Oh, the series has had vampire-like creatures from time to time (State of Decay, most obviously). But they’re not as common as mindless minions.
I think if you’ll tally up the number of these over the years, you’ll find the golems are more common in the revival than in the original series. And that has a lot to do with the fact that zombies are very popular now as threats.
That’s all true, but the new series has deliberately undercut the depersonalization of the enemy from time to time. The first time the the Doctor encounters the new Cybermen, he destroys them by restoring their humanity and is clearly anguished about doing so. He exiles the other Doctor for committing genocide against the genocidal Daleks (although he has been willing to do so himself from time to time), and brings down the British Prime Minister for destroying an alien fleet that had threatened the earth. The Ood are treated more-or-less like mindless cannon fodder in their first appearance but not without comment, and in the second appearance they are shown to be more complex than they appear.
I’d say it’s partially as a counterpoint to how the Doctor is just one person (well, you know what I mean). The bad guys have organisations, history, plans spanning many years and an overall scheme - the Doctor is one guy who turns up in the middle of it all and mucks everything up. With organisations, we can know what their plans are and how they’re going to go about them - with the Doctor, we often don’t have a clue what he’s about to do next. Even when he has assistants, they don’t tend to do a huge amount of assisting. It’s the well-oiled machine, chugging along at a certain pace and producing a certain end product, thrown entirely out of whack by the odd spanner.
Although I think I agree with your overall point, in the revival episodes alone we’ve seen Rose, Mickey, Jack, Martha, Astrid, and Donna pull the Doctor’s bacon out of the fire, some of them multiple times. Most of the “classic” companions had their moments too.
True, but when they do, it’s a Thing, as opposed to the Doctor saving them or doing something minorly good, which is expected. In other words, the big thing about them helping is often the fact that they’re doing it at all - for the Doctor, we know he’s going to save the day, it’s just what he does that’s the interesting point.
I think that the established image of the Doctor is that he won’t kill, or kills only with extreme reluctance. Unsentient robot/golem/statue enemies can be offed in bulk with a clean conscience, allowing the plot to have some action.
On preview, I see the Irishman has already made this point.
Plus, the Slabs had kind of a “Stig-esque” feeling to them, it’s a good thing they weren’t given access to cars…
“Some say he’s looked into the fire of the Nightmare Child, some say he’s older than time itself, all we know, is he’s called The Stig”
You’re forgetting the renegade Timelord Morbius, owner of the titular Brain of Morbius. His brain lived in a tank and complained about how it used to be a galactic tyrant and was now reduced to envying sponges, while his body {his new body: his old one was destroyed by the Timelords after his trial and execution}, which was sewn together from bits of assorted crash victims from alien spaceships, lay on a four poster bed and twitched occasionally while his brain surgeon henchman Solon plottted to steal him a suitable head, so he could then
a/ Insert brain in head
b/ Attach head to body
c/ Resume despotic career
Cheated out of the Doctor’s head, Solon was reduced to using a beta test version fishbowl-with-eyestalks artificial bonce to encase Morbius’ brain, which when attached to his ad hoc ramshackle body caused the whole assortment of oddments to go on a mindless killing rampage {dropping the brain on the floor during the operation probably didn’t help}, prompting the following exchange:
"Where’s the monster?’
“Gone for a lurch”
Long story short, Morbius recovered his sanity and genius, but lost it again mental thumb-wrestling with the Doctor, who almost died but got better. The crazed shambling beast Morbius then went for another lurch, and was finally driven over a cliff to plummet to his doom. And they should really, really bring him back: enough of Daleks and Cybermen, let’s have an encore for the renegade Timelord Morbius, that brain-in-a-fishbowl-sewn-to-a-carnival-sideshow of a scheming galactic tyrant.
I think you’re mixing together a few different things here. One is the use of henchmen. This is a venerable trope, but it’s not as much used on Doctor Who as you suggest. Only a few of the villains you mention were actually henchmen. The clockwork men, the gasmask zombies, the Victorian zombies, and to some extent the Cybermen and the Ood weren’t just assistants supporting a main villain, but multiple independent (if somewhat mindless and uniform) enemies in themselves.
The second is the use of faceless, emotionless monsters (usually in large numbers). This is more common, (as noted above). I say faceless rather than mindless because the clockwork men and the Cybermen are more than just automatons - they have the ability to think and act creatively, but the blank faces and lack of communication are part of the horror. This is largely lazy writing, but it’s also one of the most effective horror tropes that gets used a lot because it works. Especially in a family show where other horror techniques might not be suitable. The Father Chrismasses were especially egregious, though, as were the “Heavenly Host” in another Christmas Special.
This goes along with another trope, of using everyday objects as villains: department store mannequins, garden statues, Father Christmasses (already mentioned), and in the classic show, candy company mascots (there - I said it - now let’s all try to forget it again, shall we). Again, a very effective technique for creating fear in a family show - making the ordinary frightening.
The last is the use of actual golems - the Slabs (which were made of leather), the Autons, the scarecrows. Partly I think this goes along with the previous trope, but I also think it’s a result of a deliberate attempt to create an underlying sort of Whoniverse science that doesn’t rely on antimatter streams or tachyon fields. Instead it embraces the idea that sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. A magic-science user doesn’t need purpose-built equipment but can use whatever is handy - plastic, leather, straw - to do its bidding. At first, this bothered me, but it became one of my favorite things about the new show. It’s perfectly consistent and it gives a unique feel to the universe. Plus, it’s more creative and in its own way more believable and less obtrusive than the old reverse-the-polarity-of-the-neutron-flow technobabble.
Fang and I watched this episode (arc?) last week. While he did a fair amount of watching from behind the couch, he has declared Doctor Who to be “very awesome.”
Also, I think the henchthings are often slow-moving to allow for the “running away” that forms such a large part of the Doctor’s tactical genius.
Why does everybody feel ashamed of the Kandyman? He was a great villain! Come on people, he was a queenie frankenstein made of sweets! How can it get better than that?
I’ll agree that The Happiness Patrol did have lots of weaknesses (though it’s still pretty good), but the Kandyman wasn’t one them.
Asked . . . and answered. I didn’t say I didn’t like him, just that I try to forget him!