DON'T HAVE NIGHTMARES! 'DOCTOR WHO's EASTER MONSTERS UNLEASHED!

Martian menace- the Ice Warriors return in DOCTOR WHO. Images: BBC.

"There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things which act against everything we believe in. They must be fought."

Now that our Time Lord protector, the Doctor, has become far too human, showing an almost MILLS & BOON-esque obsession with his companions (and vice versa) in order to pull in new audiences who've never previously watched the series, my time watching modern DOCTOR WHO, starting up again on BBC 1 tonight, has now seen me more interested in saying Bring on the Monsters! than ever before, and this final batch of weird and wonderful aliens/creatures from the pen of Steven Moffat and his writing team, leading into the show's fiftieth anniversary 3D special later in the year, look set to be some of the most interesting yet, at least via the trailers and promotional images so far released by the BBC: the almost faceless top-hatted Whispermen (truly giving funeral parlour men a bad name!), the Crimson Horror (whatever that is-plague, possession?), the mummy-esque figure threatening The Rings of Akhaten, and a supernatural beastie that will surely make us all want to run and Hide.

The fearsome Whispermen, to be seen later in the run.

Silver terror. The Cybermen look more scary than ever.

And for fans of the above quote from the Second Doctor era, a time much beloved by star Matt Smith (his performance more a tribute to that fine character actor, Patrick Troughton, than ever before), there's the return of three of that monochrome period's distinctive and iconic nemeses: the formless Great Intelligence, which returned last Xmas to wage war on our hero with The Snowmen, and those formidable green Martian reptilian adversaries hissing and breathing long before Darth Vader made his booming entrance: The Ice Warriors, one of whom will be trapped with the Doctor and new companion Clara in a claustrophobic Das Boot'ish episode full of atmosphere and hopeful carnage: The Cold War. Finally, the survival driven Cybermen get the excellent new metal and silver makeover they deserve (is there an intergalactic version of Gok Wan out there doing this for them?), looking more suitably menacing and tear-drop eyes emotionless than ever before for the modern series, in what will hopefully be Neil Gaiman's exciting, and hopefully shocking, Nightmare in Silver...

Trailer: Doctor Who: New Series 7 Launch Trailer 2013 - BBC One - YouTube