  • I Am Legion: Often refers to itself in the plural.
  • Internal Homage: To the Expanded Universe novel Unnatural History, in which the Doctor’s lifeline becomes a scar woven through space and time, which the villain — dressed as a Victorian undertaker — is going to attempt to use to rewrite his life, until the Doctor’s companion (who he’s met before in a different version) saves the day by leaping into it at the cost of her own existence.
  • Interim Villain: The Great Intelligence was the Big Bad for Series 7, the only season of the Eleventh Doctor's tenure without the Silence (who technically return in "The Time of the Doctor" which aired after).
  • It Can Think: It began as a flock of telepathic snow simply reflecting a young Walter Simeon subconscious back at it, but over time it absorbed enough of Dr. Simeon's disturbed thoughts that it became fully sentient and able to existing independently of Simeon.
  • It's All About Me: The (self-described) Great Intelligence devours human minds, uses people up and tosses them aside, and shamelessly kills innocent people for the sake of its own selfish goals. It's even fine with reversing all of the Doctor's victories, endangering all of time and space, to end his own life (because it's tired of it) and to avenge itself upon the Doctor.
  • Killed Off for Real: He willingly sacrificed himself entering the Doctor's timestream to kill him at multiple points in history (thankfully foiled in such by Clara Oswald).
  • Living Dream: "The Snowmen" suggests the Intelligence is the "darkest dreams" of a lonely, hateful man come to life. Dr. Simeon had his subconscious mind mirrored by alien snow which is implied in the Expanded Universe to be Yog-Sothoth. The Great Intelligence is later forced to separate from Dr. Simeon and possess Yog-Sothoth/the alien snow due to Dr. Simeon having his memories erased, and is later stripped even of Yog-Sothoth when the tears of an entire family take over the Outer God converting it into tears, thus leaving Dr. Simeon's subconscious mind as a being of pure intelligence.
  • Maker of Monsters: Has a habit of creating monster minions to carry out its will, such as the mechanical yetis in "The Abominable Snowmen", the monstrous snowmen in "The Snowmen" and the Whisper Men in "The Name of the Doctor".
  • The Man Behind the Monsters: In "The Name of the Doctor", whichever Whispermen the Intelligence is using as its main body takes on the fully human appearance of Dr. Simeon, in contrast to the others which are lacking in facial features apart from teeth.
  • Mecha-Mooks:
    • Its Yeti are actually robots, as it realized snowmen weren't going to cut it.
    • Later the walking wi-fi base station "Spoonheads", robots that camouflage themselves to look human.
  • Mind Control: Many of its plots involve brainwashing humans to do its bidding.
  • More than Mind Control: Dr. Simeon and Ms. Kizlet were fully aware of the Intelligence's influence on them, and yet wished to do its bidding anyway.
  • Narcissist: The Great Intelligence.
  • Near-Villain Victory: It would have erased the Doctor from history and destroyed the universe had Clara not entered the time stream after it.
  • Not Brainwashed: It's revealed that the mind exuding from the alien snow speaking to Dr. Simeon throughout his life wasn't the alien's own mind, but the mirroring of Dr. Simeon's subconscious mind, thus meaning he was doing his own childish bidding; and when his memories were being erased, the Great Intelligence/Dr. Simeon transferred to the Eldritch Abomination that was taking the shape of snow, only to be kicked out of said alien Eldritch Abomination by a grieving family on Christmas Eve.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: The Great Intelligence's ultimate plan in Series 7 is to enter the Doctor's time stream and undo every victory he achieved, destroying the universe as a side effect.
  • Origins Episode: "The Snowmen" explains how the Intelligence first came to Earth, adding to its debut earlier in "The Abominable Snowmen".
  • People Puppets: Many of the humans its machines brainwash don't remember anything they did while under its control.
  • Perpetual Frowner: The only time we see its "Simeon" form so much as smirk is right after it proves its point about not having a body.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: The Intelligence is a reflection of Simeon's subconscious thoughts. All the loneliness and resentment of an isolated little boy, which he poured into his only friend: a Snowman.
  • Rule of Two: It being a disembodied intelligence means it usually acts through henchmen who do have physical bodies, with at least one often taking the role of The Dragon.
  • "Shaggy Dog" Story: It sacrifices itself to spite the Doctor by turning every victory he's had into a defeat, only for the Intelligence's victory to be immediately undone when Clara enters the Doctor's time stream after it and reverts all its actions.
  • Soft-Spoken Sadist: After taking Simeon's appearance, the Great Intelligence never so much as raises its voice, always speaking in a low, chilling tone that displays its immense cruelty.
  • Soul Eating: In "The Bells of Saint John", he has hundreds of human souls trapped in a Data Cloud so that he can eventually consume them.
  • Sore Loser: Wants to undo all the good the Doctor has ever done (which would undoubtedly wreck the timeline) just to get back at the Doctor for being constantly beaten.
  • Taking You with Me: What its plan in "The Name of the Doctor" essentially amounts to. The Intelligence plots to throw itself into a dimensional tear in the Doctor's tomb on Trenzalore and sabotage the Time Lord's every established victory throughout the timestream into a defeat. Although aware that this action would certainly destroy every trace of itself as well, the Intelligence sees it as a worthy sacrifice.
  • Unknown Rival: The Great Intelligence is very much a backseat schemer, manipulating events from the shadows and rarely making its presence known (usually because it has no physical body to interact with). The Doctor has probably thwarted the Intelligence more times than he knows. As a result, the Intelligence has a burning hatred for the Doctor whereas the same cannot be said in reverse. In fact, the Doctor barely even remembers the Intelligence when it officially returns in "The Snowmen".
  • Unseen Evil: It being a disembodied intelligence means it doesn't even have a true form apart from whoever it's possessing. Although in the revival series its capable of assuming a quasi-physical form on its own, usually taking on Dr. Simeon's appearance.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: Part of its motivation for breaking into the Doctor's tomb in "The Name of the Doctor" is a desire to find a way to end its eternal life.

    Time Lords 

Third Doctor era debut

    Nestene Consciousness 

Nestene Consciousness (Third and Ninth Doctors)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nestene_consciousness.jpg
Voiced by: Nicholas Briggs (2005)

Rose: And this living plastic, what's it got against us?
Ninth Doctor: Nothing, it loves you. You've got such a good planet! Lots of smoke and oil, plenty of toxins and dioxins in the air, perfect. Just what the Nestene Consciousness needs.

The actual mind behind the Autons. After a couple of stabs at invading Earth in the Third Doctor's era, they returned in 2005 out of sheer desperation, having lost their "protein planets" in a mysterious war.


    Kronos the Chronovore 

Kronos the Chronovore (Third Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kronos_doctor_who.png
Click here to see its female form.

Played by: Marc Boyle, Ingrid Bower (1972)
A being capable of devouring time. Responsible for the destruction of Atlantis on Earth. Expanded Universe materials maintain that Chronovores exist in the same realm as the Eternals, but that the Eternals consider themselves superior.

Fourth Doctor era debut

    Mandragora Helix 

The Mandragora Helix

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1024px_masquemandrag1_journeyn_into_the_helix.jpeg
Voiced by: Peter Tuddenham (1976)
A Helix Intelligence, a spiral of energy with a controlling intelligence that existed as its own domain in unchartered regions of the Time Vortex.
  • Energy Beings: The Helix is a spiral of energy. However, once it spreads its power among the Brethren of the Cult of Demnos, the Doctor realises it's vulnerable if he can trick them into fully draining their power.
  • Evil Laugh: The Helix does this, often when there is no other sign of its presence.
  • Long Game: The Doctor thinks that the Helix has been planning its conquest for centuries. Given that it is worried a future galaxy-spanning humanity might challenge it, it really does think in the long term, and we're told to expect another attempted invasion half a millennia later.
  • Swirly Energy Thingy: What the Helix appears as.
    Sarah: What's the Mandragora Helix?
    The Doctor: It's a spiral of pure energy that radiates outwards in ways no one understands, though at its centre there's a controlling intelligence.

    Fendahl 

The Fendahl

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fendel_monster.webp
The Fendahl
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thea_as_the_core_6.webp
Thea Ransome as the Core
Played by: Wanda Ventham (1977)
A species that evolved on the fifth planet of the Solar System, which consumed all life in its path, including other Fendahl. When the Time Lords destroyed the fifth planet 12 million years ago, a single specimen reached Earth. Its skull was dug out of volcanic rock in The '60s, and when it was powered up by irresponsible use of a time scanner, it began transforming humans into the parts to create a new Fendahl...
  • Ancient Evil: Granted, 12 million years is a bit of a spring chicken by Who standards, but that's still a decent innings for a horrible monster.
  • Been There, Shaped History: Shapes human history over millions of years to bring itself back. The Doctor proposes that it might also have been responsible for depopulating Mars, athough it's not confirmed, and in any case Mars in the Whoniverse is a surprisingly busy place.
  • Eldritch Abomination: A gestalt entity of incredible power, capable of feeding on life energy, that survives 12 million years in its skull-based "hibernation". The Core alone is a tremendously powerful and inhuman creature, and by the Doctor's estimates, the fully recovered Fendahl would have depopulated the Earth within a year.
  • Evil Is Not a Toy: Max Stael wants to use the skull and the possessed Thea to ascend to godhood. It does not go well for him, and when we last see him, he's shot himself rather than become a Fendahleen.
  • Fate Worse than Death: If you meet the Core's gaze, you will transform into a Fendahleen and become part of it. When it breaks through, Max Stael is reduced to begging the Doctor to get him his gun so he can kill himself; the Doctor solemnly hands him the weapon and leaves.
  • Forced Transformation: Thea Ransome is transformed into the Core, and while early Fendahleen reproduction seems to be based on drained Life Energy, the Core is able to turn humans into Fendahleen with a look.
  • Fusion Dance: The completed Fendahl would consist of a merger of 13 entities: the Core and 12 Fendahleen. "Image of the Fendahl" does not make clear exactly what this entails, but it getting there would be a Very Bad Thing.
  • Godzilla Threshold: The Time Lords viewed these things as a big enough threat that they not only destroyed its planet, they illegally sealed it in a time loop. Then some idiot in Gallifrey had the brilliant idea of breaking the seal to study and harness the power of the Fendahl... creating the even worse Fendahl Predator, which feeds on meaning and concepts.
  • Humanoid Abomination: The Fendahl Core resembles a gold-painted human in vaguely Greek attire with unnaturally large eyes.
  • Kryptonite Factor: Fendahleen are vulnerable to rock salt, which the Doctor theorises could be the origin of the superstition about throwing salt over your shoulder for good luck. It isn't clear if the Fendahl Core is vulnerable to anything in particular, with the Doctor causing the Priory to implode in order to kill it, and the finished Fendahl would have been even worse.
  • Life Energy: The Fendahl's diet. As a result, its first victim is noted to be decaying rapidly.
  • Made of Indestructium: The skull hosting its core essence is absurdly resilient, though the Doctor was confident throwing it into a supernova would be enough to destroy it for good. Unusually, he was wrong, allowing the entity to feed on the nova's energies and have a second go at recreating the Fendahl in Kaldor City. Even the Time War-era Daleks found it impossible to exterminate this thing, and it would further return to Earth for one last attempt to exploit its manipulations of humanity in Island of the Fendahl after a journey through a black hole. The Eighth Doctor desperately tries to make the skull touch its past self from when it was first thrown into the nova, triggering the Blinovitch Limitation Effect's catastrophic temporal effects upon it... but given what it has already survived, it's a gamble if that was enough to put it down for good.
  • Starfish Aliens: Fendahleen are giant, vaguely wormlike creatures with cobra-style hoods and a vulnerability to rock salt.
  • 13 Is Unlucky: One core and 12 Fendahleen, totaling 13.
  • Worf Had the Flu: The Doctor is only able to finish it off because a couple of Fendahleen were killed before they could merge, allowing him to take it down in a priory implosion.

    Black Guardian 

Black Guardian (Fourth and Fifth Doctors)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/enl4.jpg
Played by: Valentine Dyall (1979, 1983)

The Black Guardian was an anthropomorphic personification of forces opposed to the powers of light, as embodied by the White Guardian. According to the Expanded Universe, he was, together with the White Guardian and four others, part of the Six-Fold God known as the Guardians of Time.


  • Anthropomorphic Personification: Represents chaos and evil.
  • The Anti-God: He serves as an Evil Counterpart to the White Guardian.
  • Arc Villain: For two different Story Arcs: The Key to Time and the Black Guardian trilogy.
  • Big Bad: Of both the Guardian arcs.
  • Bus Crash: He probably isn't exactly dead, but the Toymaker states in "The Giggle" that he turned the Black Guardian and his white counterpart into voodoo dolls.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: The Shadow admits that both he and the Black Guardian have no desire for political power, they just love watching stuff getting blown up and people killed.
  • Creepy Crows: Yeah, that's right. There's a crow on his head. Wanna make something of it?
  • Deal with the Devil: Partly how the Black Guardian gets mortals to do things for him.
  • Evil Is Hammy: And it has NO INDOOR VOICE.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: Valentine Dyall was well-known for his deep, rich, baritone voice.
  • God of Evil: He represents chaos and darkness in the Doctor Who universe.
  • God's Hands Are Tied: Can't be seen to intervene directly.
  • Manipulative Bastard: He's bound by rules that prevent him from acting directly, so he tricks unwitting pawns like Turlough and Captain Wrack to do his dirty work for him.
  • NO INDOOR VOICE: He apparently doesn't think making your mole conspicuous might in any way get in the way of success.
  • Noodle Incident: He was apparently defeated and imprisoned by the Toymaker at some point, along with the White Guardian.
  • Order Versus Chaos: He takes the side of chaos in an endless, cosmic chess match versus the White Guardian.

    Shadow 

Shadow (Fourth Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_shadow.webp
Played by: William Squire (1979)

An agent of the Black Guardian tasked to obtain the Key to Time.


    Great Vampires 

Great Vampires (Fourth Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/king_vampire.webp
The King Vampire
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/throne_room.webp
(L-R): Camilla, Aukon and Zargo
Aukon played by: Emrys James (1980)
Camilla played by: Rachel Davies (1980)
Zargo played by: William Lindsay (1980)

Huge space vampires hailing from another dimension and manifesting themselves in multiple forms based on what species or individual were perceiving them, they were accidently unleashed into "our" universe where they soon clashed with the early Time Lords in a conflict that would later became known as the Eternal War. Unbeknownst to everyone except themselves and possibly also the Time Lords, they were actually emanations and avatars of a force of destruction known as the Yssgaroth.


  • No Immortal Inertia: When the Great Vampire is destroyed, the Three Who Rule's thousand years of unlife suddenly catches up with them.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: They were gargantuan winged creatures that could survive in space, feasted on planets and could only be killed by having their hearts destroyed. They were so massive that the early Time Lords that fought them had to invent a new type of ship specifically for hunting them. The only way the Doctor managed to best the one he encountered was by stabbing it with a rocket ship.
  • Viral Transformation: They reproduced like this.

Fifth Doctor era debut

    Eternals 

Eternals (Fifth and Seventh Doctors)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2017_06_21_at_195913.png
Played by: Lynda Baron (Captain Wrack), Lee John (Mansell) Keith Barron (Captain Striker), Christopher Brown (Marriner) (1983)

The Eternals were beings of immense power but limited creativity. They used the thoughts and emotions of so-called Ephemerals (their word for mortals) for their own ends.


