He's a real scream! Get ready to dive behind the sofa as Doctor Who's new enemy makes the Daleks look like Dusty Bin

Doctor Who is going to need more than his trusty sonic screwdriver to tackle mankind’s latest enemy.

For The Silence are the most sinister — and the scariest — of more than 200 intergalactic monsters who have done battle with the Time Lord over the centuries.

They will have us all cowering in terror behind the sofa when the sixth series in the current run of Doctor Who returns to TV next week, promises Matt Smith, the Doctor’s 11th incarnation.

Monstrous: The Silence was inspired by Munch's The Scream

‘If I’d seen them when I watched TV as a boy, I’d have had to peep through my fingers,’ he says.

‘They are going to become as iconic as the Doctor’s most enduring foes, the Daleks, and even more dangerous and harder to exterminate.’

The Silence — whose horrific looks are modelled on Norwegian artist Edvard Munch’s 1893 painting The Scream — make their first appearance in a two-part story at the start of the new series.

Matt says: ‘They are pretty repulsive, but it’s their history that will really chill people. They could turn up anywhere and everywhere, and they’ve been undermining and controlling us for thousands of years but we don’t realise it.

Time-travelling hero: Matt Smith as The Doctor

‘And yet, here they are — for the very first time — made flesh in front of our eyes.’

The Silence have been mentioned but never seen in several episodes since Matt took over as the Doctor last year, and will play a central part in the show’s future.

Matt, who has wanted to add a hat to the Doctor’s costume, gets to wear a stetson in the new series as he is mysteriously invited to America’s Utah Desert along with his companion Amy Pond (played by Karen Gillan).

In real life, the Utah desert has been a hotspot for UFO sightings — in Doctor Who, it’s where the presence of The Silence first manifests itself.



Their look has been carefully created for maximum scare-factor, with dark suits, white shirts and black ties made by Doctor Who costume designer Barbara Kidd.

The suits, in particular, are a nod to the Men In Black movies, which starred Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as smartly attired U.S. Government agents fighting alien invaders.

The Silence’s hands and heads — created by Neill Gorton, principal designer at Millennium Effects, the company which make all the Doctor Who monsters — are the only features that betray the fact they are aliens.

Made from Latex foam, the hands are bony-white and crumpled, while the triangular faces have no mouths, but human eyes sunk deep into the skull with traces of ears and a nose.

‘Humans will have been subconsciously aware of The Silence for many centuries and that awareness will have manifested itself in paintings such as The Scream,’ says Steven Moffatt, Doctor Who’s lead writer, who invented The Silence.

The new series will also feature Idris, described as a new take on an old character by producer Marcus Wilson, The Gangers, which are futuristic clones who carry out man’s dirty work, and The Siren (played by Lily Cole), a deadly creature who tempts people to their deaths.



So why do Doctor Who monsters so consistently give us the heebie-jeebies in the way that other scary creatures on TV do not? After all, The Silence have been created on a fraction of the budget afforded to movie monsters, and previous Doctor Who creations have even been made from scrap.

When the Daleks first appeared in 1963, each prototype cost £15 to make and the flashing lights on the top of their domes came courtesy of the indicator lights from Morris Minors.

Exterminate! The Silence have consigned the Daleks, left, to the Dusty Bin. Right, Munch's The Scream



An inventory of items from the BBC design, effects and wardrobe areas in the early Seventies shows Dr Who owed more to Heath Robinson than Hollywood.

Items used in the creation of creatures such as the Daleks — as well as The Yeti and Cybermen — included Sellotape, cardboard, modelling clay, polystyrene, potter’s plaster, hessian scrim, wax polish, resin, fibreglass acetone, plastic tubing, rubber foam, Perspex, brass and enamel paint.

Computer-generated imagery was still light years away. And there has always been the potential for farce, especially with the Daleks.

Their designer, Raymond Cusick, got the idea for their shape while fiddling with a pepper pot and the explosions they generated in the early days were down to the imaginative use of matches and a sparkler.

Back on screen: Arthur Darvill, Karen Gillan and Matt Smith in Doctor Who

‘They were simply a very fine creation,’ says Sylvester McCoy, who was the last actor to play Doctor Who before the show was temporarily mothballed in 1989, and who reckons the Daleks were crucial in making the show, despite their scratchy beginnings.

‘They established that a tea-time drama such as Doctor Who could be genuinely frightening and every monster and alien since has benefited from that legacy,’ he says.

‘I remember having Daleks in some of the episodes I did and the thrill that went around the rehearsal room when one of the Dalek voices first said the word: “Exterminate!”

‘The hair stood up on the back of my neck — this lovely feeling of fear, like when you’re young. Really exciting.’





The Daleks — described by their other creator, Terry Nation, as ‘hideous, machine-like creatures, legless, with no human features’ — are arguably the most famous monsters in Doctor Who history.

But the third doctor, Jon Pertwee, pointed to the way that nearly all of the Doctor’s enemies get close and personal as an explanation for why they are so scary.

‘It’s about finding frightening creatures in one’s backyard,’ he said in 1993. ‘Aliens are tolerable if they stick to their planet, but once they set foot here, our survival is thrown into doubt.

Finding Daleks on Westminster Bridge, is worse than finding them on an alien planet.’ Current producer Marcus Wilson reckons that The Silence will score in this new series by being so firmly on our doorsteps.

Having apparently lived among us for thousands of years, they are bound to send a shiver up our spines.

‘Doctor Who has the ability to play upon people’s fears, often carried from childhood,’ he says. ‘What made that sound under the bed, that shadow at the back of a cupboard, that sound on the floorboards at night?’

Doctor Who may hold the answers.