Horror of Fang Frock: Who's Worst Dressed

It’s Doctor Who’s Bad Taste Bingo, and I’m calling “house!” on these sartorial scoundrels. 

Capaldi, please take note...

10. Jo Grant in The Claws of Axos

Hate your kids? Buy them these.

No one comes out of this psychedelic slop with much aesthetic credence: the UNIT boys’ green flannel tunics crumple baggily around their midriffs, The Doctor’s a confusing mix of Jimi Hendrix and Blacula (only far less cool than that sounds), and the Axons’ body-stockinged trouser bulge is matched only by their absurd ocular protrusion. It’s Jo, however, who gets to walk the catwalk of shame. Well, I say walk, but she’ll more likely tumble clumsily down it - legs splayed, arms flailing madly - affording us all yet another protracted gander at her lilac cotton undercrackers. For whilst her plum-kissed get-up is - hey - actually pretty groovy, it’s the cynicism of the ensemble that earns its place here.

“Lots of running about? Falling all over the place? Low camera angles? Yeah, we got just the thing…”

9. Robin Stewart in Arc of Infinity

 

Robin: rosy.

How rosy-cheeked Robin managed to bewilder his way about Amsterdam  - Europe’s most illicitly-thrilling destination – with such disinterest is beyond me. Even being part of an adventure as pedestrian as this should elicit a modicum of expression. But hell, what else can we expect from someone whose wardrobe has all the raw sex appeal of a bowl of strained cabbage that a binman just spat in? With a flannel shirt over ruby tee, tucked into brown chords and polished off with a ¾ length orange-lined green anorak, he’s every inch the bassist fired from The Housemartins for being just too damn boring even for them.

8. Peri in Trial of a Time Lord Parts 1 – 4

 

"Did someone say Dallas?"

Throughout her run, Nicola Bryant suffers clothing only the erratic mid-1980’s could have thrown at her; croptops weaved from deckchairs, knee-length salmon shorts, and guest star-distracting tit-tight leotards. With the opener to season 23’s The Mysterious Planet, Peri has clearly started to be influenced by the clot in the coat, wearing a lemon blazer seemingly stitched from off-cuts of the Doctor’s cuffs. Bad choice, girlfriend. Combined with a perm that wouldn’t look out of place in Dallas and a pair of trousers hoisted up somewhere around her nipples, it manages to smother the character under a gaudy gauze of Punch ‘n’ Judy Man and supply teacher.

7. Midge in Survival

Trust Midge. Trust him to dress like a douche.

Nothing says “gone evil” like a mauve shirt, zebra-striped tie, single earring, dark glasses and a single breasted cotton blazer with black UPVC arms. No wonder the guys at the community centre stare at him, open-mouthed in disbelief; they’re almost certainly thinking, “What a cunt.”

6. The Movellans in Destiny of the Daleks

 

"Does my bum look shit in this?"

Creating a race of formidable androids out of party shop dreads, mighty white trousers and camel toes is either visionary genius or howling-at-the-medicine-bottle madness. This most camp of robotic races frankly doesn’t look menacing enough to take on the challenge of a single Adipose, let alone the might of the entire Dalek fleet. Somehow, however, the braided bellends held the Skarosian sodsters to battle stalemate for over two hundred years. Perhaps, like the rest of us, the Daleks were simply too busy staring at their arses to do anything productive?

5. The Black Guardian in Mawdryn Undead

 

"Ha ha ha, I've just wet my man-knickers!"

If The White Guardian is the man from Del Monte, then The Black Guardian’s that weird bloke who hangs around Oddbins. You know, the fella who smells like he doesn’t know how to wipe his arse properly. Rocking a collar that would strangle a giraffe and tattered black robes that make Professor Snape look positively hirsute, the crowning piss-de-resistance is, of course, the dead bird glued to his bonce, like the result of some fraternity hazing decades ago that he’s never bothered to remove. You want the Key to Time, do you mate? Try the Brush of Hair first, you lank hobo.

4. Sarah Jane Smith in The Hand of Fear

Busy Lizzy: Handy Pandy

As with everything visual of the 1970’s, Croydon’s own investigate hack was caught between the funky and the fuck-awful, making many fashion faux pas during her TARDIS tenancy. For every angular triumph like the The Ark in Space’s combat trousers, there are several designer disasters, such as the mini-Marple curiosity from Robot, or the Quo groupie denim two-piece from Planet of Evil. Unfortunately, her final regular appearance in the classic series ends on such an insult to the eyes, you’d be forgiven for thinking that your telly had squirted a bottle of Sarsons straight into your iris. More commonly known as the “Andy Pandy”, just looking at her is a task in itself, so that she elicits a genuinely emotional response at episode four’s climax stands as a remarkable testament to Sladen’s acting ability (although the dark coat largely obscuring the costume helps too). And let’s not even mention that violet PVC cagoule in The Five Doctors...

3. Vorg & Shirna in Carnival of Monsters

Aaagh! My eyes!

I know; they’re supposed to look tacky. In that respect, the wardrobe department’s sterling work serves the script masterfully. Because as empty-headed, lowbrow entertainers, the pair’s mixed palette of pastels, sequins and deely-boppers, they’re garbed to ugly perfection. Hell, they’ve more or less come dressed as ITV.

2. The Lakertyans in Time & The Rani

 

Aliens. Stupid fucking aliens.

Because when you think alien, you automatically think dayglo mullets, green pyjamas, and headbands fashioned from Laura Ashley draught excluders.

1. The Sixth Doctor

Doctor Who: Space Berk

“You were expecting someone else?”

Sorry Sixie, it’s nothing personal. But you’re a cosmic cacophony, a kaleidoscope of clown and clutter: how did you think this would go down? An exclamatory statement at best, a strobing migraine at all other times, it’s a look that insults the intelligence as well as the eyes. The basic shape is absolutely fine (but then I daresay Jimmy Nail’s silhouette is pretty bloody hot) but the clash of colours betrays the eccentric charm we’ve come to expect from the good Doctor. No longer the intergalactic wanderer, he’s now an attention-seeking pillock, and that’s all without poor Colin Baker uttering a single sentence.

Any of the costume’s disparate elements could have worked singularly as an additional flourish – even the garish frock coat might have been tempered by some charcoal chords and a sensible shirt. But no, we get a dizzying jumble of Rupert the Bear trousers, question mark collars, cat lapel badges, a fob pocket watch, orange spats, green boots, and gingham waistcoats.

As Peri sums it up so succinctly: yuk.