  • Always Someone Better: They are this to the Time Lords. The Time Lords considered themselves to be the mightiest, most advanced race in the cosmos, but even their powers were paltry compared to the Eternals', who view Gallifreyans' attempts to master Time a mere curiosity compared to their complete dominion over Eternity.
    • However, they are a little below the White and Black Guardians in the universe's Super Weight scale as the Guardians can offer them powers and desires that even they cannot grant themselves.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Eternals shown in "Enlightenment", like Striker and Marriner, simply do not understand human/Time Lord morality. Wrack is a bit more of a clear-cut villain, but still has shades of this.
  • Complete Immortality: The Eternals dwell in the domain of Eternity, rather than the smaller one of Time. This means they are unaffected by Time and thus unaging. Another factor is that Eternals cannot be destroyed, only transferred back to Eternity. However, in the Doctor Who Magazine comic Uninvited Guest, the Seventh Doctor might have found a loophole.
  • Creative Sterility: The Eternals exist in a perpetual state of boredom because they lack the imaginative capacities of Ephemerals.
  • For the Evulz: As shown in the Doctor Who Magazine story Uninvited Guest, the more sadistic Eternals sometimes pose as gods and doom whole worlds in the process.
  • Humanoid Abomination: Exist outside of time and space in eternity, have great Reality Warper powers and they are to Time Lords what Time Lords are to other races.
  • Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Supplemental material states they left reality after the Time War and never came back.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: They were the ones who locked away the Carrionites.
  • Telepathy: They could use telepathy and create objects from the memories of Ephemerals, but their powers were not limitless and they could not read minds from great distance or from strong minds (though Adrenaline from the mind they're accessing helps greatly).
  • Wacky Racing: The whole plot of their debut serial deals with them ritualistically racing each other in antique-looking sea vessels across our Solar system for Enlightenment.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: Eternity is boring, so they have to find something to do to occupy their time.

Seventh Doctor era debut

    The Gods of Ragnarok 

The Gods of Ragnarok (Seventh Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ragnarok_9.jpg
Played by: David Ashford (Father), Janet Hargreaves (Mother), Kathryn Ludlow and Alan Wareing (Daughter) (1989)

A trio of statue-like beings who possess phenomenal cosmic power, the "family" manipulate lesser beings into entertaining them in their Dark Circus, allowing them to live as long as they fulfil their craving for amusement.


  • Action Figure Speech: The three Gods of Ragnarok indicate which of them is talking by raising and lowering their arms.
  • Clarke's Third Law: They're an alien species powerful enough to be considered gods.
  • Creative Sterility: Similar to the Eternals, the Gods of Ragnarok are supremely unimaginative but constantly demand entertainment from lesser beings. This is instrumental to the Take That, Audience! satire in their debut episode.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: All three have deep, booming voices.
  • For the Evulz: The Gods of Ragnarok were trapped in a parallel dimension (possibly by the Doctor himself) and take over a circus to force people to perform for them, just to alleviate their boredom. When they lose interest in an act, they kill the performer.
  • Humanoid Abomination: Unfathomably powerful Silicon-Based Life.
  • Noodle Incident: The Doctor's previous encounter with them.
  • Silicon-Based Life: They appear to be made of stone.
  • The Stoic: Any kind of emotion at all is rare. Although as the Doctor continues to test their patience with his parlour tricks, they become increasingly agitated and trigger-happy.
  • Take That, Audience!: The Gods of Ragnarok can be read as this to the general audience at large. In the circus tent, they're presented as a rather dull family with no imagination of their own who just sit disinterestedly in front of a parade of entertainment moaning about how nothing's ever good enough to interest them no matter how creative it is, and anything they vote down is pretty much wiped out of existence. Could also be a Take That! at the executives or producers of the show (remembering this is in the original run's dying days, with the metaphorical axe hanging over it), never satisfied by entertainers no matter how hard they try to perform.
  • Tennis Boss: The Doctor defeats the Gods of Ragnarok by using the mirror amulet to reflect their energy blasts and collapse the roof of their balcony seat on them.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: Like the Toymaker, they are immortals whose prime motivation is boredom.

    Light 

Light (Seventh Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ghost4.jpg
Played by: John Hallam (1989)

An entity of unknown origin who manifests himself in the form of an angel, Light has made it his fanatical duty to travel through time and space, documenting every single species in the universe in his exhaustive "Catalogue of Life". Light detests change; so much so that that the process of evolution turns him completely genocidal.


  • Archive Panic: In-Universe. Light gets a severe case of this when he tries to catalogue all of Earth's life forms.
  • Camp: Just take a look at his appearance, not to mention his Large Ham tendencies.
  • A Form You Are Comfortable With: Light is not really an angel, or even humanoid; like an Eternal he's simply "naturalised into" human form.
  • Light Is Not Good: Literally. Although Light appears as a heavenly vision of white and gold, his motives are anything but pure, and he soon reveals himself to be insane, murderous and irrational.
  • Our Angels Are Different: As in, they're not really angels. It's more of a case of Sufficiently Advanced Aliens (though his exact nature remains a mystery).
  • Talking the Monster to Death: Light is infuriated by the fact that the Earth has changed, making the inventory he was working on meaningless. He resolves to destroy the Earth so it will stop changing. The Doctor points out the idiocy of thinking that you can stop change, and that everything in the universe is changing, including Light. Light commits suicide because he considers change a Fate Worse than Death.

    Fenric 

Fenric (Seventh Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fenric_6791.jpg
Played by: Dinsdale Landen (as Dr. Judson) and Tomek Bork (as Captain Sorin) (1989)

An evil entity from the beginning of the Universe that plans to make humans evolve into the Vampiric Haemovores. Defeated, but returns in the 2012 Big Finish audio "Gods and Monsters".


  • Arch-Enemy: To the Seventh Doctor.
  • Arc Welding: Revealed Ace being transported to Iceworld and Lady Peinforte's magic were his doing.
  • Bad Future: Trying to force one where humanity evolve into Haemovores. It's not clear whether this has been averted.
  • Batman Gambit: Plans for his Wolves to open the flask that contains him once again.
  • Big Bad: Serves as this to the Seventh Doctor's era despite not appearing till his third season.
  • Body Surf: Can do this between his "Wolves".
  • The Chessmaster: He and the Doctor, who literally played chess. Though subverted with the Doctor tricking him with a blatantly illegal move.
  • Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Haemovores can be held back by faith.
  • Demonic Possession: How he manifests.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Fenric is supposed to have been something from the dawn of time, possibly even earlier. The Expanded Universe gives us a more accurate identification: Hastur, the Unspeakable One, the Ragged King. YES, that one!
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: When he takes possession of a new host.
  • I Have Many Names: Fenric has, according to the Doctor.
  • Kneel Before Zod:
    Fenric: The choice is yours, Time Lord. I shall kill you anyway, but if you would like the girl to live... kneel before me.
    Ace: I believe in you, Professor.
    Fenric: Kneel if you want the girl to live!
    The Doctor: Kill her.
  • Meaningful Name: Fenric comes from Fenrir, a wolf in Norse Mythology who would break free at the end of the world. And the Haemovores are called "Wolves of Fenric".
  • Noodle Incident: The Doctor imprisoned him around the 3rd century after tricking him in a game of chess. It's not revealed exactly what happened.
  • Out-Gambitted: He thinks that he's The Chessmaster, but the Doctor has an Ace up his sleeve.
  • Psychic Powers: Despite being imprisoned, he can still transport people through time.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: When he possesses Judson.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: And the can got opened...
  • Stable Time Loop: Apparently trying to perform one. The last original Haemovore, known as the Ancient One, getting transported back from the year 500,000 and spreading poison will enable the Haemovores to evolve. Subverted when the Ancient One performs a Heel–Face Turn and destroys Fenric's host body in a Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Viral Transformation: How the Haemovores are created.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: When Fenric no longer needs the Haemovores, he orders the Ancient One to kill them all.

Ninth Doctor era debut

    Reapers 

Reapers (Ninth Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/reaper_doctor_who.png

Winged dragon-like monsters from the Time Vortex who feed on temporal paradoxes. Completely invincible, the Doctor describes them as being like bacteria infecting a wound in history, running rampant in the aftermath of the Time War now that the Time Lords are gone.


  • All There in the Script: They are never identified by name in-universe; the name "Reaper" comes from the script, as well as other sources such as Doctor Who Legacy and the comic Four Doctors.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Clock Roaches who feed off of paradoxes would be an integral threat in the show, considering how much the Doctor, their companions, and their enemies mess with time, AND that the Time Lords (who keep them in check) pretty much sit out the vast majority of the Revival Series (for various reasons), right? Nope, they're not seen after the episode revolving around them.
  • Clock Roaches: They "sterilize the wound" left by a temporal paradox Rose created.
  • Draconic Abomination: They come from outside time, appear when paradoxes are created to feast, and can't be damaged or destroyed.
  • Flat Character: They're temporal predators whose purpose is to cleanse paradoxes by devouring everything in the vicinity, and don't have individual personalities.
  • The Grim Reaper: It's in the name. They even have tails shaped like scythes. Their appearance is appropriate for an episode all about coming to terms with a loved one's death.
  • Insurmountable Waist-High Fence: Despite being flying extra-temporal abominations with teleportation abilities that are said to be potentially universe-threatening, the Reapers are incapable of breaking into a simple stone church. It's somewhat Handwaved as the Doctor states that they have difficulty affecting particularly old things, and once they receive power from a further paradox, they manage to get in easily.
  • Non-Malicious Monster: It's implied that the Reapers are acting on instinct with no intent to cause pain or grief.
  • Out of Focus: The Reapers feel like an important addition to a show that revolves around time travel, but they're never seen or mentioned after this episode, even in cases where a paradox should lead to their appearance. It could also be that they're simply just one threat that can show up during a paradox, but not guaranteed. They do however show up in EU material.
  • Planet Eater: In the event of a paradox, the Reapers will indiscriminately consume absolutely everything in the vicinity of the time wound, including the entire planet that the paradox is localised on.

Tenth Doctor era debut

    The Beast 

The Beast (Tenth Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/satanpit_7427.jpg
"You know nothing. All of you. So small!"
Voiced by: Gabriel Woolf (2006)

"I am the rage and the bile and the ferocity! I am the prince and the fool and the agony! I am the sin and the fear and darkness! I shall never die! The thought of me is forever! In the bleeding hearts of men! In their vanity and obsession and lust! Nothing shall ever destroy me! NOTHING!"

A being of great power who claims to have fought the Disciples of the Light before the Universe was created, and was later imprisoned on the planet Krop Tor, circling a black hole. Describes itself as the Devil, which greatly upsets the Doctor's belief system, although he ends up using the description himself for lack of a better explanation. It is given the chance to escape when human explorers fly onto its planet and drill through to its cell. Its mind plans to escape by possessing the team's archaeologist Toby Zed, leaving its original body behind in its prison, but is eventually prevented by the Doctor opening the Beast's cell, activating its failsafe and causing the planet to fall into the black hole, along with the Beast and Toby.


