In 2020, after more than a year without new Doctor Who, the never-say-die wibbly-wobbly series will return for Jodie Whittaker’s second full season as the 13th Doctor. And while current showrunner Chris Chibnall made great pains to keep familiar Doctor Who aliens and monsters out of the first season of Whitaker’s run, that’ll change in season 12. Back in May, the BBC revealed that the Rhino-faced Judoon—first seen in the David Tennant 10th Doctor episode “Smith and Jones”—will return to face Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor.
For long-term fans of Doctor Who, the return of the Judoon is excellent news, as it visually connects Whittaker’s Doctor with the goofier canon of the Russel T. Davies era back in the early aughts. But now that the monster gloves are seemingly off, what other old aliens and adversaries might return for the next season of Doctor Who? Here are six familiar faces that would be great for the Whittaker Who—and three baddies that we could do without until at least 2024.
(Note: Spoilers ahead for Class, the Doctor Who spinoff that aired in 2016.)
The Sontarans
The potato-headed clone warrior species of the Sontarans are perfect adversaries for Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor because they basically resemble internet trolls. Sure, the Sontarans aren’t exactly scary, but they also haven’t been dangerous since the days of the 10th Doctor season four two-parter “The Poison Sky” and “The Sontaran Stratagem.” The 11th Doctor era introduced Strax, a reformed Sontaran, which, while great as a character, also took away the thing about the Sontrans that makes them such a wonderful metaphor for ruthless warmongering. The Sontarans are basically just an army of clones of one guy, and that guy is a giant a-hole. A newly mobilized Sontaran Empire is kind of the perfect classic Who baddie for the 13th Doctor to face.
The Weeping Angels
Chronologically, the last time the Weeping Angels appeared in Who canon was actually in the spinoff series Class where it was revealed in the first season finale that they were manipulating a ton of events from behind-the-scenes. But, Class’s first season was also its last, meaning the Weeping Angel problem was left unsolved. The 13th Doctor’s immediate predecessor, Peter Capaldi’s 12th Doctor, stopped by the Coal Hill School for the first episode of Class back in 2016. But what happened after that? Are there a ton of Weeping Angels still chilling out on Earth?
I know. I know. A lot of fans will groan when they see the Weeping Angels on a list of returning Doctor Who monsters, but the reality is, they are just too good not to bring back. And while it’s true that the Angels have never been as scary or as interesting as they were in their first episode, “Blink,” that doesn’t mean the Whittaker era can’t make them scary again. If there’s one thing season 11 proved, it’s that the current version of Doctor Who is pretty good at tackling small, scary stories (like “Arachnids in the UK”)—the Weeping Angels could be a perfect fit for the vibe of the 13th Doctor.
The Master
One of the greatest crimes of the Matt Smith era is that the 11th Doctor never faced a version of the Master. And, one of the best things about Peter Capaldi’s 12th Doctor was, naturally, Missy, the version of the Master that (maybe?) followed John Simm’s version of the evil Time Lord. The last time we saw the Master, two versions of the Doctor’s oldest friend apparently killed each other. The thing is, if this is all legit, then that means Missy remembered her past self trying to kill her in the future, which makes you think she was totally ready for it. Right? The point is, the logistics are there to bring back the Master, in some way, shape or form.
The question is, which Master should the 13th Doctor face? While it’s tempting to want to bring in a whole new actor, it would be amazing to see how Michelle Gomez’s Missy might react to Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor. Missy is just too great to leave in the Capaldi era. Let’s get her back!
All the Time Lords
In the season 11 finale, the Doctor rescued three planets that had been miniaturized. But, was one of those planets… Gallifrey? We know after the events of “The Day of the Doctor” and “Hell Bent,” that Gallifrey has been indeed restored to the universe, but we haven’t heard much from the Time Lords since season 9. In fact, the words “Time Lord” or “Gallifrey” were never once mentioned by the 13th Doctor in season 11 at all. Still, the orange planet that materialized at the end of “The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos” could suggest that the Doctor herself was actually lugging Gallifrey around for a little bit.
