The 10 Most Powerful Doctor Who Characters

For more than 60 years, Doctor Who has certainly embraced the weird and wonderful; a whole Whoniverse to play with means there’s no limit to the bizarre species and characters the show can create, and over the decades this British institution has introduced fans to all sorts of strange and mighty figures. Some are enemies of the Doctor, some are allies, and a few are actual Gods! Given the quite frankly enormous range of potentially universe ending battles the Doctor has found himself in over the years and the range of extraordinary friends and foes alike that he encounters on his travels, one question that’s sure to spark a debate among Whovians is “Who are the most Powerful Doctor Who Characters?”

Some answers might encompass whole species like the Daleks or the Cybermen, and while that’s a valid response, (a single Dalek can certainly do untold damage!) we believe raw might (in the all-guns-blazing, superior-weaponry sense) doesn’t always make you the most powerful. There’s an argument to say that these most iconic of Doctor Who villains only appear powerful because of their fearsome reputation, a tendency to exterminate on sight and sheer numbers. Sometimes the characters who are truly unstoppable can come from the most humble and unexpected of places. Individuality and creativity (unlike the uniformity of a Cyberman or a Dalek) often sets the truly powerful apart.

From the gods of the Whoniverse to capable comrades of the Doctor to Time Lords, here are our picks for the ten most powerful Doctor Who characters—ranked.

10) Kate Lethbridge-Stewart

In the periods of the Doctor’s absence, the daughter of the legendary Brigadier, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart has become one of Earth’s most important defenders. As head of UNIT, she commands a global organization with access to hordes of alien technology, impressive military might, and even time travel resources.

Unlike most on this list, Kate is entirely human—but her sharp mind and leadership abilities make her one of the most powerful figures in the Whoniverse. When Earth is threatened, Kate doesn’t just call the Doctor—she takes charge herself, and though the Doctor often ends up joining the party late on, she’s dealt with many an alien crisis without the Doctor’s guidance, while having the intelligence to defer to The Doctor’s expertise and ask for help when she needs it. Recognizing strength in numbers and experience, she brought together many former companions of The Doctor who took it upon themselves to save the world themselves, Doctor or no Doctor.

9) Captain Jack Harkness

A charming conman turned reluctant hero, Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) began life as an ordinary mortal, a human from Earth in the 51^st century. But thanks to the Bad Wolf’s intervention, (more on that later) Jack became something much stranger: a living fixed point in time. He simply cannot die. Shot, blown up, poisoned, suffocated—Jack always comes back, often just minutes later. Immortality of course gives him an edge in nearly any battle, though he still feels pain and suffers along the way, but it’s not just his immortality that makes him so powerful.

Though he’d probably never admit it, Jack is a born leader and not afraid to make the tough decisions. Like Kate Stewart, he takes it upon himself to become a defender of Earth in The Doctor’s absence and, similarly to Kate, he has the alien tech and resources to do it, having taken over Torchwood after the battle of Canary Wharf (John Barrowman becoming the star in his own show in the hugely successful spin-off). But unlike Kate, the Captain has age and experience behind him, having lived for 100’s of years by the time we see him in Torchwood and coming from the future. Over time, Jack even gives rise to a whole new species, Boe-kind, becoming the Face of Boe, an ancient entity who lives for billions of years. He’s proof that sometimes survival itself is the greatest power.

8) Madam Kovarian

Though not a God or a cosmic entity, Madam Kovarian earns her place on this list due to her sheer cold-blooded cunning. A member of the Order of the Silence, Madam Kovarian orchestrated perhaps one of the Doctor’s only and most painful defeats by kidnapping Amy Pond right under the Doctor’s nose, manipulating her newborn daughter Melody’s DNA to turn her in to a Time Lord, then kidnapping the baby, and raising her as a perfect weapon against the Doctor—River Song. Madam Kovarian might actually be one of the only characters who outsmarted the Doctor, understanding his methods and way of thinking better than any other adversary.

She understood that she had to ‘let the Doctor win’ in order to get him to let his guard down and while she was still ultimately unsuccessful in her aim of killing the Doctor (failing to account for the fact that River might develop feelings for the man she’s been trained to assassinate), few characters have so successfully gone up against The Doctor. What’s more, she managed to gain a semblance of control over perhaps one of the most powerful species in the Universe, The Silence, (who given their ability to delete themselves from a person’s memory the second they look away are a formidable foe), she has them somewhat under her thumb in “The Wedding of River Song,” until the Doctor intervenes. Though her plans ultimately unraveled, Madam Kovarian proved the little guy is not to be underestimated.