  • Armour-Piercing Question: When the Doctor refuses to believe its claims that it existed before the universe, since nothing could exist back then, the Beast asks him if that is his religion. The Doctor is too stunned to give a proper answer.
  • As Long as There Is Evil: See the above quote. Rose decides to put this to the test.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Look at that picture. That's the Doctor between the two pillars standing in front of it.
  • Badass Boast: Almost everything it says.
    The Beast: This is the Darkness. This is MY domain. You little things that live in the Light, clinging to your feeble Suns... which die. Only the Darkness remains.
    The Beast: I am the sin; and the temptation. And the desire. And the pain and the loss.
    The Doctor: Tell me, which Devil are you?
    The Beast: All of them!
  • Batman Can Breathe in Space: Humans possessed by it can.
  • A Beast in Name and Nature: Refers to itself as the Beast, among other Satanic titles. For good measure, his human hosts even manifest a Mark of the Beast.
  • Big Red Devil: It claims to be Satan, and it certainly looks the part. No sign of a pitchfork though.
  • Body Surf: After screaming orders at the Ood telepathically, it travels into three of them as smoke from Toby to possess the entire hive mind, while still hiding in Toby.
  • Boring, but Practical: With its power greatly reduced, the Beast relies upon straight-forward but deeply effective strategies to keep the humans afraid and manipulated, such as turning out the base's lights or disabling the Doctor's ability to communicate with them.
  • Break Them by Talking: Reading people's minds and taunting them by playing on fears and insecurities.
    The Beast: Mr. Jefferson, tell me, sir: Did your wife ever forgive you?
    Jefferson: [visibly disturbed] ...I don't know what you mean.
    The Beast: Let me tell you a secret. She never did.
  • Demonic Possession: First it possesses Toby after he handles ancient artifacts, then it possesses the empathic Ood. Toby manifests runes on his skin, red eyes and grey lips, while the Ood gain red glowing eyes and speak through their orbs in the Beast's voice.
  • Devil, but No God: Maybe. If you believe that the Beast actually is the Devil, then the proof for a God is that the Beast fought the Disciples of the Light, who possibly could be followers of a God. Also, the Ood mention that "he will rise from the pit and make war on God."
  • Devil in Disguise: When it hides in Toby, it sounds like him when it wants to.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Rose and Doctor throw a being claiming to be Satan into a black hole.
  • Dug Too Deep: How Humanity and, by extension, the Doctor cross his path.
  • Eldritch Abomination: It claims to be older than time itself, and its origin is logically impossible even by the Doctor's standards.
  • Empty Shell: The Beast's body, as its mind has escaped to possess Toby and the Ood.
  • Evil Is Not Well-Lit: Invoked by the Beast and discussed by the Doctor. The Beast preys on basic, childish fears within people to defeat them, such as fear of the dark. As soon as the humans get the lights in the Sanctuary Base working again, they feel better.
  • Evil Is Petty: There's no insecurity that the Beast won't mock, including Toby's virginity.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: He shares a voice actor with Sutekh.
  • Fantastic Racism: The Beast treats human beings as nothing more than pathetic, fearful monkeys who are no danger to it. The only character it treats with even a hint of respect is the Doctor, and only because he can insightfully analyse it and form a plan to fight it.
  • For the Evulz: Why it kills Scooti.
  • Game Face: As Toby, having red eyes, blue lips and glyphs on his skin.
  • Genius Bruiser: When it faced the Disciples of the Light, it was with that giant monster form. In order to escape its prison, the Beast split itself into its Genius and Bruiser parts to let the Genius escape.
  • Genre Savvy: The Beast relinquishes its outright possession of Toby at the same time it possesses the Ood, to make the humans assume that it has left Toby.
  • God of Evil: What it inspires in some religions, as well as war gods and devil figures.
  • I Am Legion: It even says the exact quote.
  • I Have Many Names: He practically quotes the trope name word-for-word when Toby asks who he is.
    The Ood: Some may call him Abaddon. Some may call him Krop Tor. Some may call him Satan. Or Lucifer. Or the King of Despair. The Deathless Prince. The Bringer of Night.
  • Informed Attribute: The Beast's body when it appears in the flesh onscreen is supposed to be mindless due to the Beast having moved his mind out of it, but throughout the Doctor's confrontation with it, the Beast's body language and reactions show that it seems clearly aware of what the Doctor's saying and doing as it reacts appropriately.
  • Leaking Can of Evil: It possesses Toby and dozens of Ood even before its prison door opens up.
  • Legions of Hell:
    • In the Torchwood season 1 finale, Abbadon the "Son of the Beast" is revealed to have been imprisoned in a similar manner in the Cardiff Rift on Earth. In supplementary materials, Tosh speculates that there might be other demons trapped elsewhere in the universe in secret prisons...
    • The Ood serve as this on the space station while his body is chained. They even call themselves the Legion of the Beast.
  • Lovecraft Lite: The Doctor and Rose send its body and mind flying into a black hole.
  • Manipulative Bastard: The Doctor quickly calls out the Beast out on playing on basic fears, such as fear of the dark or an abusive parent.
    Danny: But that's how the devil works.
    The Doctor: Or a good psychologist.
  • Many Spirits Inside of One: Inverted. The single Beast possesses many Ood, as well as Toby, at once.
  • Mark of the Beast: When the Beast possesses Toby, he is covered in glyphs that are so old that the TARDIS can't translate them.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Is he really the Devil, or just a Sufficiently Advanced Alien who happens to resemble our popular conception of the Devil and perhaps was even the basis for ours and other Devil myths? Never established for certain, though the episode hovers closer to the former explanation.
  • Mind Control: His signature power. He can only exercise it over vulnerable individuals though, such as the empathic Ood or Toby after his exposure to the relics.
  • Mind over Matter: Telekinetically shatters reinforced windows, cuts cables and opens its pit.
  • Mysterious Past: The only hints at the Beast's past are its claims (which can't be trusted or proven), some vague cave drawings the Doctor finds nears its cell, and humanity's own Devil myths.
  • Nigh-Invulnerability: It's strongly hinted that the mind of the Beast can never be destroyed, that it will live on in the minds of every being in the universe.
    The Beast: I shall never die! The thought of me is forever: in the bleeding hearts of men, in their vanity, obsession, and lust! Nothing shall ever destroy me! NOTHING!
  • Our Demons Are Different: This one may be the inspiration for all the ones who followed.
  • Outside-Genre Foe: In a strictly sci-fi series, a creature appears claiming to be Satan himself. Even better, there is more evidence for the idea that it really is the Devil. Not even the Doctor, an ancient scientist who has travelled all through time and deconstructs religions and Gods as if it were his day job, can truly disprove that the Beast is what it says it is.
  • Playing with Fire: Toby breathes fire when the Beast possesses him and is ranting when the Doctor destroys the gravity field, dooming himself, the Beast and the human survivors.
  • Psychic Powers: The Beast possesses telekinesis, technopathy and telepathy, which it uses to attack, possess and terrify the Sanctuary base crew once its mind separates itself from its body. It also foretells Rose's death announcement after the battle of London between the Cybermen and Daleks.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: It's a sign that the Beast has taken someone over. He can hide it when he wants to, though.
  • Satan: The Beast claims it is one of his names, and apparently inspired not only Christianity's Devil, but the Devil figures in every religion to have one in the entire universe.
    Toby: It was so angry. It was fury and rage and death. It was him. It was the Devil.
  • Scary Teeth: Big scary demon teeth!
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: It's so powerful it was sealed miles underground the surface of a planet precariously orbiting a black hole, meaning that any attempt to escape would send the Beast and the planet to fall into it. These Disciples of the Light guys really didn't want this guy to escape — and one can see why.
  • Shout-Out: A homage to Event Horizon and Prince of Darkness as well.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: He is one to Sutekh, both being Eldtrich Horrors voiced by Gabriel Woolf who claim "Satan" as an alias and gave similar speeches. He also has elements of the Mara in possessing multiple hosts that get branded by his mark with a telepathic race among his possessed victims.
  • Slasher Smile: When it gets to do its first kill in eons.
  • Sliding Scale of Villain Threat: At least universal when unbound and possessing its own body. Its mind alone is certainly a planetary threat, possibly greater.
  • Tailor-Made Prison: The Beast's prison was designed to be VERY difficult to get out of, and if broken, it would fall into a black hole before it could properly escape.
  • Technopath: Voluntarily or not, it makes the A.I. controlled doors, the hologram display, the Ood's speech devices and Rose's mobile phone announce its imminent release.
  • Telepathic Spacemen: A telepathic being from (maybe beyond) outer space.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: If it escapes from its prison, then it falls into a black hole. The Doctor states that the Devil is really an idea shared among societies, so even this may not truly kill it, something which the Beast backs up in a rant during its Villainous Breakdown. In any case, the Beast's prison planet falls into the black hole, apparently with its body, while its mind possessing Toby follows it to the same fate.
  • Time Abyss: It says it existed before the universe, though the Doctor claims that is impossible (it lampshades his Arbitrary Scepticism, especially since various materials both canon and Expanded Universe have quite explicitly said there were other things and realities before the Big Bang and that some of them survived into the current universe). Nevertheless, the Doctor concedes it could have existed at the start of the universe.
  • Villainous Breakdown: When the Doctor dooms it to fall into the black hole, both the Beast's mind and body rant, thrash, and breathe fire.
  • Voice of the Legion: The Ood speak in this when possessed.
  • Volcanic Veins: The veins in its body glow.
  • You Cannot Kill an Idea: Although the Beast is defeated, it still possesses psychic influence over every being in time and space.

    Torajii 

Torajii (Tenth Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/torajii.png
"Burn with me."

A sentient star at the centre of the Torajii system, it was hurt and angered by its substance being illegally used to fuel the S.S. Pentallion spaceship. It tries to pull the ship into it to return what was stolen from it.


  • The Bad Guy Wins: Zig-zagged. Torajii uses its Demonic Possession powers on the Doctor to explain that it wants its fuel back, and the crew comply with its demand. Once Torajii reclaims its fuel, it calms down and lets the S.S. Pentallion go.
  • Demonic Possession: It has the power to possess living creatures using its gas, causing their body temperature to increase to hundreds of degrees and subsuming their original personality.
  • Meaningful Name: The star at the centre of the Torajii system, and its name is Torajii.
  • Revenge: Members of the S.S. Pentallion illegally used this star's substance as fuel for their ship, oblivious that it was sentient and causing it intense pain. It's willing to make the ship crash into it and kill the crew if it means getting its fuel back!
  • Sentient Stars: A sentient star whose gas can possess humans and even Time Lords, though the latter can resist with sheer willpower. Temporarily.
  • The Unfettered: It will reclaim the fuel that was stolen from it, no matter how many members of the S.S. Pentallion it must kill to do so.

    Midnight Entity 

The Midnight Entity / "It Has No Name" (Tenth and Fifteenth Doctors)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dwmidnight2.jpg
The entity possessing Sky Silvestry.
Click here to see a glimpse of its visible body behind Aliss Fenley
Played by: Lesley Sharp, David Tennant (2008), Paul Kasey (2025)

"It's inside his head. It killed the driver, and the mechanic, and now it wants us. He's waited so long. In the dark, and the cold, and the diamonds. Until you came. Bodies so hot, with blood, and pain."

An enigmatic creature found on the inhospitable planet Midnight, its name and physical appearance practically unknown, but it left an impression on the Doctor as his first encounter was an event of sheer terror and tragedy.


  • Always Chaotic Evil: Having naïvely tried to understand and befriend the Midnight Entity during their initial encounter, the Doctor sees the creature for what it is and outright calls it a "murderer" in their second meeting.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: A possible case in "The Well." Although the Doctor and Belinda rescue the surviving troopers and Aliss, it's suggested the entity could have faked its death and latched onto another soldier. On the other hand, the Doctor gave a warning to nuke the mine it was residing in.
  • Bad Impressionists: The Midnight Entity's pretense that Sky has been "saved" is betrayed by its naked smugness and Dissonant Serenity... but most everyone in the vehicle is so utterly spooked, especially under the entity's More than Mind Control, that only a couple of women notice.
  • Berserk Button: In "The Well", it automatically reveals itself to and attacks whoever is looking at its host's back from directly behind them, although it only appears to do so under specific circumstances: the host at one point shows their back to several people at once with no effect, but the entity always attacks whoever's behind the host when there's a third person angularly in front of the host at the same time.
  • Beyond the Impossible: Its very existence is treated as this, especially by the officious Professor Hobbes, who constantly insists that Midnight's xtonic sunlight — which vaporises any organic tissue within seconds — makes the planet absolutely uninhabitable for any form of life. And yet, the entity exists.
    • It seems to have a physical form which is vaguely glimpsed by multiple characters and by the audience in its comeback, but it is never fully seen even when it should be in plain sight. When it's behind Aliss multiple characters fan out around her and they still can't see it which they note is impossible, nothing would be able to hide from every angle at once. But it does. Even Cassio, standing behind her at an angle with a clear view of her back, still cannot see it. The only way to truly see it is if you end up positioned directly behind the host's back (whether through your own movements or the host's rotation), and even then that's only ever shown to work when there's someone else positioned towards the host's front (with Aliss turning her back on several people having no ill effects); and that also means a last moment of abject horror for you before the thing gives you an instant, brutal death.
  • Brown Note: Implicitly twofold in "The Well".
    • It whispers to its hosts and drives them mad, and only Aliss is spared this because her deafness apparently stopped her from hearing the whispers. Whatever the Doctor hears when he listens to it whispering his real name causes him to weep with awe.
    • It's also implied that the entity will only kill you when you're behind the host's back if you look at it. One soldier tries to run, and the entity only kills him when he looks back over his shoulder.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: How the Midnight Entity chooses to kill its victims, either them turning on each other for its sadistic relish or it violently throws them around like a ragdoll.
  • Dark Is Evil: What little can be seen of it looks like a nondescript silhouette.
  • Demonic Possession: While it doesn't appear to be a demon, its hold on Sky Silvestry in its debut appearance is pretty much this, and "The Well" casts away whatever doubt its gleeful malevolence after stealing the Doctor's voice had left in that it's malevolent enough to be considered an honorary demon.
  • The Disembodied: It's suggested the creature might simply be a disembodied consciousness, as the Doctor asked if it wanted a body. Which would explain how it could survive in xtonic radiation and how it entered Sky's mind without breaching the Crusader 50, although it doesn't explain how it can knock on the hull and rip the ship apart. "The Well" reveals it when it's not latched onto a host, it has a solid-looking form, but this can disappear and reappear from sight and is only ever seen in glimpses, like a ghost.
  • The Dreaded: As Fifteen says, nothing the Doctor has ever faced in his life — in the entire history of the show — not the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Weeping Angels, the Vashta Nerada, the Beast, Sutekh and the Pantheon of Discord or anything else on this page — scares him in quite the same way as this nameless, shapeless thing does. When the Tenth Doctor first encountered it, he had no advanced knowledge of it and the ordeal traumatised him so much that he wanted nothing more to do with the entity, or the entire planet Midnight for that matter — a rarity for the Constantly Curious Time Lord. By the time he encounters it again, millennia later, he has regenerated into a more emotionally stable incarnation and has mustered enough bravery to question the creature as well as gaze upon its true form, though he seems to regret his curiosity when he glimpses it in a hallway.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Manages to achieve this status without any special effects whatsoever in its first appearance. While the Whoniverse is replete with no shortage of alien gods, reality-breakers and Lovecraftian horrors, the entity stands out for being one of the least understood and most enigmatic aliens of them all, In-Universe and out-of-universe. All we really know about it is that it lives on a planet where absolutely nothing should be able to live in any shape or form, it really hates being on Midnight when the alternative is getting to play its games with us hot, fleshly bodies and getting to escape the planet for good through us; it has plenty of psychic and uncanny powers which show that it isn't bound by physical laws and is barely even remotely in touch with our known reality; and after the "vocal mimicry" first phases pass, the entity ends up displaying a psychopathic personality which enjoys tormenting us new visitors from the stars by turning us on and making us kill each-other, with the entity changing the specifics of its sick game beyond that base inbetween its 400,000-years-apart appearances.
  • Enslaved Tongue: In its first appearance, the entity spoke before the Doctor in the final phase of its mimicry, with the latter paralysed and forced to repeat the words calling for his own death.
  • Faux Affably Evil: While it had the Tenth Doctor at its mercy, the entity speaks up, pretending to be Sky, grateful for being freed from a state of helplessness, all in a tone that drips with smug glee (in a dark mirror of the Tenth Doctor's own) and malice.
  • For the Evulz: The Midnight entity torments any groups of people whom cross its path into madness and death for no discernible reason. The Doctor notes in hindsight when recalling their first encounter with each other that although it was apparently still learning back then, he's certain that it was also toying with its victims and having lots of fun at it. The entity's second encounter with other life 400,000 years later is even more carnage-laden than the first as it plays a new game with them, and it doesn't even seem to have the "learning" bent anymore.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: The Entity's initial MO is to copy everyone's speech, then speak simultaneously with them, then hone in on the smartest person in the room and, eventually, steal their sense of self and everything that comes with it. It's ultimately defeated when the Hostess notices that it's stolen the Doctor's speech patterns, notably his habit of saying "Allonsy" and "Molto Bene''. Had it not done this, it would have successfully escaped the planet in a new body and with the Doctor's mind.
    • In its second appearance, it latches onto a host, stays behind them, and kills anyone that stands directly behind them under the wrong circumstances and looks at it. Since it's destroyed all the reflective surfaces on the base, the Doctor realizes that its attack will also work against itself if it's seen by itself, so it can be separated from its host if their back is facing a reflective surface.
  • Horrifying the Horror: By the time he first encountered the entity, the Doctor has a record of terrifying eldritch abominations when he wants — indeed, in the episode immediately prior, the Doctor was able to spook the "shadows that eat the flesh" into retreating, and a while before that, he was still curious and upbeat directly after confronting the Devil himself. But following his near-death brush with this unknown thing, and the entity being dragged back out by the Hostess, the Doctor is reduced to desperately repeating, "It's gone," to reassure himself, and for once he's lost any and all interest in learning anything more in regards to this particular thing.
  • Intangibility: Among its powers are passing through solid barriers, presumably using this to reach Sky and enter her body without breaking the tour bus' hull.
  • Intangible Theft: It appears to steal control over the minds of other people—first it copies their voice with some delay, and then it synchronizes with the individual and speaks in the same moment, and then it "imitates" them in advance (presumably hearing what they're going to say in the moment before their thoughts have turned into words)... and then it starts rendering its choice victim into an Empty Shell while taking their sense of self.
  • Kick the Dog: It forced Aliss and her friend to try and kill each other, then clung to Aliss as she teetered on the brink of a nervous breakdown, all For the Evulz.
  • Living Shadow: Claude the mechanic spots a shadow running towards the shuttle bus in the irradiated diamond wasteland. Various fans have claimed they can see movement, but they recall seeing it in different places on the screen, and Word of God explicitly confirmed in response to their claims that no specific effect to indicate the entity was inserted into the Midnight landscape SFX, making this a great example of the power of suggestion. The partial glimpses of the entity's natural form in "The Well" show that it's solid but the "head" part of it that we the audience glimpse is cobalt-black, so Claude might have been seeing this in actuality.
  • Logical Weakness: In its second appearance, the entity latches onto a host and automatically attacks anything that gets directly behind the host's back and looks at it under the right circumstances, and it transfers itself over to whoever kills its current host. The Doctor exploits that by having the monster attack its reflection to get it off Aliss and Shaya taking the creature onto herself by hitting Belinda with a near-kill shot, though the entity feigned the transfer and took Mo instead. Maybe.
  • A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Implied. What the Doctor went through when the entity stole control of his voice and immobilized him (after he'd been optimistic and giving it the benefit of the doubt up to that very moment), although it only lasted for a couple of minutes before the thing was banished and him freed, it left him broken for the rest of the episode and completely killed any curiosity he had to learn more about the creature. Hundreds of years later, the Fifteenth Doctor when recalling their first encounter says with a haunted and grim certainty that it was having a ton of fun tormenting people and was playing games with them.
  • More than Mind Control: In both its appearances, its presence "pushes" groups of people to become more panicked, aggressive and inclined to pick fights amongst each-other to the entity's benefit. It's suggested both times that, more than people naturally falling back on their base instincts in an unknown crisis, this might actually be a psychic effect the entity generates.
  • New Powers as the Plot Demands: Reappears in "The Well" with a mostly new skillset, namely being able to throw and crush the bones of anyone who stands wholly behind the person it possesses and looks at where it should be. Justified by the fact that it's been 400,000 years since its last appearance, meaning it could have developed or evolved new powers. As the Doctor describes it as "playing games" and messing with its victims, it could also be entirely possible that it had these abilities all along and simply didn't feel like using them during its first outing (which, to be fair, was on a pretty cramped shuttle bus).
  • No Name Given: Not even a nickname, with the term "Midnight Entity" coming from the TARDIS Data Core Wiki. The credits for "The Well" simply say "It Has No Name."
  • Nothing Is Scarier: When the Doctor tells Sky to turn around, any experienced viewer will know that something terrible will have happened to her appearance. The fact that there's no obvious change to her appearance, yet her behavior is so alien, just somehow makes it even creepier. Also on a meta level: we don't know what species the entity is if it's even part of a species and not a unique creature, we don't know where it came from, we don't even know if it died. All told, we know next to nothing about it. "The Well" reveals a little more of its skillset and intentions, but still leaves much of its ambiguity unbroken, along with it whispering something to the Doctor that brought him to tears. "The Well" also reveals almost solely through characters' reactions that whatever the entity's true form is, it is not a pleasant sight in the slightest, reducing trained soldiers to unanimously gawking or screaming in terror.
  • Paranoia Fuel: The main thrust of its effect on others in-universe is that most of its nature is unknown and what little of its nature that is is bizarre and fearsome. It doesn't directly threaten the Tenth Doctor save by freezing him in place, but it does put everyone in the room on such complete edge that they nearly throw him to his death. It repeated its action centuries later with a mining crew, getting to kill each other seemingly just for its amusement.
  • Parasitic Horror: Maybe. A consistent trait of it is that it always latches onto people, by possessing them outright or by "hiding" behind them, suggesting it needs a host of some kind to do what it does, but what it does is markedly different in both appearances so it's unclear if it really needs hosts or if it just does it for fun.
  • Psychological Horror: The creature is never physically shown, and all the fear mechanism stems from how it interacts with its victims, possessed and otherwise.
  • Riddle for the Ages: Just what the frick is this thing? We'll probably never know, but fan theories abound. The Fifteenth Doctor managed to catch a quick but blurred glimpse at it, but even then he, and we, still don't have any idea just what it is, how it came to be or if there are more of it.
  • Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: It's heavily implied in "The Well" that the entity remembers its first encounter with the Doctor 400,000 years prior, even though "The Well" unlike "Midnight" takes place in a divergent Bad Future timeline where the Earth and the human race died in 2025 before the human presence on Midnight would have occurred.
  • Sadist: In its first appearance, it could have been interpreted as possessing Blue-and-Orange Morality, but its second appearance makes it even clearer that it has the time of its life putting any other life that accidentally stumbles across it in nightmarish scenarios For the Evulz, based on a different gimmick each time much like a child playing games.
  • Smug Snake: Once it has Sky's body and the Doctor's voice as its own, it revels in the Doctor's helplessness and its mental manipulation of the passengers, but it quickly says too much, cluing the Hostess in to the truth of the situation and earning itself a one-way ticket back out into "the dark, and the cold, and the diamonds".
  • Spotting the Thread: The entity lets itself goad the Doctor as he's being dragged to his death and borrows his Catchphrases "Allons-y!" and "Molto bene", because it's technically stealing his speech to speak. This is the final piece of confirmation the hostess needs to determine that the entity is still possessing Sky.
  • Stealth Expert: In both appearances, it only ever allows itself to be seen by one person at a time, for such brief flashes that they can't be sure of what they saw. It somehow manages to torment a shuttle full of passengers without being seen at all (except maybe briefly by the mechanic) in its first appreance, and in its second appearance, it demonstrates an ability to somehow hide itself behind a person from multiple angles at once.
  • Stop Copying Me: Played for maximum horror in its first appearance. First it repeats you, then it mimics your words in perfect sync... and then it starts talking ahead of you.
  • Stupid Evil: In essence. The entity hates being confined to Midnight and wants to escape, but it consistently undermines its own chances of that ever happening through its sadistic impulses. Both times it finally comes into contact with and inserts itself among interstellar outsiders, the logical thing for it to do would be to lay as low as possible inside its host, not cause any avoidable problems that might galvanize its host's peers into defending themselves, and eventually, the host will inevitably end up aboard a ship headed off-world, taking the entity with them. Instead, the entity wreaks deadly carnage among everyone around its host the second it has the means to, killing them or turning them against each-other; which at best delays its chances of getting off-world, at worst altogether ruins its chances of escaping Midnight through them when its would-be victims actively get rid of it in self-defence and then flee Midnight without it, and then they take precautions to ensure no-one else who could pick up the entity comes near Midnight for a very long time.
  • Super-Strength: It's powerful enough to pull a compact space vehicle apart. In its second appearance, it easily tosses its victims through the air, lethally shattering multiple bones in their bodies.
  • Telekinesis: Someone suggests a kinetic force of some kind is how it kills those who see it behind its host, which could also explain the knocking and the loss of the cabin in "Midnight", but the Doctor looks scornful, because ultimately they have no idea what it is or how it does anything.
  • Thousand-Yard Stare: Perhaps the most unsettling thing about the entity is its piercing, unblinking gaze when it's in possession of Sky's body, not helped at all by Lesley Sharp's Icy Blue Eyes. The way it looks at the passengers alternates between intensely studying every movement they make to dully looking right through them.
  • Uncertain Doom:
    • It could already survive on Midnight's surface, but the Doctor is unsure if it's dead after being forced back out onto the surface while possessing Sky (whose body would have likely disintegrated from the xtonic rays which make Midnight so deadly to everything else). Regardless, the Doctor isn't taking any chances and decides to make sure the entire planet is evacuated and declared off-limits. "The Well" confirms that the entity survived and it still remembers the Doctor, re-emerging to terrorize a mining crew on the planet after hundreds of thousands of years have passed.
    • By the end of its second outing, it's unclear if it's trapped on Midnight indefinitely again, if it's going to be killed once and for all when the Foundation is advised to nuke the planet from orbit, or if it finally managed to escape on someone's back.
  • Unseen Evil: The most we see of it are the people it latches on to, with its actual body shadowy and undescribable by those who catch slight of it briefly. But from the brief glimpse the Fifteenth Doctor got of it, it is flesh-colored and apparently quadrapedic.
  • Unseen No More: Downplayed. In its first appearance, the camera saw absolutely nothing of its true form, and one of the In-Universe characters describes only glimpsing it briefly as a moving shadow. In the entity's second appearance in "The Well", we get a few very partial and quick glimpses of it, but almost all of it is still offscreen and obscured.
  • Vague Age: By its second appearance in the "The Well", it's at least nearly half a million years old, but who knows how long it’s been dwelling on Midnight before it was introduced. It implies when speaking as Sky in its first appearance that back then, it had already been around on the planet for a long time.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Based off what Possessed!Sky said about its home, it may be able to survive on Midnight but it's still not a pleasant place for it. When it realizes that it's going back outside, it screams with a look of absolute terror on its (Sky's) face.
    Sky: Cast him out. Into the sun. And the night. The starlight waits. The emptiness. The midnight sky.
  • You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Belinda can't describe what she briefly saw, just that she saw something stirring right behind Aliss. The trained soldiers that the entity kills for seeing it behind its host's back all react with immediate, pants-shitting terror just before it kills them. The Doctor seizes the opportunity to get a look at the entity's visible form, and his reaction to what he sees isn't much better than those of the doomed soldiers.

