Recurring Dr Who monsters and villains, number of appearances and when we first saw them

[purplecat]

Daleks (20 - depending how you count): 1963
The Meddling Monk (2): 1965
The Cybermen (12 - depending how you count): 1966
The Macra (2): 1967
The Yeti/Great Intelligence (2): 1967
The Ice Warriors(4): 1967
Autons/Nestenes(3): 1970
Silurians and Sea Devils (2 each, 3 in total): 1970
The Master (21 - depending how you count): 1971
Omega (2): 1972/73
The Sontarans (5): 1973
Davros (5): 1975
The Black Guardian (4/2 - depending how you count): 1979
The Mara (2): 1982
Sil (2): 1985
The Rani (2): 1985
The Slitheen (2): 2005
Cassandra (2): 2005
The Ood (2): 2006
The Judoon (2 - depending how you count): 2007

I feel there should be some way to plot this information to demonstrate diminishing returns. I also feel it's telling that the Slitheen are the only recurring monster to be created in the the four years of the new series which really should have been aiming quite high in that department.

EDIT: Forgot the Ood, who are a much better monster than the Slitheen. Perhaps because I don't actually view them as a true monster or villain, but by that reasoning the Silurians and Sea Devils and the Ice Warriors are also debatable entries.

EDIT 2: Not to mention the Macra, Autons/Nestenes and Omega. I'm clearly not as good at this as I used to be - I assumed I'd spot everything simply by looking down a list of stories. Fairly sure I would have done in my teens!

EDIT 3: Now we've got the Judoon in that list it, looks more like the Cardiff team have made a fairly serious stab at a "new" monster each year. Of which I'd say the Ood are the most successful but the Judoon are perhaps the most likely to appear again.


WHO DAILY: <lj user=louisedennis> has a list of <a href=http://louisedennis.livejournal.com/80320.html>recurring Dr Who monsters, their number of appearances and date of first appearance</a>

Comments

[purplecat]

Part of the reason I started this list was a feeling that nu who hadn't been trying on the monster front but, with philophlegm's help I think it quite clear that they have and my perception is probably based on the fact I'm not watching it the same way.

That aside, I think it interesting that there are those two huge successes early on in Doctor Who's history. Of course, without the Daleks, there probably wouldn't be any Who now and I'm sure I read somewhere that a decision was made by the production team to heavily push the Cybermen, partly because they were concerned they might lose the rights to the Daleks. Certainly they first appear October 66, then February 67 (the Daleks get what was meant to be their last appearance May 67 - end of that season) and the Cybermen open the next season in September 67, appear again April 68 and November 69 - so the production team was commissioning Cybermen stories every six months for three years which helped fix them in the public mind and I don't think that has been quite so deliberately done with a monster since except, perhaps for the Slitheen (the surrounding publicity for the Slitheen very much made me think they were being put forward as the next monster in the pantheon).

Anyway after those first two (and you could argue that the popularity of the Cybermen was not a natural phenomenon) you get a handful of monster through the late 60s and early 70s which have legs (and the Master - another manufactured phenomenon who appeared in every story of the season which introduced him). Then that odd period 75-79 coinciding which the era of the classic shows greatest popularity when there seems to have been little interest in reusable monsters/villians. Then in the 80s there are several attempts at new recurring monsters/villians but I think its debatable that any are particularly successful or enduring.

The new series, as you point out, is hard to judge. The Slitheen, I think, are the only monster to have had a second story comissioned before the first has aired (a la the Cybermen and the Master) and they seem an odd choice since the farting does stop them having the broad appeal across the family audience you probably want from a recurring monster (they work much better in the Sarah Jane Adventures, I think, which doesn't have a remit to try and engage Mummy and Granny as well). At the moment it looks more like a series of experiments, like the 80s and, not being around in school playgrounds of the right age its hard to tell which ones are enduring in people's minds.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Debating this with philmophlegm last night, we also felt that recurring might not necessarily be the sign of a great monster - the Angels from Blink should probably qualify, but that at the same time, they would be hard to re-use in a new story.

[purplecat]

Of course not. But I'm fairly sure it correlates!