A good monster isn’t just a neat design and a memorable catch phrase; it taps into some deep and basic human anxiety and makes it animate. This is the nature of horror. The Daleks do this; the Cybermen do this.

The Master, as a villain, works dramatically because of his classic archetype: he’s just like the hero, except bad. He just serves to make the audience hate him, out of loyalty to the protagonist. Which is a strong way to go. Anger is just as good as fear.

Out of the new series, the Slitheen probably come the closest to something significant, in a children’s book sense: the idea of adults (especially petty, hypocritical adults) being ridiculous, childish monsters in disguise. Which children all know anyway, but here it is, made real! On that note…

Regarding Daleks

What makes Daleks work is that they embody more than pure nastiness. They’re pure, shrill, unreasonable nastiness. In theory at least, there’s no arguing with a Dalek; there’s no chance of discussion, no chance of compassion. They simply out-and-out hate you for the fact of being you. Whoever and whatever you are, if they get the notion and the chance, they will kill you out of that blind rage just because they can. And there’s very little stopping them.

This is the substance of many of my nightmares: accidentally crossing someone threatening, then doing everything I can to ease the situation, yet everything I say or do just digs me in deeper, makes the threatening person angrier, more violent, more crazed. And there’s nothing I can do to escape or halt the fury. This feeling is something that children, in particular, should understand well. Both the Slitheen and the Daleks call on senses of adults and authority at their worst; they just take different routes to a similar point.

Of course in execution they’re both more adorable than anything. Still…

While we’re here: although Davros is an interesting character, I’m not sure what he really has to offer on a primal level. He’s more of an abstract concept. And not even a very good abstract concept; I’m not sure that the Daleks need a creator, or that we need to meet him. That’s got nothing to do with what makes the Daleks work. Davros does have a right winning personality, of course. That’s pretty much what makes him. And that’s probably why the Big Finish audios are where he really shines.

The Boogieman vs. Dramatic Conceit vs. Mundane Menace

Doctor Who has a lot of “monsters” and villains like this, based on dramatic or thematic concepts rather than anxieties. Sometimes they can be rather sophisticated, as with the Silurians and Sea Devils: good conceits and neat designs, that don’t really have much in terms of boogieman credentials. So (aside from them looking and behaving oddly) there’s nothing really scary about them; they’re just interesting points of discussion.

Then there’s this third tier of monsters, just designed to look interesting and have a slightly alien culture or behavior. In the new series, the Ood are of about the same level as the Ice Warriors or Yeti or Sontarans. Well-developed and often nicely designed, yet (unless used in an insightful way) ultimately meaningless either from a primal or a dramatic perspective. They’re just pure abstraction, for the sake of having an original monster. With some of these, there is potential to pull a Silurians and justify them dramatically; it’s just not happened yet.

Someone objected that the Ood are clearly on a level far below the Ice Warriors or Sontarans, because as with the Yeti or Autons they have no self-determination. Which kind of misses the point, I think; neither do Cybermen and Daleks, really, classically. If anything, Ice Warriors and Sontarans are less of an interesting threat in that they are rational and they have their own agendas that don’t necessarily have anything to do with you personally. Neat designs, certainly. Yet they’re not boogiemen; they’re not out to scare you or get you. They’re just bullies and jerks. Keep out of their way and you’re probably fine. And again, they’re pretty much just dramatic placeholders. One proud warrior race is as good as another.

On the other hand, Autons do work (though I keep forgetting about them) because mannequins are sort of creepy to start with. It’s pretty common to see one out of the corner of your eye and not realize it’s a dummy until you turn and look at it full-on. The Autons to some extent seem to justify that existing fear. It’s not even just about mannequins, though they’re a convenient embodiment of that kind of fear. Imagining that (plausibly threatening) things are animate. Signs of life where there shouldn’t be, yet you fear there might be. Ties in to fear of shadows and snapping of twigs in the forest.

Curiously, all three of Moffat’s threats have been of the boogieman variety. They’re just so story-specific that they can’t easily be used again.