Eleventh Doctor era debut

    House 

House (Eleventh Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2019_01_18_at_121339.png
Voiced by: Michael Sheen (2011)

"Fear me. I've killed hundreds of Time Lords."

A sentient and parasitic Genius Loci planetoid that primarily feeds on TARDISes.


  • Badass Boast: Tries one on the Doctor. It backfires.
    House: Fear me. I've killed hundreds of Time Lords.
    The Doctor: Fear me. I killed all of them.
  • Demonic Possession: It rips the TARDIS' soul out of her shell, stuffs her into a human body, and then takes over the shell itself when it finds out there are no more TARDISes.
  • Eldritch Abomination: House lives in a pocket reality at the "bottom" of the universe, hunts and eats TARDISes, and demonstrates a good deal of control over its surroundings — both the asteroid and later, the TARDIS.
  • Evil Counterpart: To the TARDIS; like her, House is an extremely powerful Genius Loci with a number of humanoid beings living on/in it. Unlike the TARDIS, House regards them as entirely disposable People Puppets, and devours any other Genius Loci (usually a TARDIS) unfortunate enough to cross its path — usually, after it lured them there in the first place.
  • Faux Affably Evil: House is perfectly polite and, apparently, friendly, enough to deceive the Doctor into thinking it's a perfectly decent being. As it happens, it never loses that calm and polite tone even after its true nature as a Soft-Spoken Sadist is revealed.
  • Genius Loci: As the Doctor puts it:
    "This asteroid is sentient."
  • Laser-Guided Karma: On the receiving end after the Doctor manipulates it into a fatal error, accidentally bringing all of them, including Idris — the TARDIS' current vessel — into the TARDIS' control room. The TARDIS promptly retakes control, eradicating House, while the Doctor smiles contentedly at the sound of House's dying screams.
  • People Puppets: Has a number who extol its virtues, their current bodies being stitched together from the corpses of dead Time Lords and other unfortunate species, to the point where the Doctor doubts there's anything left of who they originally were.
  • Sickly Green Glow: Represented by this. When it possesses the TARDIS, the normally golden lighting, inside and out, changes to green, most noticeably when it tracks the Doctor, Amy, Rory and Idris to the old console room they're in.
  • Soft-Spoken Sadist: It never raises its voice or loses its level tone, not until it's screaming in pain as the TARDIS gets her revenge. It also spends who knows how long (possibly minutes, possibly decades) psychologically torturing Amy and Rory with Mind Screw after Mind Screw, simply because it was more amusing than killing them — which was why they suggested it, hoping to stay alive long enough to get out/for the Doctor to get them out.
  • Year Inside, Hour Outside: As part of its sadistic illusory mind games with Amy and Rory, it keeps separating the two and makes Amy believe that while only seconds have passed for her, decades have passed for Rory, who appears to have died hating her for abandoning him.

    The Minotaur 

The Minotaur (Eleventh Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/6638954.jpg
Played by: Spencer Wilding (2011)

An alien Minotaur imprisoned within the God Complex, where it hunts anyone who somehow got trapped there.

While the Minotaur itself isn't quite eldritch, the God Complex where it is imprisoned absolutely is.


  • Alas, Poor Villain: The Minotaur is given a great deal of sympathy by the Doctor who sees it as just as much of a victim as those it was forced to hunt and kill. Its clear its death is just as much of a Mercy Kill on the Minotaur as it was to save Amy's life.
  • Death Seeker: The Minotaur has long since begun to dread its continual existence after being forced for eons to unwillingly hunt its victims as a source of food. When the Doctor finally finds a way to end its life, it is quite apparent it treats this as a Mercy Kill.
  • Eldritch Location: The God Complex, which the Minotaur is imprisoned within, is very much one of these. It it able to reconfigure itself like a Mobile Maze and create rooms containing a victim's greatest fear.
  • Emotion Eater: The Minotaur eats belief. Its prison is specifically designed to show victims their greatest fear so that they will cling onto belief.
  • God Guise: Not by choice, but the nature of the God Complex makes it so that victims will have their beliefs hijacked so they will begin deifying the Minotaur.
  • I Cannot Self-Terminate: As much as it despises its continual existence, the Minotaur's survival instincts are too strong to keep it from feeding. The only means of putting an end to its feeding is to have its meal forcibly taken away where it will finally starve.
  • Implacable Man: Once a victim gains enough belief and has been targeted by the Minotaur, very little can stop it from pursuing and feeding on its target.
  • Our Minotaurs Are Different: An alien Minotaur that feeds on people's belief.
  • Phrase Catcher: "Praise him!", which a victim will say once they have attained enough belief and said belief has become focused on the Minotaur.
  • Tragic Villain: The Minotaur is not really evil per say and was forcibly made to hunt victims from circumstances outside its control. It is however still the main threat of the episode due to the danger it poses.
  • The Unintelligible: The Minotaur is sentient but its language doesn't get translated by the TARDIS, despite the Doctor being able to understand it.

    Akhaten 

Akhaten (Eleventh Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2017_07_16_at_234240.png

Also known as "The Old God", Akhaten is a parasitic, monstrous creature that's as large as a planet. It's so big, in fact, that it has its own centre of gravity, and has several inhabited asteroids surrounding itself. Akhaten awakes from its slumber every thousand years at the Festival of Offerings on Tiaanamat, where it feeds off the memories and experiences of the inhabitants.


  • Eldritch Abomination: Akhaten is actually revealed to be an unbelievably ancient, sentient, planet-sized parasitic monstrosity of immense power with formless features that must be kept asleep, otherwise it will devour everything.
  • Emotion Eater: "Grandfather"/the Old God feeds on emotions and stories.
  • Generic Doomsday Villain: It never speaks, is never given any backstory/origin, and barely has any personality other than "it wants sacrifices or it will consume the whole star system".
  • Genius Loci: It's either a sentient planet or simply a being so gigantic that it might as well be.
  • Jerkass Gods: Akhaten's true nature is a merciless parasite that has to be appeased with memories and kept asleep with Music Magic. When the mummy stirs, the song changes to a much more urgent "never wake from slumber".
  • Phlebotinum Overload: The Old God feeds on the life experiences of others. The Doctor tried to invoke this with his own memories, and came pretty close, but the planet survived that. When Clara offers it "the most important leaf in human history", containing not only the experiences of its owner but all the experiences they could have had, it implodes.
  • Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: The Doctor's 1200 years of far flung adventures are not quite spicy enough to bring down Akhaten. Clara's leaf of infinite possibilities does the trick.
  • Villain with Good Publicity : Akhaten, the sentient planet god of the seven systems, is depicted as God Is Good, being referred to as "my warrior" and "my hero" in the songs. This suggests that the songs are to assure him that everything's fine and he can continue to rest his "holy head".

Twelfth Doctor era debut

    The Perfect Hider 

"The Perfect Hider"/"The Figure" (Twelfth Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/figure_listen.webp

"Listen! Question: Why do we talk aloud when we know we're alone? Conjecture: Because we know we're not."
Twelfth Doctor

A creature hypothesised to exist by the Doctor: an entity so good at making itself hidden that it is completely undetectable. But it is nevertheless always present, and every other being is subconsciously aware of its existence. Or at least, so the Doctor theorises...


