DW Monsters: Cybermats

The Wirrn are the only new race introduced in season 12, with their story being followed by, in order:

• The Sontaran Experiment 
• Genesis of the Daleks  
• Revenge of the Cybermen

All of which feature their titular returning “monsters”. However, the last of these three does include, in addition to the Cybermen, their creations, the cybermats. These had previously appeared in a couple of Second Doctor stories, in slightly different form, and have also appeared once in the modern series. Outside the TV series, they have so far featured (typically quite briefly) in nine audio stories and one original novel – all, of which, of course, also include the Cybermen in more prominent roles. Two of the audios address the question of the cybermats’ origin and nature, which is probably the most detail we’re ever going to get on them; the two answers given are, however, contradictory.

DW Monsters: Wirrn

We don’t see any newly introduced races in the remainder of the first revived season after Dalek, but for the record, the relevant stories are:

• The Long Game – The “monster” here is the Jagrafass, which is, so far as we can tell, a unique being, not a race.
• Father’s Day – The Reapers are said to be completely impervious to damage, which makes them more of an obstacle than something that can be described with creature statistics so I will, at least for the moment, pass on them.
• The Empty Child – The real threat here are the nanites that create the empty children and they are only doing what they are doing because of a very specific malfunction. Thus, the empty children themselves are a one-off thing and the malfunctioning nanites are (game mechanically speaking) a disease, not a monster.
• Boom Town – features the Slitheen.
• Bad Wolf – features the Daleks.

With the Ninth Doctor’s run completed, I am heading back to the classic era, and looking at the monsters of the Fourth Doctor’s run. The first story of his run is Robot, which features a unique… robot… but after that, we get The Ark in Space, which introduces the Wirrn. 

Although we do briefly see a dead Wirrn in a later story, they otherwise do not appear again in the TV show. They do, however, feature in the 1998 novel Placebo Effect and in four audio stories. The most notable of the latter are perhaps Wirrn Isle, a direct sequel to The Ark in Space, and Wirrn Dawn, which is essentially Aliens with Wirrn instead of xenomorphs. As usual, a few comics and short stories round out the total.

DW Monsters: Daleks

The next story is Dalek, and it’s finally time to try and cover the most iconic, and frequently-used, of all the Doctor Who “monsters”. I’ve left them this long mainly because they’re such a big topic that it’s easier to do other races first, but also because they are quite complex. Given their greater number of appearances than Cybermen, it’s notable that they’ve changed rather less than that race has, but even so, and ignoring unique and variant individuals, I’ll need to cover at least three different versions in their evolution over the 60 years of the series so far.

Appearances

The race first appeared way back in the first season in 1963, as literally the first “monster” in the series’ history. That first appearance was followed by at least fourteen further Dalek stories in the classic series (arguably more, if you count brief appearances) with at least one for every Doctor up to the Seventh. As I write this, there have been sixteen unequivocal Dalek stories in the modern series, but such is their popularity that if you are reading this even one year after I penned it, there’s a good chance that that number will have increased.

DW Monsters: Slitheen

Next, we reach Aliens of London, which introduces us to the Slitheen. These turned out to be memorable, often being referenced in later stories, although only being the focus of one other, Boom Town, later on in the same season. They (or members of their species) have, however, also had major roles in three episodes of the Sarah Jane Adventures, as well as two original novels, and four audio releases to date – the latter including one Torchwood release and one other not featuring the Doctor. 

It may also be worth noting that the alien race the Foamasi, from the Fourth Doctor TV story The Leisure Hive, are essentially the same concept as the Slitheen, although they look quite different out of their skin suits and lack the biological peculiarities. They’ve proved less popular, only re-appearing in one of the ‘90s novels.

DW Monsters: Gelth

The third story in the revised series is The Unquiet Dead, for which the alien menace are the Gelth. They are a one-off monster in the TV series, and, apart from a few minor mentions here and there, have only appeared once since, and that in a short story, rather than anything more substantial.

Description and Biology

We are told that the Gelth were originally regular organic beings. They somehow lost their physical bodies during the Time War, becoming gaseous instead. How this would work is obviously unclear, but, in fairness, we have little idea from the TV series of how exactly the Time War was fought or what the weapons brought to bear in it were capable of.

DW Monsters: The Forest of Cheem

The second story of the modern show is The End of the World, which features quite a few different aliens. It’s difficult to say too much about many of them, however, either because they are represented only by a single individual (the Moxx of Balhoon), they aren’t really aliens (the Adherents), or both (the Face of Boe and Lady Cassandra). This leaves only the Crespallions, who don’t seem all that different from humans, and the Forest of Cheem.

The Forest have not appeared again in the TV series, but have returned in a couple of stories in the audio anthology Tales of New Earth (which reveals "Cheem" to be the name of a planet to which they were transplanted), and occasionally in the comics.

DW Monsters: The Nestene Consciousness

The first story of the modern series features the Autons, which I have already described. However, the story also features the creators of the Autons, the alien race known as the Nestene, and it is now time to look at those specifically.

One could argue that, strictly speaking, any Auton story is also a Nestene story. However, not all such stories include a direct appearance by a member of the race. In the TV series, we have only seen them directly twice, in Spearhead from Space and Rose, although they have perhaps been more common in the assorted spin-off media. But, for the most part, there is, as one might expect, considerable overlap and, unsurprisingly, there are no Nestene stories that don’t also feature Autons.