It’s fairly safe to say that anyone who calls themselves a fan of Doctor Who knows about Daleks, Cybermen, and Weeping Angels. Most have probably at least heard of Sontarans, Autons, the Ood, and the Silents, too. But with a series history over fifty years long, there have been a vast number of species introduced, of which many only make brief appearances. For most of them, one would likely have to watch multiple times even to catch their names.

Creatures of various ilk are a hallmark of the show, and one can’t help but speculate that writers sit around trying to out-weird each other with their creations. Sometimes there’s probably a hope in the back (or even forefront, in a few documented cases) of their minds that their new monster will be the next big hit, the next Daleks.

Mostly, though, these aliens are simply the means to an end—a way to tell the best story the writer knows how to tell at that moment. They serve one particular purpose, and then they’re never seen again. It’s some of these obscure species that I find charmingly bizarre.

Take, for example, the Chumblies (from Galaxy 4).

Not exactly creatures themselves, these blind robots hunted via sound and heat detection (which is why it’s not actually ridiculous for the Doctor and Vicki to hide so poorly behind that console). To the modern eye, they look silly and unsophisticated, but given that they had powerful weaponry aboard, there’s really no reason for the Doctor and his Companions to have been any less frightened of them than the (still new and not-yet-epic) Daleks.

In contrast, the appearance of the Bandrils (never seen except via video communique in Timelash) is sufficiently grotesque to give the viewer pause (until the Ambassador here opens its puppet-y mouth).

Somewhat ironically, this species is far less of a threat to anyone (aside from the society deliberately flouting a treaty and forcing their hand due to desperation borne of worldwide famine) than the Chumblies.

If you want to talk menace, though, there are a couple of other species that come to mind—one intelligent, the other not. For pure brute nastiness, consider the Shrivenzale (The Ribos Operation), set to guard Ribos’s Crown Jewels.

This guy’s another one-off creature, meant only as a guard dog obstacle for the active characters to get around. It doesn’t make the grade on the scary scale (not least because people crawling awkwardly on the floor in rubber suits really never have a prayer), but its general concept and fun-to-say name have always endeared it to me.

Then there’s the one that’s menacing because it’s a duplicitous jerk: Meglos, last of the Zolfa-Thurians (Meglos).

Yes, it’s a sentient cactus. How wonderfully bonkers is that, though? Who’d ever have thought that anyone could be afraid of a conniving cactus—and yet the character truly comes off as a threat. A megalomaniac (Meglos-a-maniac?) is going to mess up everyone else to get what they want no matter their native (or assumed) shape.

Sometimes you find a weird species that’s kind of in-between threatening and not. Helen A’s pet Stigorax Fifi (The Happiness Patrol) falls into that category.

Obviously, to her human(oid?) friend, Fifi was gentle and loving. To the Pipe People it hunted, it was a terror. The viewer was treated to both of those POVs, and so were left to decide for ourselves how we viewed the species, or at least the one individual we met.

Occasionally we meet a species who joins up with the TARDIS team as a direct ally for a particular adventure. Martha made friends with a Hath in The Doctor’s Daughter

though because her half of that storyline was so intertwined with him, his species feels to me more well established than some of these others I’ve mentioned.

When Martha went with the Doctor to the end of the universe in Utopia, though, they met a woman named Chantho, who was Malmooth.

Although I remembered Chantho, the way Jack flirted with her, and her role as Companion to the Master in his form as Professor Yana, I’d no memory of the name of her species until I did some digging for this post. Unlike Martha’s Hath friend, then, I believe Chantho (another of those ubiquitous last-of-her-kind folk) can be counted among the obscure.

Perhaps my favorite random one-off species of all, though, is the Menoptera (The Web Planet).

Like much of the First Doctor’s era, I found them laughable on first viewing. However, once I’d learned to appreciate those stories for what they are, I could see the Menoptera as distinct characters with interesting history and abilities. The costume design is so distinct that anyone who’s seen the serial would probably recognize the Menoptera instantly (even if they didn’t remember the name, or which story they were in), but I felt the fact that so many people eschew Hartnell’s episodes justified their inclusion in this list.

So which rarely seen species is your favorite? One of these? Perhaps the Tharils from Warriors’ Gate, the Ogri from The Stones of Blood, or even the Krarg from Shada? Or something entirely different? Share your thoughts in the reader poll and in the comments, and feel free to speculate wildly about what kind of weird beings we’ll meet next.

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