  • Abstract Apotheosis: The creature may be no more than the Doctor's madcap theory, an idea representing his own primal fears dating back to his troubled childhood on Gallifrey.
  • Ambiguous Situation: Whether or not the individual underneath Rupert's bedsheets was the hypothetical creature or just one of his friends playing a prank is never made clear. Or perhaps it was neither of the former two options?
  • Bedsheet Ghost: It evokes the iconic image of one (although red rather than white) when it rises from Danny's bedspread.
  • Crazy Survivalist: The Doctor speculates that such a creature would have evolved perfect camouflage skills for survival and that one day they might "come a-slithering from under the bed" when they have successfully outlasted every other species. If that's the case, then their patience is certainly to be admired.
  • The Dreaded: Although they may not even be actively malevolent, they are subconsciously feared by every other sentient being in the universe. The Doctor theorises that the only way to make them go away is to let them know your fear. Tellingly, Orson Pink's bunker at the end of the universe has doors with warnings scrawled all over to never open the door because something seems to want to come in.
  • Forgot About His Powers: The whole definition of this creature is "the perfect hider" yet it ends up under a blanket completely in view of three people! That is, of course, assuming that that wasn't one of Danny's friends playing a prank.
  • Invisibility: Not just invisible, but the hypothetical creature could make themselves completely undetectable in every sense of the word.
  • Living Shadow: The concept for the creature is loosely based on the "shadow people" phenomena commonly associated with sufferers of lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis who claim to see demonic silhouettes. The Doctor even investigates random people having night terrors across the world to help validate his hypothesis.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The closest we get to a tangible encounter with it is in a young Rupert (Danny) Pink's orphanage, but as the Doctor duly notes, it could very well have just been another kid hiding under the bedspread to prank Rupert. Alternatively, it wasn't.
  • Nightmare Face: While it's completely blurred out, we do briefly see the creature reveal itself when it removes the bedsheets, and from what we can tell, it's not too pretty. It seems to be bald and incredibly pale, similar to the description of the Floofs (see Self-Plagiarism). However, it could have been a kid in a mask.
  • Nothing Is Scarier: Even more prominently than the Midnight entity, the Hider is so indistinct and unknowable that it may not even exist, but such an impediment makes it no less terrifying.
  • Primal Fear: Represents the basic human fear of being watched by the unknown. Not just human, as it applies to every species, including Time Lords. The one in Danny's room has goes even more specific into the fear of the monster under the bed.
  • Riddle for the Ages: Does it actually exist? The episode itself implies that it most likely doesn't. The Doctor's obsession with proving its existence is merely his way of coping with the fact that even he is still afraid of the dark, just like the rest of us. However, the veiled figure in Danny's room and the things outside Orson Pink's bunker may make you think twice...
  • Self-Plagiarism: The concept of creatures that have evolved to be so adept at hiding that they're undetectable was previously used by Steven Moffat in his short story Corner of the Eye. The creatures in that story were identified as Floofs, but the key difference is that the Floofs actually reveal themselves, which is more than can be said for the figure in "Listen".
  • Sole Survivor: Alongside the Doctor himself, Ashildr, the Toclafane, Orson Pink and possibly a few other Eldritch Abominations on this very page, the Hiders (if they even existed in the first place) could be among the universe's last surviving beings before the inevitable heat death collapse, and they decide to finally come out of obscurity Just Before the End, trillions of years in the future. Either way, something was banging on the door of Orson's bunker. According to The Diary of River Song, the knocking was River and Captain Jack playing a prank on the Doctor.
  • Stealth Expert: The entire hypothesis behind this hypothesised entity is that it evolved to be the best in the universe at hiding from others.
  • Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: Its appearance in Danny's room evokes this kind of Primal Fear, the monster hiding under the bed, or in this case on the bed. Clara accidentally triggers it it in the Doctor too when she ends up grabs his leg as a child.

    The Foretold 

The Foretold (Twelfth Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/foretold_1_9895.jpg
Played by: Jamie Hill (2014)

The titular "Mummy on the Orient Express". The Foretold is a creature of ancient legend; those who see it are marked for death, and those who see it have only 66 seconds left to live. It always appears in the vicinity of an ancient scroll, a scroll left on the Orient Express where the Doctor and Clara decided to board. The monster is impossible to kill, impossible to run away from and it is impossible to say who is the next victim. The truth of it turns out to be far more bizarre; it's actually a soldier who has been alive for a while, and the malfunctioning technology it's attached to is keeping it alive and forcing it to fight for a war that's been over for several millennia.


  • Absurdly Dedicated Worker: It's obliged to keep killing those it sees as enemies until whatever mission it was programmed with is completed, and looks visibly relieved when the Doctor figures out how to disable it.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: The Doctor has nothing but sympathy for it once the truth is revealed. The Doctor honorably relieves him of his duty, to which the Foretold salutes and then disintegrates.
  • Anti-Villain: It's really just a soldier that doesn't know it's fighting a war that has been over for centuries.
  • Cyborg: The Doctor deduced that it's being kept alive by malfunctioning medical implants.
  • Death Seeker: The Foretold wishes for nothing more for its life to end so he can rest. The Doctor figuring out how to stop to him finally allows him to rest.
  • The Dreaded: It's legendary status means it is feared by all who have heard of it.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Seems to scrape the line between Humanoid Abomination and Mechanical Abomination. It's completely invisible and intangible to whoever it isn't targeting. It targets those who have any sort of ailment and is able to find them anywhere even teleporting to close the gap. Then when it finally reaches its victims, a Touch of Death instantly kills them.
  • Foil: The sole surviving soldier of a forgotten war, forced to stay alive and keep fighting long after the conflict's conclusion thousands of years ago. Parallels can be drawn to the Doctor himself, and his arc throughout Series 8 dealing with his resentment toward other soldiers. Notably, the Doctor acts quite respectful towards the Foretold after successfully deducing its true identity.
  • I Cannot Self-Terminate: The Foretold is a Death Seeker and yearns for death, but is forcibly kept alive by malfunctioning technology where its instincts to feed are too strong to overcome.
  • Implacable Man: The creature is nigh impossible to kill, much less fight against. It's Immune to Bullets, any sort of weapon thrown at it just passes right through it, and it's impossible to run away from. The Foretold will chase after you no matter what you do and it will kill you.
  • Intangibility: The Foretold passes through all obstacles inbetween itself and its victim. It's later revealed this is because the Foretold is out of phase with the rest of the world, and his victim is being moved into phase with himself.
  • Invisible to Normals: Only shows up for people it has marked for death.
  • Just Following Orders: The Foretold is a soldier just doing what it's told.
  • Life Drinker: How it kills its victims. It sucks all their bodily energy, such as those that their cells produce, and leaves them completely lifeless.
  • Mummy: It certainly has the appearance of one, looking like a walking corpse covered in bandages. In reality, it's an indestructible Super-Soldier that is cursed to stay alive.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: An alien soldier from an ancient civilisation, kept alive by Cyborg technology, it looks like a Mummy, and it kills by leeching energy from its victim's body like a vampire.
  • No Body Left Behind: The Foretold disintegrates into ash once it is freed from its curse.
  • Non-Malicious Monster: The Foretold isn't killing because he wants to, but because he is being physically compelled to by his faulty tech that is keeping him alive.
  • Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: It's merely a soldier doing its duty.
  • Our Monsters Are Different: For one thing, it's a millennia-old soldier being kept alive by malfunctioning tech.
  • Silent Antagonist: The Foretold never speaks, although he does seem capable of understanding speech. Given the state of decay of his body, it's very likely he no longer has functioning vocal cords.
  • Super-Soldier: Described as such by the Doctor. The Foretold is indestructible, Immune to Bullets, and can follow its victim no matter where they go. Also there's the fact that it's a soldier that fought in a war that ended long ago.
  • Teleportation: Should a victim manage to get further away enough from the Foretold, the Foretold will merely teleport in front of them to cover the distance.
  • Tragic Villain: The Foretold is just as much as a victim as the people it is forced to kill, being a soldier cursed to stay alive by his malfunctioning tech and never able to die.
  • Touch of Death: Its modus operandi, which instantly kills its victims.
  • Villain Teleportation: Its victim can run as much as they like, the Foretold will always appear next to them and kill them.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The Foretold is merely a soldier doing his duty, while being kept alive by malfunctioning technology. The Doctor has full sympathy for him after discovering the truth.
  • Zombie Gait: Slowly shambles towards its victim, though with one hand stretched out rather than two.

    The Boneless 

The Boneless (Twelfth Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2018_01_16_at_093424_7.png
Twelfth Doctor: I tried to reach out, I tried to understand you, but I think that you understand us perfectly. And I think that you just don't care!

"Whatever they are, they are experimenting. They're testing. They are, they are dissecting. Trying to understand us. Trying to understand... three dimensions."
Twelfth Doctor

Creatures from another plane that only understand two dimensions, and have entered our world through Bristol and have started taking people and turning them flat.


  • Ambiguously Evil: It's really unclear why they decided to enter our dimension, whether they want to communicate with us, study us or eliminate us one by one. The Doctor ponders this question for a while, but eventually lands on them as aware of their actions, but too callous to care, and banishes the Boneless to their home dimension to keep them from causing any more damage.
  • First-Contact Math: The Starfish Language of 2-Dimensional beings proves too alien for even the TARDIS's Universal Translator to handle. The Doctor had hoped the creatures are a Non-Malicious Monster who are simply so alien and confused by a 3-D world they don't realise they're harming sentient beings. He establishes rudimentary communication with them by using the digits of pi. They respond with the number on the jacket of the man they killed, and then the number of the one they're about to.
  • Flat World: Their universe is two-dimensional, so they're from a very literal version of this trope.
  • For the Evulz: As enigmatic as they are, it is made clear that they are gleefully aware of the harm they're causing.
  • Hidden Agenda Villain: Their motives are left deliberately unclear and many hypotheses are brought up during the episode; perhaps they're here to contact us, kill us all, dissect or study us and don't even know that we require 3 dimensions to survive.
  • Humanoid Abomination: Eventually they take the form of those they've killed when they finally understand 3 dimensions.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Their real name is unknown due to being unable to communicate. The Doctor dubs them "The Boneless" since he found "Killer Graffiti" rubbish.
  • Paper People: Comes with being 2-D lifeforms.
  • Starfish Aliens: Beings from a 2-D dimension that are attacking Earth.
  • Starfish Language: The TARDIS is unable to translate their language because aliens who don't understand the concept of a third dimension are even too bizarre for her standards.
  • Stealth Pun: They're two-dimensional in more ways than one.
  • They Would Cut You Up: Rare alien-on-human example. They turn humans into 2-D and dissect them to understand their bodies so they can become 3D.
  • Uncertain Doom: The Doctor states that some will survive being sent back to their home dimension, though there is no way of knowing if any of the Boneless die on their way back home.
  • Zombie Gait: When they take the appearance of those they've killed, the creatures run after everyone this way. Having a rudimentary understanding of 3D and human anatomy, their walking style is crude and zombie-like.

    Ashildr / "Me" 

Ashildr/The Knightmare/Lady Me/Mayor Me/Me (Twelfth Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ashildr.jpg
Played by: Maisie Williams (2015)

"I call myself 'Me'. All the other names I chose died with whoever knew me. 'Me' is who I am now. No one's mother, daughter, wife. My own companion — singular, unattached, alone."

A central character in the Series 9 Story Arc, Ashildr was a brave young Viking girl whose village was attacked by the Mire (aliens) in the 9th century. The Doctor saved her village at the accidental cost of her life. In his grief, he rashly defied the fates by using Mire medical technology to resurrect her — which turned out to make her "functionally immortal" (basically really hard to kill). Realizing the danger of this, he takes a "professional interest" in her, following her progress as centuries on The Slow Path pass. Unfortunately, while the Mire tech repairs her body, her mind is the same as any other human, leading to an infinite lifespan with a finite memory. Thus her personality evolves significantly over the Doctor's actual encounters with her: In the 17th century she's "Lady Me", a noblewoman moonlighting as a highwayman called "The Knightmare" and resenting the Doctor for trapping her in life and just moving on. But thanks in part to his compassion and concern, Lady Me subsequently decides to seek out others who have encountered the Doctor and help them after he's moved on. By 2015, she's become "Mayor Me", the woman in charge of a "trap street" — a hidden street in London inhabited by aliens in disguise. When she makes a deal with the Time Lords to capture him in exchange for protection of the street, the plot goes horrifically awry, resulting in Clara Oswald's death. Now the man who saved her and believed in her inherent goodness may hold a grudge against her for the rest of eternity due to the death of the woman he loved.


