Peter Capaldi’s first series as The Doctor is almost at an end. All that’s needed now is for him to defeat an army of Cybermen (really, again?), outwit Michelle Gomez, and sort out Clara’s acutely troubling love life.

But Doctor Who isn’t just about the Time Lord – though Capaldi’s one-liners have been tip-top this series. It’s also about the alien foes he encounters, adding yet more sci-fi beings into an already bloated Whovian universe.

We’ve ranked all 11 of his extra-terrestrial nemeses this season – old and new. Where have your favourites ended up?

11. The Skovox Blitzer (Ep. 6 – The Caretaker)

Trailing in last place is this scuttling military robot – described as “one of the deadliest killing machines ever created”. Well yes… Except it looks like it was assembled in a Mattel factory.

Maybe if we’d seen it destroying the entire US Army – rather than one unfortunate Community Support Officer – we’d be more in awe.

10. The Cybermen (Ep. 11/12 – Dark Water / Death in Heaven)

Cybermen
(BBC)

Although this was one of the best outings for modern Cybermen, we stick by our belief that they should never have been brought back.

The bit where they were submerged in “dark water” like creepy skeletons was admittedly cool. But all that was ruined as they staggered out of St Paul’s looking like a wobbly mob of sci-fi extras.

9. The Moon’s “germs” (Ep. 7 – Kill the Moon)

There’s something on the Moon! And at first we all wondered whether it was just these rubbish little spider things. If that had been the case, frankly we would have stopped watching the series then and there.

As it transpired, the Moon was a giant egg and these were just its germs. Imaginative, but not a reason to rank them highly.

8. Robot Knights (Ep. 3 – Robot of Sherwood)

Three episodes in and we were worried that all the villains in this series would be in some way robotic.

This Robin Hood outing was absolutely bonkers. The Doctor’s one-liners were sharp, but Ben Miller as the Sheriff was no Keith Allen/Alan Rickman/Disney-drawn wolf. The robots just seemed to be there because something had to be capable of killing things.

7. Daleks (Ep. 2 – Into the Dalek)

The Daleks would usually come higher than this. But there was a general feeling across social media that maybe they’ve been wheeled out one too many times recently.

Thankfully, an emotive exploration of whether a Dalek could feel anything but hate managed to move the story of these stair-phobic pepper pots forwards a little.

6. Half-face Man (Ep. 1 – Deep Breath)

These Dickensian robots were fairly creepy – they were stealing the organs and skin of Victorian Londoners after all. Only being able to evade them by holding your breath also made for some tense scenes.

Well up there on the controversy rankings too: These baddies facilitated Doctor Who’s first “liz-bian” kiss.

5. The Teller (Ep. 5 – Time Heist)

He didn’t have a huge amount of support from the fans, but we thought the Teller was a top beastie. That bit where he turns brains into soup with his mind, leaving the victims’ heads looking like deflated volley balls – great!

Also his ultimate release into the wild with Mrs Teller was deeply moving.

4. The unknown entity (Ep. 4 – Listen)

Now we’re getting into the properly scary monsters. Whether it was rising up behind you like a ghostly blanket, or banging on a spaceship door at the end of the universe, this thing played on all our fears.

It would have ranked even higher if we’d managed to work out whether it was actually real or not…

3. Missy (Ep. 11/12 – Dark Water / Death in Heaven)

Missy in Doctor Who
(BBC)

SPOILER ALERT: Michelle Gomez’s character Missy is actually… The Master. It was a great revelation, and maybe one step away from an actual female Doctor next time?

Her truly unhinged performance (you’ve gotta love a gal who keeps Cybermen in fish tanks) made her a very convincing evil Time Lord indeed. She might even have topped this list if we’d been able to stop thinking about Green Wing…

2. The Foretold (Ep. 8 – Mummy on the Orient Express)

A really classic bandaged mummy look, plus some very chilling twists. Just imagine the dread of something that you can only see when it’s 61 seconds away from killing you. A true “mummy’s curse” tale – but in space!

Also, like all the best Whovian foes, his story was properly tragic – a loyal soldier who had simply never been told to stand down.

1. The Boneless (Ep. 9 – Flatline)

2D monsters
(BBC)

There maybe hasn’t been a scene more inexplicably disturbing in this series than all those two-dimensional aliens lurching along that train tunnel.

Although we’re not quite in Weeping Angels territory, their method and motivation of killing (fiddling round with humans’ dimensions in order to understand them) was incredibly sinister.

Like all the greatest aliens in Doctor Who, overcoming them involved a lot of ingenuity on the part of our heroes.