10 Smartest Villain Plans In Doctor Who

WhatCulture

Some Doctor Who villains are far more cunning than others...

Transcript

00:00When you stand back and look at Doctor Who, the majority of the villains weren't all-powerful

00:04beings. They're scavengers, taking advantage of whatever's to hand to make the most of a bad

00:09situation. Maybe that makes them smart, maybe that makes them lazy, but whichever way you look

00:13at it, you'd be hard-pressed to find a scheme that wouldn't have succeeded if it wasn't for

00:18the Doctor's intervention. Pretty much every villain the Doctor has fought would have got

00:22away with it if it wasn't for the Doctor or their companion saving the day. And some of them had

00:27some pretty smarty-pants plans that we're genuinely impressed by. And so, with that in mind, I'm Ellie

00:33with WhoCulture, here with the 10 smartest villain plans in Doctor Who.

00:38Number 10. Miss Foster in Partners in Crime

00:41One surefire way to invade without resistance is to trick the population into thinking you're

00:47offering them something they want. That's the tactic Matron Cophilia under the alias Miss Foster

00:52took when she was tasked with finding a new breeding world for the Adipos.

00:56She capitalised on 21st century Britain's obsession with weight loss by distributing

01:01a too-good-to-be-true diet pill, which, when activated, turned excess human fat into Adipos

01:06babies. It's the one plan on this list that, in fairness, might have actually benefited

01:11humanity under more agreeable conditions. Even the Doctor eventually admits that as a

01:16diet plan, it sort of works. It's just the same that using a level 5 planet for breeding

01:20is against galactic law.

01:21Besides, Miss Foster had her eyes on much more than just weight loss. Ultimately, she

01:26planned to conduct emergency pathogenesis, a process by which human hair, bones and organs

01:32can also be converted, leaving nothing left. The Doctor was able to put a stop to the scheme

01:37by hacking the Adipos computer, but there was nothing he could do about the Adipos that

01:41had already been bred, other than let them live, which means that, to quote the Doctor himself,

01:45Ms. Foster's plan sort of worked.

01:489. The Master in Frontier in Space

01:51The first Master, brought to life so brilliantly by Roger Delgado, had his fair share of evil

01:57schemes, from the bonkers to the brilliant. Frontier in Space most definitely falls into

02:02the latter category. In the 26th century, humans and draconians are able to exist alongside each

02:08other, but allegations of attacks on each other's territory are rife, heightening tensions between

02:13the two species. The real culprit? The Commissioner of Sirius IV, otherwise known as The Master,

02:19who is using a hypnosound machine to disguise Ogrons as humans and draconians, with the intention

02:25of provoking a full-scale war. As revealed at the serial's end, this is part of a larger plan

02:31to pave the way for a Dalek invasion. Unfortunately, we never got to see the end result of this invasion,

02:37nor how The Master's alliance with the Daleks ended. In fact, Frontier in Space marks Roger

02:42Delgado's final appearance in the show, as he would tragically pass away shortly after the story

02:47first broadcast. Had he been around to feature in the following season, we might have seen an even

02:52more audacious scheme from this master. But as things stand, this is definitely his most ambitious.

02:598. The Ravagers in Flux

03:01The Ravagers, otherwise known as Swarm and Azure, were the overarching antagonists of Series 13,

03:07and for a while, we were constantly in the dark about their true motives. But if you stand back

03:12and look at it, their plan, though technically complex, is actually pretty simple. Swarm and

03:17Azure are the ultimate scavengers. Their initial aim is revenge against the Doctor and Division for

03:22imprisoning them all those years ago, and how do they go about doing this? By using Division's most

03:27powerful weapons against it. After building a psychotemporal bridge capable of reaching Division's

03:33space, the pair are able to complete the first part of their plan, doing away with head honcho

03:38Tectaeun. But their ultimate goal is to do away with all physical things in the universe. And how?

03:44By hijacking the Flux to create endless destruction and then using time to replay that destruction in

03:50an endless loop. If the Doctor hadn't managed to, in turn, hijack the Flux against them,

03:55the Ravagers would have succeeded, with devastating results for the entire universe.