  • The Ace: Self-described as such in "The Woman Who Lived".
    "Ten thousand hours is all it takes to master any skill. One hundred thousand hours and you're the best there's ever been. I don't have to be invincible. I'm superb."
  • Action Girl: She was pretty badass as a normal Viking girl, willing to declare war. Eight centuries later, she's a gun-toting highwaywoman who fought at Agincourt. A few more centuries, and she runs the trap street inhabited by aliens in "Face the Raven".
  • The Ageless: Although she can still be killed by violent action, she doesn't age and her immune system adapts quickly. This woman caught the Black Plague and got better!
  • Anti-Villain: Uses rather unscrupulous methods to lure the Doctor into the trap street, but she's doing it solely to protect the residents and doesn't mean for anyone to get hurt, much less killed. Her remorse at what happens to Clara is undisguised.
  • Artistic License – History: Ashildr was unlikely, if ever, to have been a Viking name. Aeschild in Old English was an actual Anglo-Saxon name, and Asheldham in Essex was named for an actual Ashildr, whose identity remains unknown.
  • Been There, Shaped History: She says she helped end the Hundred Years War.
  • Break the Haughty: Her immortality has given her a very smug and confident personality until Clara dies because of a Batman Gambit gone horribly wrong and the Doctor warns her that he better not see her again. Ever. And for the first time since she's became immortal, she's properly scared out of her mind.
  • Broken Bird: Oh yes. With over 1,000 years of trauma, she's broken more than any human should ever be. When she breaks the Doctor in "Face the Raven" over what happens to Clara, she risks living the rest of eternity in fear of the wrath of the man who saved her life and believed in her the most.
  • Burn the Witch!: She saved a village from scarlet fever, so the locals thought she was a witch and tried to drown her, a more common type of execution for suspected witches.
  • Came Back Wrong: It doesn't happen immediately, but she loses her original personality as the centuries pass due to her limited memory and all the trials she goes through. She was virtuous as Ashildr, but becomes morally dubious as Me.
  • The Chains of Commanding: She's a very harsh leader of the "Trap Street", but she has to be. Otherwise all of the different alien species would be at each other's throats.
  • Classy Cat-Burglar: In the 1600s she's known as "Lady Me", respected noblewoman, and as "The Knightmare", the most feared highwayman in England. Her reason for robbing and stealing? The adventure.
  • Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: This is a complicated one. She's one of the closest Series 9 has to a specific recurring Arc Villain, there's no big dramatic confrontation between her and The Doctor, they simply talk things through at the end of the Universe and part ways seemingly for good. Like most end of season enemies she was a lot in common with The Doctor but instead of being a full on Evil Counterpart she's more of a darker take at what being like The Doctor could do to someone's psyche. Also while The Doctor generally defeats the latest threat and moves on to the next adventure Me actually gets exactly what she wanted.
  • Create Your Own Villain: By the time of "The Woman Who Lived", she's become bitter towards the Doctor for making her immortal and then just moving on and refusing to make her a companion. They reconcile by the end... and then she invokes this trope by inadvertently having a hand in the death of Clara and turning him against her. For bonus points, where he was still willing to help her and did his best to understand her situation once he realized the pain she was in, she doesn't do anything to try and make up for what she did to him.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Gives the Doctor this treatment in "Hell Bent" when he tries to play the Just Friends card with regards to Clara — despite his actions screaming otherwise.
  • Do Not Call Me "Paul": She grows to disregard her birth name and embraces the name of "Me".
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Has to wait literally until the end of the universe for it to happen, but finally gets her wish to travel time and space in the Series 9 finale. Oddly, this overlaps with Karma Houdini (see below).
  • Easily Forgiven: By Clara at least, as when last seen they have become travelling companions. Forgiveness was a theme in Series 9, after all. While the Doctor never forgives her onscreen, he doesn't keep her from following him into the second stolen TARDIS in "Hell Bent" when he could easily have left her behind to the fate of Dying Alone at the end of the universe.
  • Evil Wears Black: In "Face the Raven" she wears only black, including black tattoos from a contract with her supernatural executioner. While she is not evil in this episode, she is definitely an antagonist and uses a sinister power.
  • Faking the Dead: She did this on at least two occasions, one to escape her execution by drowning at the hands of villagers who thought she was a witch, and once to end her stint as a medieval queen, as she thought it was boring.
  • The Fog of Ages: An infinite life but a normal human memory. She deals with it by recording her memories in journals. She still can't remember her home village, presumably because she started her record keeping after she had already forgotten them. Turns out that she even learned to Exploit it; if she ever has something she for some reason or another doesn't want to remember, she either neglects to write it down or rips out the page from her journal and then waits for the memory to slip.
  • Foil: Not only to the Doctor, as noted below, but also to many of his companions, especially those created by Steven Moffat:
    • Her similarity to Jack Harkness is noted by the Doctor by the end of "The Woman Who Lived".
    • She has a dark side to her that means she and the Doctor would be a terrible influence on each other. This is the same reason that the Doctor and River Song don't travel together regularly.
      River: One psychopath per TARDIS.
    • Like Amy, she spent her entire life (her long, long life) hoping the Doctor would come back for her. Unlike Amy, he refuses to take her with him.
    • Like Rory, she lives through a lot of human history. While Rory is kept sane by his love for Amy and remembers what happened to him, keeping it locked away in his mind, Ashildr ends up losing everyone she loves and forgetting them. She becomes cold and distant due to this.
    • She suffered a great loss and briefly became cruel and reckless in response, just like Clara did after Danny's death in "Dark Water". Of course, immortality means "briefly" has a very different scale in Ashildr's case.
    • She briefly has one in the form of Sam Swift, a rival highwayman who is decidedly less impressive but much more charismatic than the Knightmare. The fact that Sam is one of the "mayflies", however, allows him to truly see the beauty in life and never waste a single second of it. It's unclear if he became immortal like Ashildr after the Mire repair kit was used to save his life and whether his happy-go-lucky attitude changed as a result of this.
  • The Heavy: For Series 9. She's the closest it has to a recurring villain and her luring the Doctor to the Trap Street in order to send him to her employer is what leads to the events of the finale taking place.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: She starts as a brave innocent in "The Girl Who Died". By the time of "The Woman Who Lived" she is callous, robbing people for kicks and willing to kill to escape the planet. She is brought back to empathy by the Doctor, and decides she'll take The Slow Path to look after those he leaves behind. Alas, while she has noble intentions as Mayor Me, she's willing to go to extreme measures to protect the trap street — executing anyone who steps out of line no matter how noble their intentions and betraying the Doctor to the Time Lords (resulting in horrific torture for him), which also inadvertently paves the way for Clara's death. In the end, however, she is Easily Forgiven by the semi-resurrected Clara and becomes her companion.
  • Heel Realization: During the climax of "The Woman Who Lived", seeing the terrified villagers running for their lives from the attacking starships helps Ashildr realize how callous and detached she'd become.
    Ashildr: I care. My God, I actually care.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: She died saving her village. Then the Doctor brought her back. The rest is, quite literally, history.
  • Immortal Procreation Clause: She can have children but swore not to have any more after they die from the Plague.
  • It Gets Easier: By the time the Doctor reunites with her in the mid-17th century she's killed so many people it no longer bothers her. It can also be said to refer to her general attitude towards immortality.
  • Karma Houdini: She is forgiven by Clara over causing Clara's own death, and receives no punishment of any sort because Clara forbids the Doctor from punishing her. And in the end, Clara allows her to become a companion for a trip back to Gallifrey the long way 'round. Still, she did live in fear of meeting a raging Doctor for trillions of years.
  • Last of Her Kind: By the time the end of the universe comes around she's the last of the immortals. Also the last human, depending on where Orson Pink was at that moment. Before that, it's probably fair to call her the last Viking by the time The Present Day rolls around.
  • Living Forever Is Awesome: Though she has many bad things to say about immortality, she never considers dying. In fact, after living up to trillions of years, up until the end of the universe, she's ready for untold years of more adventures. Probably helps that she's subject to The Fog of Ages. She never has to live with the burdens of multiple lifetimes, and if she ever wants to forget anything entirely, she just doesn't write it down.
  • Mirror Character: From the Doctor — both are immortal Renaissance Man types, doomed to lose everyone they love, and prone to suffering detachment from beauty and kindness without the aid of mortals — with the last point the reason why he refuses to take her with him in the TARDIS. The events of "Face the Raven" bring the "sliver of ice in his heart" forward when it comes to self-interest. Also, both of them are storytellers in different ways — she an imaginative weaver of heroic adventures (this fades to The Fog of Ages), he "a bloke in a box, telling stories" who created the identity of the Doctor for himself — which is one reason he became so fond of her to the point of saving her life via extreme measures. Both also give up their original names at some point, and felt/were out of place in their original societies. In "Hell Bent", each argues that the other could qualify as the Hybrid of the Gallifreyan prophecy, though it was later confirmed to be the Doctor and Clara. In the end, she gets to be a companion to Clara.
  • Natural End of Time: Manages to live all the way to right before the end of the universe, waiting for the inevitable on the ruins of future Gallifrey.
  • Never Be Hurt Again: She lost her children to the Black Plague, so she refused to have any more.
  • Never My Fault: Claims that she is not responsible for what happened to Clara in "Hell Bent" — granted, she uses that statement to also absolve the Doctor of his guilt over that, and Clara has no problem forgiving her in any case.
  • Noodle Incident:
    • Something caused her so much pain that she ripped out the journal pages about it. Note that she kept the ones about her children's deaths. Given which pages are missing, it was likely everything else about their birth and lives.
    • We never learn how she came to be mayor of the trap street, meet the quantum shade, or what incident occurred that resulted in her agreeing to the scheme to trap the Doctor in order to protect her residents.
  • No Sympathy: It's a downplayed case. When they meet one more time in "Hell Bent", she not only fails to apologize to the Doctor for betraying him and all the misery that came after, but like Ohila and the Time Lords does not understand why he doesn't just get over Clara's death. Like them, her immortality and detachment means she cannot fully comprehend how deeply he cares for her, although she has a better understanding of it than they. Unlike them, she tries to absolve the Doctor of any guilt over Clara's death by reassuring him that it wasn't his fault, even saying that Clara died for "who she loved", which of course directly referred to the Doctor.
  • Older Than They Look: In her first appearance, she looks her age. In subsequent appearances, she's hundreds, thousands, and even billions of years older.
  • Outliving One's Offspring: She attempted to settle down and start a family, only for all three of her children to die of the Plague. Although she had a remaining Immortality Inducer with which to save one of them, she was unable to decide which one to use it on before they all died. She specifically left this incident in her diaries despite how painful it was so she won't forget why she decided not to have any more children.
  • Really 700 Years Old: She was born in the 9th century and is approximately 800 years old by 1651. By 2015, she's passed the millennium mark. She eventually lives up to the end of the universe and beyond.
  • Renaissance Woman: A good enough soldier to help fight the Hundred Years War, enough medical knowledge to cure scarlet fever, and numerous other skills besides. It's justified, as Ashildr has had a lot of time to master many skills.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Played With. She was a queen in medieval times, but apparently it was mostly "paperwork and backgammon". Eventually she got so bored she faked her own death!
  • Sadistic Choice: In The Triple Knife short story, she has to decide which of her three children to save from the Plague using a spare Mire Repair Kit. She lets all three die because she couldn't impose immortality on another person.
  • The Slow Path: She survives from the ninth century A.D. up into the 21st century A.D. this way. She even lived until the end of the universe this way.
  • The Sociopath: For a long time she was desensitized to the world, seeing no value in human life and even claiming that she had forgotten what sorrow feels like. The Doctor helps her realize that she does still care about human life in "The Woman Who Lived".
  • The Storyteller: Was this in the beginning, and the Doctor (who felt an affinity with her, being "a bloke in a box, telling stories" himself) used her imaginative gifts to help him defeat the Mire by hooking her up in one of their helmets and creating illusions to scare and embarrass them.
  • Time Abyss: She eventually becomes billions (100 Trillion if the timeline of Utopia holds up) of years old and witnessing the end of the universe, having outlived all the other immortals.
  • Trapped in Villainy: In "Face the Raven", she's forced to deliver the Doctor to the Time Lords in order to keep her alien community safe from harm.
  • Ultimate Authority Mayor: In the alien refugee community in the Trap Street; she calls herself "mayor" but there's no indication that she was elected. Like "doctor", it's a name she tries to live up to.
  • We Used to Be Friends: "Friends" is stretching it, but she and the Doctor were relatively friendly until she pulls a Batman Gambit that results in Clara's death. Naturally the Doctor is furious with her after this and tells her in no uncertain terms to make sure they never meet again. They do, but while he doesn't take Revenge upon her he is apparently unwilling to reconcile over her past actions, which is telling because Twelve is one of the more forgiving Doctors when it comes to those who wrong others.
  • What the Hell, Hero?:
    • Chews the Doctor out twice — first for "trapping" her in immortality in "The Woman Who Lived", and second for becoming The Unfettered and risking the universe just to save Clara in "Hell Bent". While he is shaken and heartsbroken by the first speech, the second has no effect on him because she has No Sympathy for the suffering he's gone through — which she was partially, albeit indirectly, responsible for, after all.
    • The Doctor gives her this treatment during her Knightmare days, even threatening to become her enemy if she follows through with killing a man. Needless to say, in "Face the Raven" he's not happy with her behaviour as the trap street's mayor and hanging judge, and then she betrays him to an unknown party, and then she isn't able to save Clara from an unjust execution...
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: She hates her immortal state because it has led to boredom and loneliness, but she gets used to it over time.
  • Wild Card: She's an unpredictable immortal with very loose morals. The Doctor takes a "professional interest" in her partially because he was responsible for said immortality and thus feels responsible for what she becomes.

    The Veil 

The Veil (Twelfth Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2017_07_01_at_154452.png
Played by: Jamie-Reid Quarrell (2015)

A cloaked and hooded figure, the Veil is a representation of the Doctor's deepest, most intimate fears. Based on a childhood memory the Doctor had of a dead Gallifreyan woman, who died on a hot day and despite being covered by a veil began to attract flies before she could be buried. This unstoppable figure hunts the Doctor relentlessly through the clockwork castle he finds himself trapped in during the events of "Heaven Sent", and it has only one purpose: to kill the Doctor. It was created by the Time Lords to scare the Doctor into revealing the truth about a creature called "the Hybrid." However, other truths can be used to stall it, like when the Doctor tells it that he ran from Gallifrey because he was scared.


  • Anthropomorphic Personification: It has been interpreted to represent several things, but it most pressingly embodies the concept of death and the Doctor's immense grief over Clara's death. Word of God states that it is the nightmares from the Doctor's mind given physical form.
  • Bedsheet Ghost: The Veil resembles one due to wearing veils, as it's based on the Doctor's memories of a veiled corpse he saw while young.
  • Clockwork Creature: It turns out to be this, matching with the rest of the castle's nature.
  • Critical Existence Failure: When the Doctor does the impossible by escaping the confessional dial, the Veil crumbles into a pile of cogs and gears.
  • The Grim Reaper: Thematically, the Veil is Death itself.
  • In the Hood: The Veil wears a dusty robe that conceals virtually its entire body, including its face — the key visible parts of it teased in the trailers are its grey, mottled, clawed hands. It bears a strong resemblance to the Grim Reaper. It's inspired by a bad memory from the Doctor's childhood of seeing a dead, veiled woman surrounded by flies, and is effectively an embodiment of his fear of death.
  • Ominous Walk: The Veil constantly walks at the same pace towards the Doctor. It has a limp, meaning every step is a thump.
  • Robotic Reveal: When the Doctor finally breaches the wall, the Veil is revealed to be a clockwork, falling into a pile of gears.
  • The Speechless: It never says a word.
  • Super-Persistent Predator: Like Death himself, it's slow, predictable and can even be paused for brief moments, but it will always catch up to its victim in the end.
  • Threshold Guardian: The Veil serves as the Doctor's opponent in the Belly of the Whale. It is something he must overcome to reach the outside world.
  • Time Stands Still: The Doctor confessing a sufficiently juicy secret causes it and even the flies buzzing around it to completely freeze momentarily.
  • Touch of Death: If it touches you, you will die, but not immediately.
  • We Have Ways of Making You Talk: The Veil is the Time Lords' personal interrogator for the Doctor, designed from his very nightmares to scare the living shit out of him until he spills the beans about the Hybrid prophecy and any other useful confessions. The Doctor is shocked at how effective it is at terrifying him, though its primary weapon is its unwavering persistence.
  • Why Won't You Die?: Averted as the Veil is seemingly not sentient, simply doing what it's programmed to do. However, over several billion years, it fatally wounds the Doctor countless times only for him to summon a fresh copy of himself from the teleporter to start the cycle over again.

Thirteenth Doctor era debut

    The Solitract 

The Solitract (Thirteenth Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2019_01_18_at_121302.png
Voiced by: Sharon D Clarke

An impossibly old form of consciousness, born alongside the universe itself. But its sheer alien nature was a threat, so it was banished to its own plane of existence.


  • Animalistic Abomination: Adopts the form of a frog.
  • Cosmic Flaw: Was born alongside the universe but is mutually incompatible to it, thus both had to be isolated from each other to fully form. Particularly the portal connecting it to the universe spontaneously forms a pocket dimension as a buffer because any kind of direct "contact" between them would destroy them both.
  • Eldritch Location: So eldritch that any kind of interaction with normal space-time, including beings from it, is mutually destructive.
  • A Form You Are Comfortable With: Part of how it lures people into it, but eventually it finds a form it's comfortable with. A talking frog. Because that was Grace's favourite animal and the Solitract liked it.
  • Genius Loci: The best way to describe it is that it's an intelligent universe.
  • Knight of Cerebus: The Solitract was the first universe-level threat the Thirteenth Doctor faced. Although it takes the form of a talking frog, in typical Doctor Who fashion, it is taken completely seriously and even given some pathos as it manages to bond with the Doctor over their shared loneliness.
  • Lotus-Eater Machine: It creates illusions of people's dead loved ones in order to entice them into not leaving.
  • Tragic Monster: It ultimately doesn't mean any harm to the people it abducts, it's simply UNFATHOMABLY lonely. It even is willing to let the Doctor, its last remaining companion, go free for both their sakes.