Either way, the idea of introducing the Time Lords as an active part of the Doctor Who canon would be interesting simply because it hasn’t been done since the show relaunched in 2005. Part of what makes the Doctor appealing is they are a renegade Time Lord. And, Jodie Whittaker’s 13th Doctor feels much more of a renegade Time Lord than the last of the Time Lords. Let’s give her somebody to rebel against!
Pting
The “The Tsuranga Conundrum” was not only a hugely underrated episode of Doctor Who season 11, but it also casually introduced one of the greatest—and cutest—destructive alien monsters of all time: the Pting. Essentially an energy-consuming, totally unstoppable toddler, the Pting was “defeated” when the Doctor let the feisty little critter eat a bomb; which basically was exactly what it wanted. Any excuse for this creature to return in season 12 will be a welcome one. Not only is it an adorable adversary for the Doctor, it’s also unbeatable in a way that pushes the writing in creative directions. What do you do with a tiny hungry monster that can eat anything?
The Remnants
Of all the new aliens the Doctor encountered in season 11, the creepy, flying eel-like are-they-sentient-pieces-of-toilet-paper critters from “The Ghost Monument” were probably the most interesting. Technically called the Remnants, these self-aware pieces of trash hinted at a season-long mystery that was never solved. They taunted the Doctor about “the timeless child,” but we never found out who or what the timeless child was. So, if the Remnants returned, we’d not only get some scary-ass talking paper but also, possibly, some answers to the most tantalizing mystery leftover from the last season.
Monsters and Aliens We DON’T Want to See for Awhile…
The Daleks
Bringing back one Dalek for the 2019 Doctor Who New Year’s Day special, “Resolution,” was great. But if season 12 is going to feel exciting and fresh, that should be all we see of the Daleks for a while. Sure, the Daleks are iconic and in some ways essential to the popularity of Doctor Who, but since they already made a comeback so recently, we shouldn’t see them again for at least one more season after the next one.
The Cybermen
Bizarrely, the Cybermen might be even more overused than the Daleks, at least when you think about the last ten years. The Matt Smith-era saw numerous Cybermen-centric episodes (“Closing Time,” “Nightmare in Silver”) but the Peter Capaldi era was practically obsessed with the Cybermen. Not one —but two—Peter Capaldi finales deal with a beloved companion being turned int a Cyberman; first Danny Pink in “A Death in Heaven,” and then, two seasons later, Bill Potts in “The Doctor Falls.” And while there are some good Cybermen episodes (Again, “Closing Time”) for the most part, these stories move about as fast as those plodding, retro robot legs. Let’s just keep it simple: No Cybermen for at least three more seasons!
Tim Shaw
The evil Stenza obsessed with putting people’s teeth on his face was a solid adversary for the 13th Doctor both in her debut episode—”The Woman Who Fell To Earth”—and in the season finale, “The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos.” But beyond that, we don’t need to see T’zim-Sha or any of the Stenza again. A scary warrior species is certainly a good foil for the peace-loving heroism of the Doctor, but teeth on the face are just gross. If season 12 is thinking of bringing back recent baddies, let’s hope Tim Shaw/T’zim-Sha remains a distant memory and that the next new baddie keeps its teeth in its mouth.
Doctor Who season 12 is set to debut sometime in early 2020, though there is no official release date yet.
Ryan Britt is a longtime contributor to Tor.com. He recently purchased a Jodie Whittaker Doctor Who shirt on his birthday, which he wore while writing this article. Ryan’s other writing is often featured with Inverse, SyFy Wire, Den of Geek, Vulture, and elsewhere. He is the author of the book Luke Skywalker Can’t Read and an editor at Fatherly. He lives in Portland, Maine with his wife and daughter. After awkwardly high-fiving Matt Smith at a press screening in 2010, he feels very lucky to still be writing about Doctor Who nearly a decade later.
Isn’t Doctor Who contractually required to include the Daleks in every season? My understanding is if they don’t they lose the rights to use Daleks.
It will be fun to see the Judoon again. As I recollect, they were a race of not-too-clever police officers, which would give Yasmin a chance to use her law enforcement knowledge to good advantage.
