Now that my personal favourite classic monster, the Zygons, have made a souped-up appearance in New Who, I thought it would be interesting to reflect on all the classic monsters that have come back and which have been updated in the most effective and popular way.

So here’s a simple poll where you can cast votes for those monsters you thought benefitted from a revamp (big or small).

You can vote for more than one!

For me, the Daleks were utterly terrifying when they first returned. 'Dalek' was amazing, and their new weapons and abilities were just astonishing in "Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways". It was genuinely frightening to watch as they made their way through gamestation killing everyone (even poor old Captain Jack and Lynda!).

I think they have been a little overused since and somewhat watered down. Their second revamp at the conclusion of "Victory of the Daleks" looked liked a Christmas toy advert. I'm glad they've mostly reverted back to the Gold Daleks. But over all a great revamp that made them a real and relevant monster for a modern audience.

For me, the Cybermen have yet to have their 'Dalek' moment. I think its the new voices I like the least, and the fact they are more and more robot-like with each appearance. The whole tragedy of them having bits of human being still alive inside their metal shells becomes less important with each Cyberman story.

The Silurians revamp has worked simply because it has given us the superb Madame Vastra.

And the Sontarans have been fun over all. I don't mind (personally) that a lot of humour was introduced along with them, although I do appreciate some would have preferred them to have remained the deadly serious enemies from Time Warrior and Experiment.

The Zygons need another appearance before I can really decide if I like the new take on them, and the Ice Warriors seriously need to reappear. "Cold War" felt like an appetiser. I want more!

For me, it has to be the Daleks, followed by the Sontarans.

In The Parting of the Ways, the bit that scare me the most, well, made me jump, more to the point, was when the Dalek Emperor said, "They survived through me!" That really was unexpected, and sudden.

Apparently, a lot of people didn't know that the Emperor was going to return. It was a great moment.

I think the best Dalek moment since the show's return, was when Davros re-appeared in 2008, although Victory of the Daleks was good too. Especially when the Doctor forced the Daleks to remember him, by hitting one of them on their outer casing.

Daleks in Manhattan was an excellent piece of "Who" writing also. I absoloutely love the bit when The Doctor, Martha and Tallulah were in the tunnel, and a Dalek just cruised past them. You could hear the Dalek as it went by.

The daleks of course. The ice warrior in season 7 was a similar quality upgrade, need to see more. The new who Cybermen however have never matched the 60s version. Also disappointed with the zygons in day of the doctor, much better presented in terror of the zygons.

I chose the Sontarans, as I think they do a good job of matching the "nasty, brutish and short" description given by the Third Doctor. The make-up they use on the head is very good, and I like that the body armor looks more like something a warrior would wear as opposed to a sparkly jumpsuit. After "The Time Warrior", I was never a fan of the Sontarans costumes they used, I felt they declined in quality, and I was never sold on the shape and size of those heads on those tall bodies.

As for other monsters...

I think the Daleks have done a good job too, the bronze ones look like good tanks, and I'll even admit to liking the shape of the Paradigm Daleks for officer classes. I will say that they took a big mistep in terms of colors though; instead of being multiple bright plastic colors, they should have made them more uniform and metallic, the red Drones in "Asylum" looked good and could have easily done for the new default Dalek drone. I do feel worried however that because of the negative reaction to the Paradigm designs that they'll never give them a redesign again, which I don't want, since I want them to keep things fresh and mix things up every once and a while. Otherwise I know I'll grow tired of the bronze ones sooner or later.

The Cybermen have done mostly well here. I like that they've gone a more machine-like route, further separating them from their humanity, with the "Nightmare in Silver" being my favorite one so far. I will say that the Cybus one is a bit too much in places, with the loud stomping and the nonsensical DELETE.

I appreciate that Silurians have been given a more human-like design. The Ice Warrior shell looks like real armor and they got rid of that hair. The transformation for the Zygons was excellent and they were more understandable.

Generally, I think New Who has done a fairly good job with redesigning Classic Monsters. One of the reasons I want to see so many monsters return to the show is just to see what they would look like today.

Eccleston era Daleks.

I can't say I'm surprised the Cybermen are fairing so badly. I don't think any of the New Who writers have got them right just yet.

I think we really need a back-to-basics 'Genesis of the Cybermen' type story so viewers can really connect with where they came from and what/who they are underneath that metal shell.

Agreed - although I'm not sure about a genesis story, (the Cybermen have complicated-enough backstory as it is), an Asylum-style story where the Doctor is forced to travel through a cyber-city and interact with the Cybermen would give a good opportunity to elaborate on cyber-'culture', for want of a better word. How does their society run? Why do they want to upgrade everyone?

For heaven's sake, just make them something more than killer robots!

Yes, this!

Sure PC will love the challenge of battling cybermen durring his reign as doctor. If he does 3 years as most fans hope he will ger a chance to face and defeat lots of classic and new villains. Heard he faces the doctors old foe the daleks in his second episode. Should be a good one. Especially as he was "born" when 11 died fighting them at Trenzalore!.

