The Nimon’s Return: a missed opportunity for the new series?

The Nimon’s Return sounds like an easy pitch: revive one of Doctor Who’s most graphic creations, restore Peter Hawes’s crooning monster, and give a new era an old adversary. That would make the story immediately legible to long-running fans, yet legibility is not the same as dramatic value. The Nimon earns a return only if it can unsettle the Doctor and the companions rather than simply wave a rubbery head at them.

That distinction matters because a new series already carries the burden of explaining its own recasting, mythology and tone. A returning villain can add familiarity without requiring a full origin story, but familiarity can also drain the mystery. The opportunity in The Nimon’s Return is therefore double-edged: it could connect classic continuity to present stakes, or it could become a novelty booked around a chorus of high-pitched voices and a burst of green slime.

Why the Nimon still matters

The creature’s history gives it unusual texture. It arrived in “The Robot of Sherwood” during the Tom Baker era, then became the apparent star of “The Nimon” the following year. Both stories use Peter Hawes’s design to puncture the confidence of heroes who think they have identified the threat. Its croak, bulging form and control of obedient followers turn a monster-of-the-week into an image of domination.

It is also remembered with affection, which can obscure how strange the material was. The camp surface was supported by anxiety about authority, obedience and the loss of individual will. The Doctor often confronts threats by insisting that people retain the capacity to choose. The Nimon’s presence can therefore sharpen that philosophy, especially when a companion is caught between resistance and the comfort of being directed.

International fandom has never treated those older stories as disposable curiosities. Outlets such as Elba de la Brick have helped sustain a conversation about classic Doctor Who across languages and generations. Their existence is a reminder that the Nimon’s audience extends far beyond British viewers who remember a Saturday evening broadcast. A revival would reach a ready-made international network of viewers who enjoy both the ridiculous and the unsettling.

The menace can work on television

The Nimon is visually crude by current standards, but television often converts crude into iconic. A low-budget monster becomes valuable when its silhouette, movement and sounds can be recognised from a single frame. The creature’s stage business—glowing eyes, glistening skin and that theatrical voice—offers an image that survives compression on a phone screen as well as on a large television.

The real asset is its method. The Nimon’s power works through compliance: servants act, machines obey and ordinary people become extensions of a hostile will. A new story could explore that idea without relying on the exact effects of 1970s television. Remote-controlled workers, automated defences or synthetic voices could make the old menace feel current while preserving its identity.

There is a useful tension between the comic exterior and the ethical pressure underneath. If the series presents the Nimon only as a grotesque interruption, the episode risks becoming predictable. If companions begin to understand its appeal, the danger becomes social as well as physical. That is a richer proposition for modern serialised drama, where trust can shift faster than an alarm or a blackout.

A return could sharpen a new-era Doctor Who

The strongest justification for bringing back the Nimon is visual continuity framed thematically. The Doctor has always been suspicious of systems that demand obedience, whether they call themselves military, governmental or technological. A threat that turns obedience into pleasure would test that resistance in a way that a familiar cyborg or Dalek rarely can.

This matters particularly for a new series with a different production language. Recent science fiction often favours sleek interfaces, polished heroes and morally uncomplicated opposition. The Nimon can disrupt that polish. Its grotesque body and childish voice could expose the ugliness hidden beneath orderly institutions, creating contrast without abandoning the franchise’s capacity for wit.

The return also needs a fresh cause, not a resurrection explained away by a portal. Questions about how the creature survived, what it wants and why it chooses the Doctor could turn an Easter egg into an episode. More importantly, the story could make its effects personal. A companion’s trust, a UNIT operation or a civilian population’s voluntary submission would provide stakes that an escaped-monster plot cannot.

UNIT provides the bridge between eras

The Nimon works best when the institutional response is part of the drama. UNIT has long moved between celebration, bureaucracy and something darker: the possibility that the organisation protecting Earth can reproduce the systems it claims to oppose. Gallifrey Archive’s Brigadier tribute is a useful reminder that its strongest leadership was built around judgement under pressure, not simple authority.