I would like to see other Time Lords show up. And Sontarans are a good foe.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Chris Noth show up again. His amoral American businessman made a good foil for the Doctor.
@1: No – not only are they not required to use them every season, they have skipped them in seasons before. The 2008-9 specials didn’t use them, neither did Season 6 of the new era (the series from A Christmas Carol through to the Wedding of River Song).
There was a court case a few years ago over Dalek Rights between a company which had the rights to a series of books written by Terry Nation, who wrote the original daleks serial for the First Doctor. However, that was specific to the copyright in relation to books, and was won by the BBC (the ruling was that the company had the rights to the books, but didn’t own the copyright to the daleks).
And Moffat also explicitly said that there was no relation between frequency of dalek use and contractual obligations about 5 years ago.
I wish they’d let me name the Judoon. One would be Gene for Eugene Ionesco and another Zero for Zero Mostel.
Please, no more Angels. Blink was fantabulous, but they got done to death. How about The Family of Blood? They can have escaped.
Worst list ever. Sontarans DEFO need to be brought back. Sontaran Stratagem/Poison Sky does a fairly good job in showing their power, but they’re still treated like a joke and killed way to easily. Bring them back and make them terrifyingly brutal, maybe show us the vast Sontaran clone hatcheries and we can see some gruesome body horror of them being born, dripping out of their amniotic fluid with the Doctor and co caught in the middle of their awakening. The idea of bringing back the Weeping Angels is quite possibly the dumbest idea ever. There’s nothing to do with them anymore, they’re done. Time Lords are boring and their last episode they were in was one of the worst ever. They kill drama, it was better when they were dead. 5 and 6 are not strong enough to be returning monsters. The Master needs a break, if its a character who keeps dying spectacularly and then popping back again every other season he/she is about as threatening as he was in the 80s when he would do that almost continually. Bring him/her back only if there is a good plot to link him/her with or if you can do something different (I personally would love to see the dying Master from Deadly Assassin brought back – great dynamic never exploited properly).
I actually don’t mind the Daleks or Cybermen if they’re done differently and well. Bring the Dalek Time Controller in from the Big Finish stories in to give it a new angle. There is a Cyberman body horror episode just DYING to be made with someone with the balls to push the boundaries (dilapidated, half-sewn together, rag-tag composite Cybermen, complied bits of every one of them, made by scrap and other things they could find, lurching around near undead in a ruined wrecked rusting cyber-man processing factory with the tools of their trade hanging around, and vast organ banks rotting from years of neglect). Junk everything about them from Nightmare in Silver and start over. They could become the most fascinating and dynamic adversary of Doctor Who, endlessly shifting, never stable, always cutting and splicing bits off. Imagine how many forms that could take!
Here’s the monsters who should actually be brought back
1. Krotons (semi-liquid Crystal beings would be amazing with CGI)
2. Sea Devils
3. Rutans – (perhaps do a Secret Invasion type plotline with them? Have them float around with stingers)
4. Wirrn (would look great in CGI buzzing through space)
5. Osirans (ancient Egypt would look amazing, and you could incorporate them in)
6. The Black Guardian (incorporeal force of chaos that resembles a crow playing games with the Doctor? Awesome!)
Although personally I’m a bit disappointed by the idea of old ones returning. It seems abit of a desperate throwback rather than pushing forward, and you need to create new and great villains and monsters to keep the show fresh for the next 50 years (as the Weeping Angels showed, it is impossible to create monster worthy of Daleks in modern era).
I’d be interested in a decent Torchwood story in Doctor Who involving one of the other two Torchwood branches. As Captain Jack Harkness described them: “Torchwood Two is an office in Glasgow, very strange man. … Torchwood Four’s kind of gone missing but we’ll find it one day.” It could be something The Doctor had thought long since handled and done … suddenly popping up again … and still hunting him, not realizing that he is now a she. And, only if absolutely necessary, Captain Jack can return.