    Kasaavin 

The Kasaavin (Thirteenth Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ezgif_6_5e62f2bfcbc7.jpg

A race of extra-dimensional aliens working with Daniel Barton on a mysterious plot.


  • Bio-Augmentation: They have the means to modify human DNA for incredibly high capacity data storage. This unfortunately leaves the poor subject permanently comatose, not that they care.
  • Eldritch Abomination: One Kasaavin that the Doctor is briefly able to capture claims to come from "far beyond... [her] understanding".
  • A Form You Are Comfortable With: They claim to have taken humanoid forms to mock humanity.
  • Intangibility: Are capable of passing through walls. Even the TARDIS walls.
  • Light Is Not Good: They take the form of glowing humanoids.
  • Stealth Expert: Appropriate for a story riffing on Spy Fiction tropes, they are a race of extra-dimensional intelligence gatherers. They remained completely hidden while surveying the main universe throughout its entire history, waiting for the perfect time to strike.

    Zellin and Rakaya 

Zellin and Rakaya (Thirteenth Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/doctor_who_season_12_still.jpg
Played by: Ian Gelder (Zellin), Claire Hope Ashitey (Rakaya)

A pair of cruel alien gods who played bloody games with the inhabitants of a pair of planets. When the people finally got wise to what was going on, they sealed Rakaya inside a prison that neither of them could break. Zellin eventually came up with a plan to free her by targeting the Doctor and her companions...


  • All There in the Manual: According to The Guide to the Dark Times, they are both Eternals.
  • All There in the Script: Rakaya's name is only given in the credits of their episode.
  • Bald of Evil: Zellin.
  • Call-Back: They mention the Toymaker and the Guardians on-screen for the first time in how many years?
  • Detachment Combat: Zellin can detach and regrow his fingers to attack people with and feed on their nightmares.
  • Emotion Eater: Both of them feed on fear.
  • God Guise: They each took on the role of deity to the population of one of a pair of neighboring planets and then turned the two worlds against each other, just to see who would win. Fortunately, their worshippers figured it out and turned on them.
  • It Amused Me: They make wagers on the destruction of planets, foster wars between species and civilisations, and feed on the nightmares of humans, all as ways to keep themselves entertained.
  • Jerkass Gods: A pair of alien gods from another dimension who like to play horrific "games" with mortals for their own amusement.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: They end up trapped in Rakaya's prison, hopefully for good this time, alongside one of the nightmares Zellin had brought to life.
  • Nightmare Weaver: They can harvest nightmares and trap people inside them.
  • Obviously Evil: Zellin has a very sinister appearance. Rakaya's appearance, in contrast, is more angelic, which helps Zellin's Batman Gambit to trick the heroes into freeing her by pretending he's the one who imprisoned her.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Rakaya. Zellin managed to evade imprisonment.
  • Shrouded in Myth: The Doctor knew Zellin as "a mythical name, way beyond this universe".
  • White Hair, Black Heart: Rakaya has white hair and turns out to be evil and, apparently, even more powerful than Zellin.

    Swarm 

Swarm (Fugitive and Thirteenth Doctors)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/images_18_544.jpeg
Played by: Sam Spruell, Matthew Needham ("Old Swarm")

A seemingly ageless alien with a mysterious grudge against the Doctor.


  • Arch-Enemy: He claims to be the Doctor's original nemesis, having apparently waged many epic battles against her across time and space. Considering that the Doctor has no recollection of who he is, it is heavily implied that his existence was erased from her memories by the Division. While somewhat disappointed that she doesn't remember him, he considers it advantageous.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: With the Sontarans in Series 13. He and Azure kill Tecteun to take control of the Flux and destroy the universe in the hopes of freeing their "savior," Time itself. Meanwhile, the Sontarans take advantage of the chaos to conquer Earth.
  • Calacas: He has a bright sparkly Skull for a Head.
  • Cold Ham: He has yet to raise his voice above an ominous murmur, yet he is highly intimidating and theatrically villainous in his manner. He only gets hammier as time goes on.
  • Deadpan Snarker: He has a very snide sense of humour, which only serves to make him creepier.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Always polite and charming, but clearly this is a facade, as he views everyone he meets as a lesser being.
  • No Body Left Behind: He can completely atomize a person with a single touch. As a dose of Karmic Death, this is the exact fate he and his sister suffer at Time's hands.
  • The Nth Doctor: He's introduced in an older-looking form, who escapes confinement by absorbing the lifeforce of a poor Gallifreyan guard and regenerating into his current form, played by a different actor. "Old Swarm" reappears in the flashbacks to the Siege of Atropos.
  • Remember the New Guy?: While he claims to have an intimate history with the Doctor, she does not remember him at all.
  • Shrouded in Myth: All that we know is he's an ancient evil with a grudge against the Doctor.
  • Skull for a Head: His rejuvenated form has a face resembling a human skull.
  • Terrible Trio: With Azure and Passenger.
  • Time Abyss: He's apparently been imprisoned on an alien planet since the dawn of the universe. Or very close to it.
  • Translation Convention: His name, as well as Azure's and Passenger's, are merely English translations for their true names.
  • Your Soul Is Mine!: He absorbs the energy of one of the Division agents charged with inspecting his prison cell, rejuvenating himself into a sleeker, mauve-skinned form with a skull-like facade.

    Azure 

Azure (Fugitive and Thirteenth Doctors)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/doctor_who_azure_z.jpg
Played by: Rochenda Sandall

The sister of Swarm.


  • Becoming the Mask: She was living life on Earth as a human with a husband and was apparently happy with it until Swarm kills her husband and restores her true personality.
  • Calacas: Like her brother, has a sparkly decorated skull.
  • Distaff Counterpart: She's basically a female version of her brother, Swarm.
  • The Dragon: To Swarm, somewhat. The two appear to be equal partners, but Swarm is more prominent and seems to come up with the duo's plans.
  • Refusal of the Call: She's been living life as a human until the events of the show. When she receives a message from outside their neat little home (it's unclear if it's from her brother, or if it's a warning to her human identity and her husband that trouble is coming), she smashes it and ignores it. So Swarm comes for her personally.
  • Terrible Trio: With Swarm and Passenger.

    Passenger 

Passenger (Fugitive and Thirteenth Doctors)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/74fa3b7b_6946_4faf_b7da_e0d4e3a84cb0.jpeg
Played by: Jonny Mathers

A being that follows Swarm and Azure. It turns out to be an artificial entity designed for holding a great many people captive in a very small space.


  • Bigger on the Inside: He can store practically infinite numbers of people and things inside himself.
  • The Big Guy: He's a lot larger than his companions.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Upon discovering that Passenger's ability to absorb souls into his body has almost no limits, the Doctor picks him up in the TARDIS and hurls him at the Flux wave itself, which he swallows whole.
  • Fictional Geneva Conventions: The usage of Passengers is in fact a pretty big intergalactic no-no and even considered a war crime. Potentially - probably - because they can be used to undo far worse war crimes, such as weapons-of-mass-destruction like the Flux wave. A Passenger can literally eat the whole thing up, rendering it useless.
  • Flat Character: While Swarm and Azure get backstories and build-up, Passenger just suddenly appears in the temple alongside them. Justified, as it turns out "he's" not technically a character at all.
  • Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: His true nature; he's less a proper creature and more a sentient prison in which countless people's consciousnesses can be imprisoned simultaneously, and which is also capable of a limited degree of autonomous action.
  • Silent Antagonist: He has no lines as he is just a humanoid living prison.
  • Terrible Trio: With Swarm and Azure.

    Time 

Time (Thirteenth Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1741909711019.jpg
Time when taking the physical form of the Thirteenth Doctor. Click here to see Time when taking the physical form of Swarm.

The Anthropomorphic Personification of Time itself that has been imprisoned by the Mouri in the Temple of Atropos since the Dark Times. Swarm and Azure’s ultimate goal is to release it back into the universe.


  • Anthropomorphic Personification: Of time, of course. As a destructive entity, it seems to embody entropy as well.
  • Canon Immigrant: The concept of Time taking a physical form to interact with the Doctor has been used in outside media before, notably in the Doctor Who New Adventures novels from the 1990s (though there it was an Eternal who'd adopted the name, rather than Time itself incarnate).
  • A Form You Are Comfortable With: Time takes the physical form of whoever it is facing. At first, it appears as Swarm, before transforming into a dark mirror of the Thirteenth Doctor, wearing her costume with inverted colours.
  • Greater-Scope Paragon: If Time had a consciousness from the beginning of the Doctor's travels, then it has acted like a warden of reality. It has also allowed the TARDIS passage through its vortex. It is aware of past, present, and future events, and in some cases drawn the TARDIS to certain events, good and bad, or repelled it, explaining why the TARDIS seems to decide where to go on its own and disobey the Doctor. Time enigmatically leads the Doctor to intervene in specific conflicts, while also refusing to bend to serve other Time Lords with darker intentions. One can only wonder what it did during the Time War, because Rassilon's final action in the war was trying to make it disappear.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: The statue-like Mouri guard the Time Force in the Temple of Atropos. Swarm and Azure seek to unleash its power back into the universe at large.
  • Vagueness Is Coming: Reminiscent of the Tenth Doctor’s "he will knock four times" omen, Time issues a typically vague premonition of the Thirteenth Doctor’s coming demise-qua-regeneration. Time does, at least, explicitly mention that the Master will play a role.
  • Villainy-Free Villain: Despite being built up as an ultimate force of destruction, Time’s worst crime is eradicating Swarm and Azure, the main antagonists of Flux. It then lets the Doctor go after mimicking her form, though it delivers a vague warning of another threat that is to come before she leaves.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Swarm and Azure are rewarded for their efforts to free Time by a slice of Karmic Death at its hand. However, the way events play out, it seems they welcome this because they will Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence, becoming one with the essence of time, which they worship.

Fourteenth Doctor era debut

    Not-Things 

Not-things (Fourteenth Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/not_things.jpg
Not-Doctor: The notion of shape is strange.
Not-Donna: It limits. It is limiting.
Played by: David Tennant (Not-Doctor), Catherine Tate (Not-Donna)

"We drifted here, in the lack-of-light, passing no-time. But we would feel it from so far away... your noisy, boiling universe. We want to travel there to play your vicious games and win."
Not-Doctor

Mysterious and terrifying creatures who existed outside the known universe, and are the antagonists of the 60th anniversary special "Wild Blue Yonder". They can take the forms of people they encounter, but aren't that good at it... yet.


  • Become a Real Boy: Their plan is to learn how to properly imitate inhabitants of the universe and wreak havoc.
  • Body Horror: Not-Doctor and Not-Donna reveal themselves as such when they mess up the arms to make them freakishly large. While chasing the Doctor and Donna through the hallway, their faces become distorted to uncanny effect.
  • Copied the Morals, Too: Villainous example. The Not-Things are hostile because the darkest impulses of humanity somehow made its way to them at the end of the universe, influencing them to imitate that.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Given who Not-Donna is imitating, sarcasm is no surprise:
    Not-Donna: Love letters don't travel very far.
  • Evil Knockoff: Invoked. The Doctor and Donna are the first to visit the spaceship after three years, thus they take forms based on them and start copying the duo.
  • Evil Is Deathly Cold: An early tell-tale sign of their appearance is a sudden chilly air that follows them around, a result of their need to convert heat into mass.
  • Fangs Are Evil: After they stop needing to disguise themselves, they distinguish themselves from their true counterparts by growing sharp teeth.
  • Glamour Failure: They conform to the typical suspense trope of "evil shapeshifter perfectly imitates the host until they get busted". When neither the audience or the Doctor and Donna know who's real and who's fake, the Not-Things are scarily good at mimicking their hosts, accurately emulating emotions, memories and personality traits. However, as soon as they get caught out, they immediately make it obvious that they're inhuman monsters. Subverted dramatically in the climax when Not-Donna plays Donna so convincingly that the Doctor takes her into the TARDIS by mistake.
  • Humans Are Bastards: Or rather All Sentient Species Are Bastards. They're so violent because somehow humanity's and the rest of the known universe's darkness managed to transmit itself to them. When Donna says humans are more than that, Not-Donna quips "Love letters don't travel very far."
  • Involuntary Shapeshifting: The Not-Things ability to retain shape is lacking at-first, leading to instances of Body Horror as their "limbs" act up. It doesn't last.
  • No Object Permanence: Played for Horror, as object permanence is one part of physics they figure out on the fly. Donna realizes the Not-Doctor isn't the real Doctor when she looks down and sees that the tie he dropped earlier has suddenly disappeared.
    Not-Doctor: Oh, I see! When something is gone, it keeps existing...
  • Sizeshifter: Before their bodies start stabilising, their forms grow uncontrollably by converting heat into mass, to the extent that they can no longer fit inside the ship's large corridors and become a tangled mess of flesh.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: While the Not-Things themselves are one-off villains, the Doctor's interactions with them are implied to have changed the law of the universe itself; namely, by convincing them they can't cross a line of salt. This violation of the laws of existence single-handedly caused the ripple effect that shifts the series from being mostly sci-fi to intentional Fantasy Creep, which allows reality-warping beings like the Toymaker and his children to be released, and forces UNIT to adapt their techniques to include strategies more akin to folk lore and thaumaturgy than hard science.
  • Transforming Conforming: At the start, they have trouble maintaining a convincing shape, such as taking longer to get the arms the right length, or losing track of how many knees per leg. The longer they stay transformed, the more "locked in" they become, losing their more Body Horror related transformations in favor of a better disguise. However, they can still shapeshift to gain a physical advantage, such as when Not-Doctor grows larger limbs that allow him to gallop faster to the bomb-arming robot than the Doctor ever could. Notably, they lost everything they had learned from the Captain after she killed herself before they could finish copying her, sending them back to square one.

Fifteenth Doctor era debut

    The Old Woman 

The Old Woman (Fifteenth Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_1844.jpeg
Sorry, but this is about as close as you can get. Trust that it’s for your own good.

Played by: Hilary Hobson

An enigmatic figure that appears before Ruby after the Doctor breaks a fairy circle in "73 Yards". She always stays precisely 73 yards away from Ruby and anyone who interacts with her runs away in terror.