7) Davros

He may not be the most obvious choice for the list, but when you think about it, few individuals in Doctor Who are responsible (albeit indirectly) for as much death and destruction as Davros and have as much power behind them. The twisted Kaled scientist was responsible for creating the Daleks, who are of course one of the most powerful and unstoppable races in the universe—one of the major players in the Time War and one of The Doctor’s most fearsome foes. Though often betrayed by his creations, and even referred to by The Doctor as their ‘pet,’ Davros none the less manages to form a sort of paternal relationship with the Daleks and has some semblance of control over them, which is more than can be said for any other character. At the very least they don’t try to exterminate him on sight.

Davros himself is somewhat frail having given much of himself, even his body, to his experiments and creating new generations of Daleks, but his mind is one of the deadliest weapons in the galaxy. You have to be pretty damn smart to create one of the deadliest killing machines in the universe. Through sheer intellect and malice, he cemented his place among the Doctor’s greatest enemies. When you think about it, every battle The Doctor has with the Daleks is a battle with Davros.

6) The Black Guardian

An ancient entity representing the forces of chaos, The Black Guardian may be less well known to newer Whovians, as unlike many other classic villains, he hasn’t (yet) been brought back during the shows reboot, meaning he has somewhat faded in to obscurity. The Black Guardian was an ancient and malevolent force, and the embodiment of chaos and evil within the Universe. First introduced in “The Armageddon Factor,” he was constantly locked in battle with The White Guardian, who represented order. Together, they kept the balance of creation itself. The Black Guardian, however, always sought to tip that balance toward darkness.

Able to oversee all of time and space, disguise himself, and grant power to his disciples, and even breach the TARDIS shields, The Black Guardian is essentially an all-powerful God of evil. The Black Guardian gains strength the more evil is in the universe, which, as you can imagine, made him extremely powerful and very difficult to defeat. Though thwarted by the Doctor, The Black Guardian could only be defeated by goodness, which was even more difficult, making him easily one of the most powerful characters on the show.

5) The Toymaker

The Celestial Toymaker (first portrayed by Michael Gough) is the God of Games, a member of the Pantheon of Discord. Coming from beyond our universe, he isn’t bound by the rules of physics as we know them—only the rules of his own games, which makes him uniquely dangerous. From his first appearance in Season 3, in “The Celestial Toymaker” (1966) where he made the Doctor invisible and even removed his voice at one point, the Toymaker demonstrated his power, by showing his complete control over the Doctor’s physical form. From trapping victims in his Toy room to collapsing buildings with a thought, the Toymaker’s abilities are essentially limitless. He even imprisoned the Master inside a gold tooth.

The Toymaker returned with a bang in one of Doctor Who’s three 60^th anniversary episodes “The Giggle,” with the iconic Neil Patrick Harris taking on the part. He unleashed chaos on Earth with little more than a snap of his fingers—and a cheeky Spice Girls dance number. The Toymaker earns his place on the list because he essentially killed The Doctor, splitting them in two with the galvanic beam, and triggering the Doctor’s bi-generation. Arguably The Doctor only won because there was two of them. The Toymaker’s weakness is that he’s bound by his own rules of play, and leave it to the Doctor to find a loophole and make it two against one… But the Toymaker is still at large, and he left with a sinister final warning. With his “children” now loose in the universe, his legacy of chaos may have only just begun.

4) Sutekh

Known as the bringer of death and the destroyer of worlds, in his first appearance in classic Doctor Who in the Season 13 serial “Pyramids of Mars” (1975) we encountered a Sutekh imprisoned beneath a pyramid on Earth by his fellow Osirans. But even in captivity he became a terrifying adversity to the Doctor from the start, able to dominate and control minds—including (temporarily) the Doctor’s—and destroy star systems. In the end, The Doctor is only able to beat him by trapping him in a Time Tunnel without end.

