Doctor Who TV guest writer, Whitney Jones, counts down the 7 corniest monsters of new Who.



If you’re on this site, chances are you love the good Doctor and everything he stands for. Sometimes, though, you have to wonder what the writers were thinking of when they came up with monster ideas. Since the older series have the disadvantage of bad graphics and low budgets, this list focuses exclusively on the new series.

7. The Giant Blobby Sponge, aka The Abzorbaloff

Just say the name out loud. It’s a giant blob that absorbs people. As if the name alone wasn’t cheesy enough, we find out that a character we’ve grown slightly attached to is now residing on its bottom. Bathroom humor in Doctor Who? It’s not the first time, but it’s probably the worst. The Abzorbaloff is trying to get to the Doctor to use the TARDIS for energy (who isn’t?), but he only manages to make contact with the Doctor for about a minute in the entire episode. It was a creative idea, but perhaps the show’s writers should consider creating their own monsters instead of letting a Blue Peter contest decide them in the future.

6. The Plastic People, aka The Autons





In the John Pertwee years, the Autons were scary. They had sagging plastic faces and they had a legitimate chance of taking over the world. In Rose, they’re simply store mannequins that move and blindly shoot things. Maybe it’s that our mannequin producing has advanced too much for them to look like anything other than a younger Joan Rivers. Plastic Mickey really seals the deal on the cheese factor when his hand turns into a spatula.

5. The Fat Blobs, aka the Adipose

Lurking in those extra 10 pounds you gained could be 10 tiny adorable creatures, at least if the planet has been farmed by Adipose Industries. The Adipose were undeniably cute, but they were almost a non-threat. Heart disease is lowered; airlines no longer have to charge a single person for two seats; and bikinis for everyone! If the Doctor were a woman, this wouldn’t have happened. With a little negotiating, and this could have been a sweet deal.

4. Candy-coated Daleks, aka Paradigm Daleks





There’s always a reason the Daleks are scarier than the last time they appeared. They were half-human, so they were mad (Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways). They were fully Dalek (The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End), so they were incredibly cunning and powerful. The Paradigm Daleks only claim to fame happens to be that they can blend in with their surroundings by posing as multi-coloured washers and dryers from the local hardware store.

3. Satanic Scribbles, aka the Isolus/Trish’s Drawings

After battling Daleks, the Devil, and countless Cybermen, Rose almost dies by a scribble in the beginning of Fear Her. In what seems like a goofy take on “the pen is mightier than the sword,” a little girl possessed by a sun-riding creature imprisons people by drawing them with crayons. Her drawings can also come alive, which is where Rose’s scribble and the girl’s abusive father / demon come into the episode.

2. Human Dalek, aka the Dalek Sec Hybrid

As if the episode couldn’t get worse after the pig creatures, Ten finally encounters the real threat: a half-human Dalek Sec. Dalek Sec has human emotions, can’t levitate or use any of the powers his armor granted him. In other words, he’s now just a human badly in need of some facial surgery.

1. Monkeys & The Transformer, aka the Cyberking & Cybershades

Cyber-monkeys were bad enough, but The Next Doctor also treated viewers to a Transformer-like Cyberman controlled by a woman spurned by society for undefined reasons. Despite the obvious plot hole of never explaining why history didn’t record a giant Cyberman running through the streets of London, the machine itself was a bit lackluster. The terror of Cybermen usually lies in the fact that they’re made from humans that have been ‘upgraded’ unwillingly. Viewers felt nothing but distaste for the woman who thought she was leader of the Cybermen, and disgust at the franchise for producing this obvious nod to steam punk fandom.

Agree / disagree? Why not list your own in the comments?