Favourite Audio Villains?

You beat to saying that. They need to be in more stories.

Number One - With A Bullet

The top of the heap is surely Nobody No-One. He may have only been in two stories but in A Death In The Family he's easily one of the Doctor's best ever foes with an unparalleled sense of "We can't all make it out of this one...". One of the tensest listens ever and a villain who caused the death of, well, I won't say as I know not everyone is up to date but it broke my heart and made me punch the air at the same time...he was the glue that made Big Finish's longest, most intricate arcs all tie together and work perfectly. It could all have built to nothing. But he was a worthy foe to really sell one of the best audios BF have ever made. Daleks and Master incarnations get beat all the time. Nobody No-One was a truly worthy foe, an almost impossibly difficult one -  and he changed things forever, and closed the curtain on so much too.

HUGE impact. Hard to talk about without spoilers, really. 

Runners Up

Scorchies are up there - I'll never forget walking home by the river on a ridiculously nice Spring day in 2013 listening to that when it just came out. Really treasured memory for some reason.

I want to add The Eleven as well, but he's been so entertaining and ultimately with The Twelve almost...redeemed that it seems hard to count him. I guess we can count that specific incarnation.

Dorney's Rocket Men deserve a mention. They've been fantastically versatile but I'd suggest in their first two Companion Chronicles they're at their best.

How about The Dalek Time Controller? Brought a new dimension (literally) to The Dalek Menace.

Toby Jones as Kotris. Again, bit of an odd one because of who he...well, spoilers for Dark Eyes...but who he really is. Straxus might not be an out and out villain but this regeneration most certainly is. That he's played by one of my favourite actors, well..that helps!

The Forge in general. Always seemed a more rounded background threat than, say, The Committee from Torchwood.

From my all time favourite audio The Holy Terror we get (another spoiler).... Eugene Tacitus. The story that first REALLY showed the breadth of what BF could do going from comedy to terrifying horror and Sam Kelly was the voice that made me believe it.

Bringing Up The Rear
Obviously there are a lot of villains of the month long come and gone but of the ones that stuck around, the most over-rated to me are The Eminence. I liked the idea of their arc being told in reverse but the stories were dull and I'm not sure if they weren't a Nick invention they would have gotten so much air time.

Ditto Cuthbert in the 4DAs. I love David Warner to bits but that character was rather flat and wasn't worthy enough to be the big bad of a full season then make a return further on down the line. Cuthbert's stuff just didn't do anything for me.

Initially, this is me being cheeky, I wanted to say Davros on a technicality. Big Finish have done so much to expand the character and create this truly complex and genuinely evil individual, but there's one character who helped enormously in that. His mother, Calcula, from the I, Davros series. I don't think we get a more resolute picture of why the war lasted as long as it did than through her. She has a singleminded drive for extermination that, well, the Daleks would inherit after a fashion through their creator. Her singleminded devotion to her son is also quite frightening. It goes beyond a mother's love into zealotry. Almost like a cult of personality. During those early years, I'd wager she's actually more dangerous than Davros. (I wonder what the Doctor would have made of her...?) 

Another one is Kwundaar from Primeval. One of the Old Ones in the tradition of the amorphous nasties floating around time and space we tend to bump into aboard the TARDIS. It would be very easy to take the idea of a villain whose very visage makes you go mad fall flat, but Parkin makes him stick by putting him(?) up against the Doctor. The Time Lord gains a glimpse -- and he screams. A long, gutteral scream. The kind made by terrified animals in pain. I'd have never known that the Stephen Grief here of Travis from Blake's 7, but hell, he makes one solid impression. The acting, the post-production, the writing, it all contributes to a quite memorable horror.

Seasons of Fear's Sebastian Grayle makes his mark almost immediately, coming to the Doctor and gloating that he's already killed him. This is an interesting case because we get to see Grayle throughout his own personal history. It's very personal in a way that we don't often get to see as -- from a certain perspective -- the Doctor is instrumental into making him into the villain he becomes. Little by little.

I can't choose a specific instance of this (and talking too directly on it would be spoilers), but I also want to mention Big Finish's recurring archetype of the figurehead shadow villain. Stories that deal with characters who discuss the effect of villainy and villainous figures as much as feature villains themselves. Tales like Memories of a Tyrant, The Sandman, The Children of Seth, and many others. That's a really good concept that writers keep tapping into occassionally in the well and it offers some great perspectives on the effect that villains can have on those around them. The people and their society. The Galyari, although not straightforwardly antagonistic, are one my favourite races as a result. Everyone reacts to the Sandman differently. Some in fear, some with disbelief and some seek revenge.

Why, Edward Grove, of course...

I'm also fond of the Rocket Men, that raygun pulp aesthetic is a great fit for the black and white days. I typically enjoy stories that use the audio format in ways that don't work on TV, so sound creatures from things like Whispers of Terror and Scherzo are nice.

If I can cheat a little bit, my best answer would be the Beevers Master, be he original recipe or extra crispy. His screen time on television was so brief (even counting Deadly Assassin) that he's really come into his own as the best of the lot at Big Finish.

After today I am tempted to answer the question....

Favourite audio villains?

With the answer...

Big Finish!

I really liked the iconography of The Eminence and do not believe they reached their full potential.

So I would really like a story with them as the main villains, without the Master and without the Daleks.

The Fifth Doctor travelling alone, like he was in The Burning Prince, witnessing “the breath of forever” and suffering the full force of The Eminence with their “infinite warriors”.

Return The Eminence to eminence!

I echo many of these choices, especially The Eleven and Nobody No-One. But I'd like to add a non-Doctor Who audio villain, The President from Blake's 7, played by Hugh Fraser. That character was never seen on TV, but he became essential in the audios. Especially after Jaqueline Pearce's death.

I also like the nasty cyberman trouble-shooter Zheng from Spare Parts.

I just remembered how much I liked the villain of Lake from one of the Diary of River Song series. A real psychopath if there ever was one.