03:597. Scaroth in City of Death

04:03Scaroth, last of the Jaggeroth, is a textbook example of making the most of a bad situation.

04:09When his ship exploded in prehistoric Earth, he was flung into the Time Vortex and split into 12

04:14splinters of himself, scattered across Earth's history. Scaroth's 12th incarnation found himself

04:20in Paris 1979, a period where, obviously, time travel had not yet developed. However,

04:26there was nothing to stop him developing it prematurely by conducting his own experiments.

04:30There was just one problem. Time travel experiments aren't cheap. Fortunately, one of Scaroth's

04:36splinters, Captain Tancredi, was a contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci, who he persuaded to paint a

04:41further six copies of the Mona Lisa. These could then be sold in 1979 to make a quick buck. In the end,

04:48Scaroth's ultimate plan, to go back in time and prevent his ship from exploding, was sabotaged. But his plan

04:53was very smart, and he was successful in one regard. When most copies of the Mona Lisa are destroyed

04:58in a fire, including the original, the only copy left is one of Scaroth's fakes. So, in a sense, we've

05:05got him to thank for the fact that the painting still exists today.

05:086. Missy in Dark Water and Death in Heaven

05:12The Master's regeneration into a woman was the single biggest change to the character in their then

05:1843-year history, as reflected by their temporary name change to Missy. But one thing that hadn't

05:24changed was the Master's knack for a good old evil plan. They'd always enjoyed playing the long game,

05:30but Missy took it to the extreme, establishing herself as a godlike figure and picking up the

05:35Doctor's departed friends in a series of cameos across Series 8, apparently set in heaven. Of course,

05:41the truth was a lot darker. In reality, this mystery location was the Nether Sphere,

05:46a cloud-based depository to which mines were uploaded and then downloaded into new Cyberman

05:52bodies. Missy's ultimate aim? To gift this new army of Cybermen to the Doctor as a birthday present.

05:59But there's more. How did the Doctor become embroiled in Missy's plan? Through his companion

06:03Clara, whose partner Danny was killed in a hit-and-run. Might Missy have been the one driving the car to

06:09ensure the whole chain of events was set in motion? Well, it's not the most unlikely, headcanon.

06:13Number 5. Davros in Revelation of the Daleks

06:17Missy wasn't the only one to take advantage of dead bodies. In fact, the Doctor's other nemesis,

06:22Davros, got there first, fashioning a new race of Daleks from the dead. And having established

06:27himself as the head of funeral parlour Tranquil Repose, he was perfectly placed to do so.

06:32This wasn't the only string to Davros's bow, however. Ever resourceful, he used the remains of

06:37these, well, remains to create a revolutionary new food source for a famine-ridden galaxy.

06:44This, in turn, bolstered his reputation as the philanthropic Great Healer, which enabled him to

06:49continue his experiments unnoticed. Like Missy, Davros used one of the Doctor's friends to lure him to

06:55his lair, the late Arthur Stengoss. Unlike Missy, however, his aims were more traditional,

07:00to conquer the universe. What he hadn't counted on was two of Tranquil Repose's staff allying

07:06themselves with the rival renegade faction of Daleks who were intent on recapturing Davros and

07:11putting him on trial, a goal they managed to achieve. In the commotion, he lost his surviving

07:16hand, hence why the Davros of the Revival series has a metal gauntlet.

07:21Number 4. Rasmussen in Sleep No More

07:24Like Miss Foster, Professor Gagan Rasmussen came up with a solution to one of humanity's biggest

07:30bugbears. Sleep. The average person spends one-third of their life sleeping. Rasmussen

07:34sought to do something about this. And he succeeded. His Morpheus pods, named after the God of Dreams,

07:40were capable of concentrating a month of sleep into five minutes, enabling its user to spend more time

07:46awake. They were loved by some and hated by others, but you can't deny that, at least in principle,

07:51it's not a bad idea. But there was a catch. When we sleep, dust builds up in the corner of our eyes.

07:57The more time we spend asleep, the more this dust builds up, and the electronic signal transmitted by

08:02the Morpheus pods had the unfortunate catch of giving this dust sentience, creating carnivorous sandmen.