When Sutekh returned (now apparently in the form of a giant dog…) with Gabriel Woolf returning to voice the part in Season 1 of Doctor Who’s latest reboot, it turns out that he had somehow survived by clinging to the TARDIS and he has been a silent passenger ever since, which takes some serious strength. In “The Legend of Ruby Sunday,” and “Empire of Death,” he demonstrated power on a scale rarely seen, turning the entire cosmos into a lifeless desert and creating ‘harbingers’ to herald his coming. Seemingly unstoppable, Sutekh is a literal god of death and destruction and a worthy foe for the Doctor. However, he is eventually defeated by being towed through the space time vortex on a leash, so… you do the math.

3) The Master

The Master is The Doctor’s sworn archenemy, a true nemesis who has been with The Doctor since they were children on Gallifrey. A fellow Time Lord, The Master is, in a sense, a dark reflection of The Doctor. Showing us a Time Lord’s power and dangerous potential, he is everything the Doctor is not—but also everything the Doctor could be were they to use their intelligence and skillset for evil rather than good. Where the Doctor inspires and heals, the Master manipulates and destroys. We’re placing him in the third spot on the list because The Master never really loses. Yes, The Doctor might foil his plans, but you often get the sense the Master is almost expecting them to; it’s all something of a game to him.

He’s returned countless times across multiple regenerations just like the Doctor—sometimes more of a suave schemer (Sacha Dhawan), sometimes as a pure unhinged maniac (John Simm), sometimes as the mysterious “Missy,” (Michelle Gomez) but always with a deadly plot or two up his sleeve. The Doctor might beat The Master, but they never can quite shake him, and he does untold damage each time he pops up. Though the Master’s power isn’t as obvious as any of the Doctor’s godlike foes, his cunning, relentlessness, and unpredictability make him one of the most powerful characters in Doctor Who. He’s a worthy opponent for The Doctor because the two are just a little too similar and too evenly matched for comfort.

2) The Bad Wolf

The ‘Bad Wolf’ entity was born when Rose Tyler looked into the heart of the TARDIS and absorbed the Time Vortex itself, the knowledge and power of the Universe temporarily transforming her into a near-omnipotent being. Unlike some other entries, The Bad Wolf version of Rose does earn her place on the list due to raw power. Despite only having a relatively brief appearance at the end of “The Parting of the Ways,” in mere moments, the Bad Wolf Rose disintegrated an entire Dalek fleet, resurrected Jack Harkness, granting him immortality, and rewrote history to scatter the words Bad Wolf across time and space in order to ensure Rose got the message, leading to her own creation.

The Bad Wolf’s power was so immense it would have eventually killed Rose’s human body, burning it out—perhaps her only weakness. To save Rose, the Doctor was forced to absorb the time vortex energy out of her (with a suitably cheesy but long-awaited kiss), forcing him to regenerate. All we can say is that we’re glad the Bad Wolf was a force for good, with just enough of Rose Tyler’s memory and morals remaining that she was thankfully on The Doctor’s side. We never got to see that much of the Bad Wolf (though some fans have speculated she might somehow be returning with Ncuti Gatwa’s shock regeneration into Billie Piper in the last series finale), but it’s this ambiguity that has lead to her being placed so high on the list. Had she become a force of evil, from what we saw of her, she might well have been unstoppable. After all, she had the raw power of all of time and space behind her.

1) The Doctor

The Doctor earns their rightful place at the top of our list because quite frankly—they always win… well, almost always. The Doctor isn’t usually the strongest entity in the room, at least not in the sense of physical strength; they don’t possess universe bending powers, and they never carry a weapon—but they nearly always win anyway. That, to us, shows true power. Ok, sure, maybe The Doctor is helped a little by the impenetrable armor of simply being the main character. But, across multiple regenerations, for over two thousand years, our favorite Time Lord has walked into many impossible situations and faced off against every foe on our list armed with little more than wit, overconfidence, and a Sonic Screwdriver, and still emerged victorious.

It’s not just being a Time Lord that possesses regenerative abilities and unprecedented knowledge of the Universe that makes him so powerful. After all, The Doctor was one of the only members of their people to survive the Time War, much as we hate to think back on one of our hero’s darkest moments, they really are, The Time Lord Victorious. The Doctor’s true power lies in their intelligence (they outsmart their enemies nearly every time) and point-blank refusal to quit. They can outthink gods, charm monsters, and inspire entire civilizations. They may not have the brute force of other beings on this list, but no one else has survived as much, or changed the universe as profoundly, as The Doctor.

Agree with out picks? Who do you think is the most powerful Doctor Who Character? Let us know in the comments.