  • Ambiguously Human: The woman, even if she is Ruby’s future self, can teleport to wherever Ruby is, never sleeps or eats, doesn’t show up as anything but a blur on photos (even on UNIT’s high-tech cameras), and causes anyone who talks to her to run away screaming and refuse to speak to Ruby again. Even when Ruby’s mother gets close enough to describe her, all she can say is “She looks like what she looks like […] She looks like what she is.”
  • Ambiguous Situation: Everything about her. One popular theory is that the old woman was actually Ruby's future self coming to warn her, though this is at odds with the fact that they're played by different people, and it still doesn't explain anything else about her. How does she move around? Why does she gesture continually? Why is her gesturing Word-Salad Horror in BSL? Why 73 yards? Why is that the same as the range of the TARDIS' perception filter? What does she say that's so terrifying it could even make Carla abandon her daughter? Assuming she's not Ruby, why does the episode shift to the woman's perspective after Ruby dies? And why does young Ruby hear her message at the end when she didn't last time?
  • Brown Note: The woman is always whispering something unintelligible. Nevertheless, anyone who is close enough to hear her run away screaming and avoid anything to do with Ruby.
  • The Dreaded: The woman turns Ruby into this for anyone who speaks to her.
  • Good All Along: Ruby understandably fears her thanks to appearing right after the Doctor vanished and driving away her loved ones. It turns out she's actually guiding Ruby towards stabilising the future.
  • Humanoid Abomination: Human or not, the old woman takes the form of one, but is always exactly 73 yards away from Ruby, no matter where she looks or where she goes, constantly performs the same nonsense noise and body movements without fatigue, and anyone who gets close enough to hear her find themselves running away screaming and doing everything in their power to avoid Ruby. Absolutely nothing is known about her intentions, if she even has any, the only hint being that she's the result of the Doctor and Ruby disturbing the fairy circle.
  • Offscreen Teleportation: The woman is never seen to move onscreen by the audience, but is always exactly 73 yards away from Ruby. Notably, Ruby is able to deliberately position her, but we don't see how she perceives the woman's movement.
  • Perception Filter: People are aware that she is there, and subtly make choices that avoid putting her or themselves at harm, but no one ever directly interacts with her unless Ruby, one way or another, makes them do so.
  • Riddle for the Ages: What exactly did she say to make all those people run away?
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: The woman has this effect on people, causing them to completely run away and/or abandon Ruby and only cryptically say "Ask her!" when begged for a reason. Roger ap Gwilliam resigns as Prime Minister and seemingly becomes a recluse after Ruby manipulates him into talking to her.
  • Synchronization: Though it's never fully explained, Ruby has the strong feeling that if the old woman were to die, she would die too, leaving the option of killing her off the table (if it were even possible).
  • Tomato in the Mirror: Ruby meets the old woman one last time in her 80s, during which she's teleported to the exact time and location where they first spotted each other. Ruby then realises she's taken the woman's place and uses this gift to save the Doctor from breaking the fairy circle.
  • The Un-Reveal:
    • Her Face-Revealing Turn in her final appearance is obscured by the flickering lights, though it's implied Ruby got a glimpse of her true face right before being spirited away.
    • "Empire of Death" reveals 73 yards is the limit of the TARDIS perception filter, and Ruby does pick up on the number, but whether there's any connection goes unexplored.
  • Word-Salad Horror: Her gestures are actually British Sign Language, with her repeating the same phrase on an infinite loop. Needless to say, the translation clarifies nothing of what her actual intentions are.
    Bless you. Thank you so much, that's so kind of you. When you gave me that little thing, it was just so precious. How am I ever going to repay you? But we will think of something.

    Susan Triad (SPOILERS

Susan Triad (Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_2024_1.jpeg
In every dream, I'm there...

Played by: Susan Twist (2023 - 2025)

A mysterious woman who the Doctor and Ruby encounter in different forms and roles all throughout time and space. Eventually, her "original" self is discovered to be Susan Triad, a tech mogul on modern day Earth, and whom the Doctor initially suspects to be none other than his own granddaughter, Susan...


  • Alternate Self: Starting from "The Church on Ruby Road", as well as "Wild Blue Yonder" before that, she has appeared as a different background character in every episode of Series 14/Season 1, before taking centre stage in the finale. It takes a while for the Doctor and Ruby to notice the pattern.Full list
  • Anti-Anti-Christ: She and her other selves were created to be Sutekh's "Angels of Death", his main weapons to annihilate all life in the universe, but she became a sweet woman who joins UNIT after being freed from her creator's control.
  • Artificial Human: "Empire of Death" reveals Triad and her counterparts were created by Sutekh in every place the Doctor visited after the events of "Pyramids of Mars", each functioning as a Manchurian Agent.
  • Benevolent Boss: She is very kind to her subordinates at S. Triad, having a close friendship with her assistant Bailey and encouraging Mel to call her Sue.
  • Cool Old Lady: She's in her sixties at least and is a technological genius with a very massive company, as well as being very sweet and friendly.
  • Dead Alternate Counterpart: Her character in "Rogue" has already passed away and appears only in portrait form to Ruby. Likely applies to Penny Pepper-Bean too, since the population of Homeworld in "Dot and Bubble" has been entirely exterminated and Penny only appears as a pre-recorded message.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: She is the head of S. Triad Technologies, a company that sells worldwide and some of its technology is used by UNIT. She gets to show off her skills in "The Reality War" when she is able to whip up a Zero Room, capable of withstanding the annihilation of all reality, in incredibly short order.
  • Game Face: When the One Who Waits possesses her, she suddenly gains red eyes and a skull-like face.
  • The Grim Reaper: Her true nature as Sutekh's right hand.
  • Heel–Face Turn: After regaining her mind once Sutekh has died, she officially joins UNIT. Though it's worth saying that Susan herself was never truly evil, only an unaware agent of Sutekh.
  • Honest Corporate Executive: When UNIT began investigating her, they were expecting another evil billionaire, but were surprised to find out she was actually really nice. She had no idea that her company, Susan Triad Technology, was part of Sutekh's plan.
  • I Am Who?: Of the Awful Truth variety. She confesses to the Doctor of having recurring dreams about her other selves, the same ones he met. When giving her speech to the UN, she gradually starts losing it, ranting about not knowing her true identity, before finally being possessed by the One Who Waits.
  • Internal Homage: Susan Triad's appearance when under Sutekh's control: tan cardigan, pulled back white hair, and skull-like face with reddish eyeliner, makes her appear extremely similar to Sutekh's previous possessed servant Marcus Scarman.
  • Manchurian Agent: It's revealed that Sutekh has been planting Susan clones in each moment and time the TARDIS has ever landed since his initial defeat, so that he can spread his Dust of Death through all of them at the same time once he enacts his plan.
  • Nice Gal: When debriefing the Doctor about her, Kate Stewart tells him how incredibly kind she is and she seems to genuinely be so as she’s very sweet to both Mel — asking her to just call her "Sue" — and the Doctor. It makes her reveal as a puppet of The One Who Waits even more terrifying.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: When her true self as Sutekh's minion is revealed, her face takes on a skeletal appearance, with her eyes turning a bright, blood red.
  • Sand Blaster: Like all other minions of Sutekh, she's capable of spreading his "Dust of Death" that reduces into sand anyone it touches.
  • Significant Anagram: She catches UNIT's attention when she rebranded her company as "S Triad Technology". As everyone immediately notes, "S Triad" is a blatant anagram of "TARDIS". Turns out to be part of a nefarious plot by the real villain, whose name is revealed by the real wordplay: "Susan Triad Technology" -> "Sue Tech" -> "Sutekh".
  • Significant Name Overlap:
    • Given the anagram above, the Doctor speculates that Susan may be the Susan — Foreman, his granddaughter and original companion, with a new face. Again, it's a deliberate Red Herring set up by her master.
    • On a meta level, her actress's name (First name Susan, making her The Danzainvoked, and surname Twist, as in "there's always a twist at the end") was more than enough to send the fandom into raving speculation long before the speculation happened in-universe.
  • Tomato in the Mirror: It's complicated: she believes herself to be a normal human being and self-made entrepreneur, and by all intents and purposes she is one. However, the truth is that she's an Artificial Human created by the One Who Waits as his "chrysalis" to reappear into the world: his godly powers allowed this Susan to be made indistinguishable from a regular human. When the reality of her situation is revealed, Susan breaks down in anguish.
  • Touch of Death: Just like her master, she has the ability to turn people into sand with just one touch, which she demonstrates on her poor assistant.
  • Voice of the Legion: Once fully possessed, her normal speaking voice is undercut with a lower, masculine voice.
  • Whole Costume Reference: Her appearance after revealing herself as her master's servant — tan suit over a white shirt, slicked-back fair hair, and heavy reddish eyeliner — is one to Marcus Scarman, a fellow puppet of Sutekh from his debut serial "Pyramids of Mars".

    The Barber 

The Barber/Adetokunbo (Fifteenth Doctor)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_9755_9.jpeg
Played by: Ariyon Bakare

A mysterious man who has taken over the Doctor's friend Omo's barbershop and has trapped him and several of his patrons inside, forcing them to tell stories while he cuts their hair.


  • Anti-Villain: Once his history is revealed, he becomes more sympathetic, even if his quest for revenge would not only kill a pantheon of beings but also ruin humanity by cutting off their ability to tell stories. He's also genuinely remorseful after he's defeated, saying he doesn't deserve the kindness he's being given.
  • Became Their Own Antithesis: Averted. He tells Abena his plan is to supplant the Gods of Stories by placing the engine at the heart of the nexus and become "Storyteller Supreme". The Doctor instantly figures that isn't what's happening.
    The Doctor: That is what he's told you? That he's going to become everything that he hates and despises, and you believe him?
    Abena: He would not lie to me.
    The Doctor: I know vengeance and I can taste his; it is bile, black, and bitter.
  • Been There, Shaped History: According to the Barber, most of the myths about the exploits of gods throughout human history were actually written by him.
  • Didn't Think This Through: In his desire to kill off a pantheon by separating them from their essence in the Nexus, he never considered how it would affect the symbiosis that the deities have with humanity.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: The core of his motivation. Despite having been responsible for spreading the tales of numerous gods across the world, thereby shaping a massive chunk of human culture, he has never been given any form of recognition by either mortals or the gods themselves. This has led to him becoming bitter and, in conjunction with seeing how badly hurt Abena was by her father's abuse, ultimately made him decide to destroy the gods themselves.
  • God Guise: When confronted by the Doctor, he declares that he was the trickster and storytelling Gods of many Earth religions at some point or another in his life. However, the Doctor laughs him off and debunks this, due to having apparently met all of the Gods he claims to have been.
  • Meaningful Rename: After his Heel–Face Turn, he takes on the name of Odo's father, Adétòkunbọ, upon taking ownership of the barber shop. The name is translated in English as "the crown/royalty from distant lands".
  • Mirror Character: The Barber was a mortal man who opted to share stories with the gods to enhance their power, only to have the gods betray him for his service. The Doctor was once an ordinary Time Lord (as far as they knew) who became a heroic figure among the stars, which his people tried to punish him for. If time and space is The Doctor's realm, then stories are the realm of The Barber. They even forsook their original names and took on titles with the definite article.
    • He's also specifically a mirror for the black Doctor(s), being an antagonist unique to African culture, mythology, and story-telling traditions. Each in unique ways, too; Fifteen has the power of the stories that came before him via his previous incarnations. And the Fugitive Doctor has the power of the potential of an incomplete story, still yet to be finished.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Though he looks to be in his early fifties at most, he's actually thousands of years old, having been alive since the earliest days of human religion.
  • The Storyteller: For thousands of years, he travelled the Earth sharing the stories of its various gods and mythologies, helping to create their religions in the process. He's become so attuned to the power of storytelling that he's been able to turn it into a form of raw power, which he uses to fuel his spider-ship.
  • Villainous Breakdown: After the Doctor takes control of the Engine.
  • What You Are in the Dark: The Doctor's story overloads his Story Engine and ensures he will never get the revenge he seeks, making it clear he will let everyone in the shop die if the Barber forces him because their lives aren't worth the seven billion that would be threatened if he gets his way. The Doctor then points out that the Barber still has control of the doors and whether they die is up to him. With all his work undone and with nothing left to lose, he decides to open the door and free everyone.

    Abena 

Abena (Fugitive and Fifteenth Doctors)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/519194_0c6eab5.jpg
Played by: Michelle Asante

An equally mysterious woman who acts as aide-de-camp to the Barber while also assisting the trapped Patron's of Omo's Palace.


  • Abusive Parents: Her father is the Spider-God Anansi, who wagered her hand in marriage in a bet with the Fugitive Doctor, which the Doctor tried to lose on purpose as she was in the middle of her troubles with the Division and couldn't take a new companion at that time. She found this whole situation humiliating, and part of the reason she sides with the Barber is to get revenge on her father, BUT she also cares about him to some degree, as learning that the Barber intends to kill him (and all other Gods) causes her Heel–Face Turn.
  • Anti-Villain: Even more so than the Barber. She's the one who goes out to provide food for the men he's taken captive, and they all seem to genuinely like her despite her being their co-captor. She also decides to aid the Doctor once she finds out the Barber's true motivation.
  • Forgotten First Meeting: First met the Doctor when they were in their 'Fugitive' incarnation. 15 immediately finds her familiar, but it takes a long time for the memory to resurface.
  • Heel–Face Turn: After learning that the Barber intends to kill the Gods rather than become one, she turns on him, as that would lead to her father's death (and possibly her own).
  • Physical God: It's ambiguous. Refers to herself as a god, but when the Barber says he intends to kill them all, the dialogue doesn't seem to take her own death into account, focusing instead on her father's fate.

    The Gods of Stories 

Anansi, Saga, Bastet, Dionysus and Loki

Played by: N/A

Numerous gods associated with drama and storytelling that the Doctor has had dealings with over the centuries. It turns out the Barber may have some connection to them too.


  • Adaptational Slimness: According to the Doctor, Marvel's Thor is not swole enough compared to the real deal.
  • All Myths Are True: All of the named Gods are figures from real world mythology and folklore from cultures as disparate as West Africa and Scandinavia.
  • Did You Just Have Tea With Cthulhu?: Most of the Doctors' encounters with them are some variation of this.
  • Gods Need Prayer Badly: They need to be remembered by humanity in order to continue existing. This connection goes both ways, as destroying them would also destroy the human capacity to tell stories.
  • Jerkass Gods: Not to anywhere near the same extent as the other Pantheon the Doctor keeps encountering. For one thing, they need humanity to exist and thrive, where most Gods of the Pantheon see Earth as just a starting point to wreak havoc on. However, their treatment of the Barber and Anansi's treatment of Abena definitely qualify them for this.
  • Noodle Incident: The Doctor rattles off several of his encounters with them: drinking so much with Dionysus that they caused a drought in Athens, staying up all night watching Marvel movies with Saga (who thought Thor's muscles were too small), getting thrashed at chess by Bastet, and trying to lose a bet with Anansi over marrying one of his daughters. The last one turns out to be Foreshadowing.
  • Remember the New Guy?: Doctor Who cosmology is wildly varied, but for all the other beings on this page the Doctor has encountered, the fact that Story Gods exist and basically ARE the figures from myth that humans have worshipped for millennia is a dramatic revelation for the audience— that the Doctor's unfazed by, as he's already met several of them.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: The Barber spent centuries serving them by spreading their stories in order to preserve their existence, but they eventually got rid of him when once they no longer needed him, without reward.

    Bone Beasts (UNMARKED SPOILERS

Bone Beasts

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/horned_bone_beast.jpg
Played by: N/A

Gargantuan quadrupedal skeletal monsters from the Underverse that patrol Conrad’s Wish World. They appear where there are spatial disruptions, of which the Ranis have caused plenty...


  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: These things are absolutely ENORMOUS.
  • Dem Bones: Well, they are called Bone Beasts.
  • Creepily Long Arms: Their giant skeletal limbs account for much of their height.
  • Foil: In an interesting way, to the Reapers. Like them, they cleanse metaphysical wounds, but while the Reapers cleanse temporal damage, the Bone Beasts cleanse spatial wounds.
  • Made of Iron: Not even the Galvanic Beam that killed the Fourteenth Doctor can slow them down.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: People don’t seem to pay much heed to these creatures as they slowly amble around the city. But then, this is Wish World.

Alternative Title(s): Doctor Who Ashildr

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