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Confession #8: I’d Love to See More Classic Baddies (and Think We Will)

Part of the bread and butter of Doctor Who is introducing new creatures to be antagonists for the Doctor.  Writers experiment with it, thrive on it, even cash in on it (~cough~TerryNation~cough~).  Despite our perceptions, though – thanks mostly to institutions such as the Daleks and the Cybermen – most of them show up no more than twice.  So it’s not surprising that we end up with such one-offs as the Sycorax, clockwork robots, the Carrionites, the Vashta Nerada, and the Krafayis (some of which fully deserve to remain relegated to the annals of history).  We’ve also, however, had recurrences of the (rather regrettable) Slitheen, the Ood, and the Weeping Angels as well as the return of the Autons, the Sontarans, and (WTF?) the Silurians.

But what I really want to see is more links back to some the more interesting – and not yet overused – pre-RTD-era baddies.  Here I’m thinking of entities such as the Toymaker, the Black Guardian, the Valeyard, or Omega.  In fact, all of these crossed my mind at one point or another as a possibility for the culprit behind the as-yet-unexplained Silence and reason for the TARDIS’s explosion in Series Fnarg.  And while Toby Jones’ brilliantly creepy Dream Lord could well have been interpreted as another aspect of the Valeyard, I don’t honestly think either the Valeyard or the Toymaker are good fits for the Big Bad of Series Six.  My money (and a huge pent-up fangirl squee, if this wishful thinking pans out) is on Omega.

It’s recently been brought to my attention that I’m behind the curve on this idea.  So I’m certainly not an original thinker on this front, but I submit that I am at least an independent thinker (like Newton and Leibniz, or Hertzsprung and Russell).  Suffice it to say, I had the idea myself – it sprang from the murky depths of my own fandom, not from cruising others’ forum posts.

All that aside, why do I like the idea of Omega’s return?  For starters, the character is 100%, completely, utterly, and in all ways stark-raving mad (and who doesn’t love that kind of villain?).  He’s already tried to destroy the entire universe when he was thwarted before, so why wouldn’t he try again?  It also makes sense that he would use the Doctor’s TARDIS as the vector for destruction, since it was the Doctor who prevented his return twice before.

Another intriguing tidbit about Omega is that for countless eons, he has been trapped in an alternate universe, having been converted entirely into antimatter.  It would give him both motive and a method as plausible as any Who science for getting to the TARDIS and rigging it to explode.  Who knows, maybe it would even lead to enough of a universal change to allow Omega to transfer himself back through to his native dimension.

Of course, I have no idea how any of this would fit in with the resolution of River Song’s story, which – since posting Confession #5 – I’ve read is supposed to be wrapped up this series.  Is River really Omega in disguise?  (Nah – that’s patently ridiculous.)  Do River, Amy, and Rory have to save the Doctor from Omega, or is River secretly in his employ?  None of those ring true; my imagination isn’t yet good enough to find a way to mesh those two characters in a believable plot.  Maybe it’s too much even to ask of the Grand Moff.

But I’ve got a squee saved up, just in case.