That could even be a theme for a season: The Doctor walks away so quickly after a story, sometimes a thing is left undone and now those consequences are all coming due at the same time. They sort of played with it in the Christopher Eccleston season but if you’re going to bring back the past threats, that’d be one way to do it: a season in which The Doctor has to clean up their mess.
Come on, the Master/Missy was just killed forever at the end of season 10. We won’t see them again, at least until season 14!
I’m still waiting for the Minister of War, which was mentioned back in series 9 (Before The Flood).
There has only been one story (two episodes) that focused on the Sontarans, but Strax was a reoccurring character for quite a few seasons (and a funny one at that!). What is strange is that we haven’t heard of the Rutans this century, except for the video game The Gunpowder Plot.
@3: There was a Dalek in The Wedding of River Song. And that’s how they should be used: for short scenes, rather than as the focus of the episode. There can be great uses of the Cybermen and the Daleks. See: Handles and Rusty.
@5: Is there a deep difference between the Sea Devils and the Silurians (except that we’ve seen Silurians recntly but no Sea Devils)? What could be done with the Sea Devils that couldn’t be done with the Silurians? Unless the episode is about sea level rise.
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I would love to see the Angels show up as a cameo, like they did in The Time of The Doctor christmas special. But making a full episode with them doesn’t work anymore.
I also think a good episode would be the Judoon facing off against the Sontarans, with the Doctor caught in the middle.
Another mythology element that would be amazing to see would be UNIT. The christmas special implied that the UK had withdrawn from or been kicked out of UNIT, but Kate Stewart and Osgoode are still out there. Are they working with a non-UK UNIT branch? Working underground or free-lancing in the UK? Or could we just get real UNIT back? Chibnall created Kate and wrote her (I think) better than Moffet – it’d be amazing to see Kate and Thirteen working together.
I would think the Daleks would be exactly right. They could create continuity while completely ignoring the Doctor’s change of sex. “WE HAVE BEEN MONITORING YOU DOCTOR.”
I’d agree with the Sontarans and the Master. (Interesting contrast to have a male Master and female Doctor?) Not so interested in the Weeping Angels, especially not in tying off plot threads from the god-awful Class which is better off left in a blind alley of continuity. Wouldn’t mind the Time Lords but not as villains, and it would raise awkward questions about Clara that might be best being left alone. I don’t thik either the Pting or the Remnant really deserve a return.
We can do without the Daleks or the Cybermen for a while but it’d be a big shame if the Thirteenth Doctor never has a proper story with them. As for the Sea Devils, they might just be Silurians but underwater but that’s a decent selling point: They can exist in an environment that’s hostile to humans. Plus they have an iconic design that would be great to see again.
As someone who has been watching Doctor Who since 1965, I’m shocked that a generally respectable writer can say we shouldn’t see Daleks, and that so many readers could agree. You’re all such children!
A season of Doctor Wh without Daleks is like toast without marmite!
A season of Doctor Who without Daleks is like Season 13. That’s not a bad thing.
Count me as another who would like to see Kate Stewart and Osgood back again.
I don’t want to see Tzim Sha personally ever again, but The Ghost Monument did a good job at piquing my interest in the Stenza as a species. Their particular shtick of conquering peoples to use their intelligence to develop weapons to conquer more peoples is comparatively rare.
And there was a lot left unexplored about their method of selecting a leader. Even without Tzim cheating, there seems to be minimal threat from the races they choose to hunt. Is it largely just tradition at this point? And what’s with the requiring permission first? Is that part of a twisted code of honour or are they answerable to some greater bureaucracy that even they need to appease?
Done well, I’d be interested to see the Stenza again. Done poorly, I’m not really interested in seeing any of the races on this list anyway. xD
Id like the Ood to return to face her Doctor that would be a good fit for her doctor because the Ood arent too fast similar to the slower pace of this doctor compared to her modern counterparts and it would just be Cool for the Ood to return yeah.
@17: Oh yes, I’d love to see the Ood again too. My favourite aliens from the tiny Doctor Who subset I’ve watched so far. There could be a story about that big communal brain of theirs ageing or dying, and the problems that causes. Surely it can’t be eternal and unchanging – no biological entity is.