The Daleks have been the best so far to me.
'Dalek' was amazing - the stronger armour, it's quick, versatile movements - and of course the 'elevation'!! They looked convincingly menacing - even the sink-plunger joke was cast away at last!!
The Lego Daleks were at least an experiment...and hopefully put into a joke museum by now!

Cybermen (my actual favourites of Classic Who) seemed a bit too robotic and bland - and they were wimps against the Daleks anyway. I preferred Troughtons Cybermen...and their spooky voices.

Zygons were quite impressive second time around - and looked the same, along with the Ice warriors. I hate when they change the aliens too much...........

......such as the Silurians!! That was a joke surely?? Looked nothing like the originals.

The Sontaran's were good too.....until Strax came into it. Now don't get me wrong - I love Strax and his gang (or Madame Vastra's Gang) - but it's taken the piss out of the war-mongering aliens really!!

I think they have been quite respectful in all re - imagined monster designs. Take the daleks for example, someone other than RTD could have come along and said that the 'mutant in a clunky shell' design was outdated and instead redesigned them like something similar to the human dalek in evolution of the daleks, but luckily both RTD an Moffats teams have done their best to stay faithful to the original designs in all their returning monsters, whilst making some look more realistic than would have been possible back in the day ( apart from Moffats 'new paradigm daleks' faux pax, which luckily they have realised were unpopular and gone back since to mostly using the RTD one's). More importantly, from what I've seen, the feel, aim's and objective's of the species brought back so far seem to match what they always were.

I voted for daleks, but Also 'others' because while they aren't really monsters I think both davros and the master were particularly good. Davros was still davros but looking a bit more solid than in the 80's where as with the master the whole character was brought right up to date for a 21st century audience, while still retaining the essence of the master.


Have to agree with this, I love strax and his relationship with Jenny and Vastra but after such exposure to him, it seems it would be hard for them to now do a story where sontarans are the threat and we are supposed to take them seriously, as they were able to do in series 4. Perhaps it would be possible if they started with some sontaran brutal battle scene's and later showed the sontaran's denouncing strax as an abomination and no longer a true sontaran. That would emphasise the difference between strax and the usual sontarans.

I want a return for Alpha Centauri .....

I just realised I forgot to add Autons to the poll . . although I guess they're covered by 'others'

Could have done without the CGI unmasked Ice Warrior in 'Cold War' Well made prosthetics, masks and make up work far better.

I think the new Silurian look is much better than the classic.

The fat arsed Dalek design was a disaster.

Quite liked the slimmed down look of the Cyberman of Nightmare In Silver, the uber speed concept whilst neat ultimately sucked as it leads to no end of 'Why doesn't it do it now' plot hole type thingy ma jigs, as happened towards the end the episode.

I'm not so sure - I think a jarring switch back to warlike Sontarans would work quite well. Even Strax was quite threatening when he 'reverted' in Name of the Doctor, actually he was pretty badass at the conclusion of the Crimson Horror too.

If anything, Straz has lured us into a false sense of security. A full-on 'nasty' Sontaran story would be quite a shock, but a good shock.

I love the new look Silurians, the more expressive face is really quiet beautiful.

Not that I don't like the new look of the other monsters but the elegance of the Silurians is a vast improvement.

yes, must admit I agree. This (for me) is an improvement on this.

This was the version on Star Trek Voyager's story 'Distant Origin' which was basically a direct steal of the Silurian story.

I think the designs anyway have been done well in general hence I voted for all but two I the list.
The Dalek design apart from the Victory of the Daleks different coloured version have been great. The Dalek Emperor in The Parting of the Ways, was big and imposing with the booming voice supplied by Nicholas Briggs a winner for me.
He does the Cybermen voices equally brilliantly. As for the designs, I like the faces of the Cybus version, but the bodies are looking slightly clunky when you watch them back. They now in Nightmare in Silver can dart forward at incredible speeds, which I don't know if I am too happy with actually. But the design in that story was an improvement.
Really liked the Zygons and Ice Warrior reimaginings as well.

Design wise, I think the Silurians and Sontarans have been a great success. I think the Sontarans could have been given a better story though.

The Daleks have been the most successful plot wise, but I think they were used too heavily during Tens tenure. The ice warrior was great, but I don't really see it having a future beyond Cold War - what could they do with them now?

The autons deserve a better, scarier story than they got in Rose. Obviously that episode had to carry a lot. It would be great to see them again. A story with Strax and the Sontarans as villains would be good too.

The Ice Warrior went down well, by the looks of things. Cold War was one of my favourite episodes of season 7 too.

I think there are two problems with the Silurians that if realised before going to air could have easily made them that much better in NuWho.

1) They are generally too nice. One of the great things about their original story (Doctor Who & the Silurians -easily their best story), was the balance between the Silurians with moderate but justified suspicious views of the human race and the one genuine bad egg who took charge.

2) Their eyes. The make-up in general, although different to their original incarnation is well done but they are left with what are very much obviously "human eyes" -those of the actors. If they simply gave the actors lizard like contact lenses they would look awesome.