08:08Which is kind of gross when you think about it. I mean, the sleepy dust in your eyes making creatures?

08:13Grim. The Doctor managed to destroy the Morpheus pods which hadn't yet been distributed,

08:17and sought to destroy all those that had. But Rasmussen, being a genius, had one more trick

08:22up his sleeve. A video recording into which the Morpheus signal was encoded, infecting anyone who

08:28watched it. And not just any video recording, but the very episode of Doctor Who we'd all just

08:33witnessed. Does anyone else feel like they need to rub their eyes now?

08:36Number 3. Rassilon in The Five Doctors

08:39As one of the founders of Time Lord Society, it was important that Rassilon maintained his position.

08:45So he designed a test, the game of Rassilon, for anyone who sought to usurp him. And in fairness,

08:51it worked. The challenge? To reach Rassilon's tomb in the Death Zone on Gallifrey. The reward?

08:57The Ring of Rassilon, which bestows immortality upon its wearer. At least this is what fellow Time

09:02Lord Berusa understood the game of Rassilon to be. But there was a catch. A riddle hidden in plain sight,

09:07inscribed on an obelisk in the tomb. To lose is to win, and he who wins shall lose.

09:14Though that clearly sounds like a warning, Berusa doesn't care one bit, as he discovers the Ring

09:19of Rassilon does indeed grant its wearer immortality, albeit not in the form of perpetual

09:24regeneration, but perpetual imprisonment, as a mummified face on the side of Rassilon's sarcophagus.

09:30It is quite different to the other plans on this list, since the Doctor was quite happy to stand

09:35back and let it reach fruition, but no less ingenious.

09:39Number 2. The Slitheen in Aliens of London and World War 3

09:43Let's face it, the Slitheen are remembered for one thing and one thing only. But forget about

09:47the flatulence, and you're left with a surprisingly canny, watertight plan.

09:52This was 21st Century Who's first fully-fledged alien invasion, and showrunner Russell T. Davis

09:57certainly pulled out all the stops, coming up with something truly special.

10:01It all begins with that iconic shot of a spaceship scuffing the side of Big Ben before landing

10:06in the Thames. Its pilot? A spacesuit-clad pig, designed to distract from the real aliens while

10:12they establish themselves at the heart of the British government. Their goal? To incite enough

10:17panic to initiate a third world war, reducing the Earth to smithereens, which can then be sold

10:22on the black market. Meanwhile, they can escape in their spaceship, conveniently parked at the

10:27bottom of the Thames. Staging a fake alien invasion in order to further your own is a frankly

10:32genius move, and quite unlike anything we'd seen in the show up to this point. It's never going to

10:37be the thing the Slitheen are best remembered for, but that doesn't stop it from being a genuinely

10:42brilliant plan.

10:43Number 1. The Monks in The Monk Trilogy

10:46The Monks are, without a doubt, the most duplicitous race to ever stage an invasion of Earth. For one thing,

10:52they had a lot of practice, using a highly sophisticated simulation of the planet to

10:57determine the optimum time and place to strike. For another, they rule not through force, but

11:02through a contract of consent. Once they've secured that consent by, for example, posing as saviors in

11:08the face of a genuine natural catastrophe and framing their dominion as the least worst option,

11:13there's no going back. The monks had used this strategy to conquer a multitude of planets,

11:17and Earth was no exception, the catastrophe in question being the accidental creation of a

11:22deadly bacteria. Fast forward six months, and they've subjugated the planet's population. For a

11:27time, it seems even the Doctor has fallen under their spell. Ultimately, though, Bill is able to

11:32corrupt the Monks' propaganda with memories of her mother, but if it wasn't for that, their reign might

11:37never have ended. What's more, unlike most villains on this list, the Monks escaped with their lives,

11:42and arguably in a stronger position than they were in before. It's surely only a matter of time before

11:47they just strike again. And that concludes our list. If you think we missed any, then do let us know in

11:52the comments below, and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe, and tap that

11:56notification bell so you never miss a Who Culture video again. Also, head over to Twitter and follow

12:00us there, and Instagram as well. I've been Ellie with Who Culture, and in the words of Riversong herself,

12:05goodbye, sweeties.

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