Doctor Who's Top Ten villains

10: John Lumic

John who?? Well, take a camply evil Bond villain - now make him much less subtle, and you’ve got John Lumic – whose intense cheesiness was neatly balanced by his technological genius.

Lumic was the creator of the Cybermen – but in a parallel universe. Unlike the Cybermen we’re used to (who originated on the planet Mondas), Lumic’s troopers were "upgraded" Earthlings who were forcibly marched into a conversion chamber. And, adding insult to very severe injury, The Lion Sleeps Tonight would be loudly played to cover their screams.

In the end, Lumic was unwillingly converted into a Cyberman himself – which actually made him less of a cartoon villain.

9: Omega

There’s nothing like being trapped in an antimatter universe for thousands of years to drive you absolutely bonkers. And that was the cruel fate that befell Omega – the legendary Time Lord who harnessed the power of a star to make time travel possible.

Unfortunately, the experiment also sucked Omega through a black hole into an antimatter universe, where he basically sat and fumed for several millennia. By the time the Doctor encountered him, he was a raving maniac bent on getting revenge on the Time Lords.

At least his self-esteem didn’t suffer - when told he was the Doctor’s childhood hero, Omega replied "A hero? I should have been a God!" But we can cut him some slack. The man had been through a black hole, for goodness sake.

8: Scaroth

It was immediately clear that anything called "Scaroth, Last of the Jagaroth" was going to be pure evil, and this baddie did not disappoint.

The only survivor of his war-like race, Scaroth was on a visit to prehistoric Earth when his ship exploded – triggering the development of life in the primordial soup. But the accident also sent Scaroth hurtling forward in time to 1970s Paris. His great scheme was to go back and stop the explosion from happening – and in the process preventing life beginning on Earth.

But never mind all that. The best thing about Scaroth (apart from his vast, blobby head) was his knack for one-liners. Discussing one wicked plan, he indicates that his intended victims are going to be... "This young lady here, and thousands of other people I could mention if I happened to have the Paris telephone directory on my person." Now that’s smooth...

7: The Rani

Ah, the Doctor’s own femme fatale – and she’s even more smug than he is.

Boasting big hair and lethal cheekbones, the Rani is – like the Master and the Doctor himself – a renegade from Gallifrey. However, unlike the other baddies in our top 10, she's motivated by science rather than malice. It’s just that she doesn’t care if her experiments also kill off whole planetfuls of people.

Being a scientist, she could also out-technobabble anybody. As the lady once explained:

"Helium-2 will fuse with the upper zones of the Lakertyan atmosphere to form a shell of chronons. In the same millisecond as the chronon shell is being formed, the hot-house effect of the gamma rays will cause the primate cortex of the brain to go into chain reaction."

And this from the woman who once quipped, "I’ve had enough of this drivel!"

6: The Beast

Villains don’t come much bigger than the Devil himself, which is who the Beast claimed to be when the Tenth Doctor encountered him on the edge of a black hole.

In fact, the Beast wasn’t just our Devil. Claiming to have existed before the universe itself, he was apparently the inspiration for all Satanic figures in all religions across the cosmos. And it’s not surprising really, given that he was this huge red monster with massive horns.

Luckily, our favourite Time Lord managed to destroy this terrifying creature before he could escape from his planet-sized prison. Perhaps he should have taken one of the Devil’s horns with him as a hunting trophy...

5: The Sontarans

Big joyless brutes with heads that resemble oversized baked potatoes, the Sontarans really don’t have very much going for them in the charm stakes. Not that they really need to be attractive, given that female Sontarans don’t exist and they reproduce solely through cloning.

Instead of a sex drive, these trigger-happy oafs have a war drive. They live for battle, and spend all their time doing it. In fact, they’ve been engaged in a conflict with another race, the Rutans, for more than 10,000 years.

Of course, this endless grudge-match hasn’t kept them from making mischief elsewhere. They even invaded Gallifrey once, but – being a bit thick – they were swiftly outsmarted. Better luck next time, chaps.

4: Davros

Wizened, angry scientists conducting secret experiments are always going to be bad news, especially if they have names like Davros. You’d think this would be obvious, but the Kaled people didn’t realise anything was up until Davros started turning them into Daleks.

A quite unashamed madman whose only desire was to kill everything in the universe, Davros was so loathsome that even his own creations, the Daleks, couldn’t stand him. They swiftly mutinied, but Davros wasn’t to give up so easily, building yet more Daleks to battle with the originals. The ensuing civil war ultimately led to his own downfall.

The moral of this story? For goodness sake, don’t turn people into Daleks all the time.

3: The Cybermen

By which we mean the Cybermen from the Doctor’s own universe – not the ones created on a parallel Earth by the John Lumic.

No, the original Cybermen didn’t need a crazed scientist to give them orders. They evolved over time on Mondas, a planet very similar to Earth – but with the vital difference that their citizens decided their bodies would be better with lots of less organic, squashy stuff added.

Eventually they became the emotionless, silver soldiers who would give the Doctor such a headache time and time again – although the Cybermen could also be comically inept and act in a very slapstick fashion when challenged. A bit like the Chuckle Brothers, but psychotic and made of metal.

2: The Master

OK, so he was never very subtle when introducing himself ("I am the Master - and you will obey me"), but the Master could also be suave, witty and charming when he wanted to be – the perfect Professor Moriarty type.

The Master was the exact mirror image of the Doctor. Both graduated from the Time Lord Academy, and both stole TARDISes to become wanderers in time and space. The big difference was, the Doctor did it for fun, while the Master did it to kill and dominate.

Of course, being monstrously egotistical (even more than the Doctor himself), the Master would be mortified to learn he didn’t make Number One on our list. But then, that coveted spot could only go to...

1: The Daleks

Cruel, vicious and single-minded, the Daleks are the undisputed champions of evil in the Doctor Who universe. Which is pretty good going for a bunch of green, quivering blobs.

For, lest we forget, the Daleks are actually horrible, crippled mutants – the metal shell is just a life-support (and life-killing) transport mechanism. Once upon a time, the Daleks were human-like aliens known as Kaleds, until their chief scientist Davros decided he’d rather convert them into his own private army of deadly pepperpots.

Exterminating their way across the universe, wiping out the Time Lords and constantly bickering among themselves, the Daleks are thoroughly nasty pieces of work. What’s not to like?