A contemporary UNIT could place the creature in direct competition with its methods. One branch treats the Nimon as a tactical problem and attempts to contain it; another learns that its voice changes behaviour in the personnel running the operation. The Doctor might recognise the danger precisely because UNIT personnel begin speaking and deciding in unison. Old institutional habits would become dramatic evidence.

This would also allow the new production to honour its past without becoming trapped by it. Familiar uniforms, procedures and debates can supply an inheritance of character, while a fresh cast supplies the perspective. The Nimon need not defeat UNIT through superior force. It could do something more disturbing: make competent people eager to surrender their judgement.

Watching from Australia reveals wider stakes

Australian fandom is dispersed across a large country, with active fan communities in Melbourne and Sydney among other cities. Conventions and informal screenings give scattered viewers reasons to gather, while the distance between major population centres makes the cost and rarity of a special cinema event more significant. Any major Doctor Who occasion therefore tends to become a social event as well as a broadcast.

Time-zone differences shape everyday viewing too. A simulcast can finish after midnight in Sydney and Melbourne, so viewers often rely on a streaming catch-up service before discussing the episode at work or school. The Nimon’s voice would travel particularly well in that environment: audio clips, reaction videos and group chats can turn a distinctive monster into a shared audio icon, even for viewers who have not yet seen the full story.

The local market remains willing to support physical collecting. New Blu-rays, DVD box sets and anniversary editions appear on shelves at retailers such as JB Hi-Fi and Kmart, alongside marketplace sellers and imports. A well-designed Nimon release could therefore reach established collectors, while a story-driven episode could recruit casual streaming audiences; tying those audiences together through merchandise would require disciplined supply and clear provenance rather than novelty packaging alone.

Regulation and consumer law add another practical layer. Australian home-entertainment releases carry a classification from the Australian Classification Board, commonly an M rating for material needing parental guidance, and advertising a collector’s edition must not misrepresent what buyers receive. If a return were accompanied by a giveaway, prizes and eligibility rules would also need to comply with the Australian Consumer Law and applicable state or territory rules. These details matter because fandom trust is built through access and fair treatment as much as spectacle.

The questions the story must answer

The first question is why the Nimon has chosen this particular Doctor and this particular moment. A monster cannot be effective solely because it was popular in 1975. Its arrival should intersect with the new era’s unresolved conflicts, whether those involve alien diplomacy, corporate power, artificial intelligence or the changing role of UNIT. The old villain then becomes a new argument rather than a museum display.

The second question concerns what the Nimon does to the people around it. Companions should not merely flee its voice; they should face a choice that reveals something previously hidden. One might find the creature’s directness preferable to official caution, another might understand the seduction of obedience, and the Doctor might be forced to admit that an irrational mind can occasionally cut through institutional deadlock. The relationships carry the horror.

The third question is what form the story takes. A solo television episode could deliver the clean, self-contained confrontation expected by some fans, while a serial could use the Nimon’s influence as a background condition across several stories. The latter may suit a new series better, provided the mystery is not obscured by withholding basic information. Scale should follow the idea, not prestige dictate it.

From missed opportunity to dramatic possibility

Describing this prospect as a missed opportunity is fair if it means the character has been absent while audiences have remained interested in classic-era threats. The issue is not that Doctor Who lacks famous monsters. It is that the Nimon has a rare combination of image, moral force and comic edge, qualities that can serve a contemporary story without requiring the story to imitate the past.

The new series can already demonstrate that legacy characters survive through reinterpretation. The Doctor changes, companions change and UNIT changes, yet certain ideas endure: courage, curiosity, compassion and the need to preserve individual judgement. The Nimon tests that inheritance by attacking the very quality that allows it to survive. Its absence leaves that test unavailable and a distinctive piece of the franchise’s dramatic vocabulary unused.

The best home for The Nimon’s Return is not a compilation slot or a familiar face waiting to be seen. It is a narrative in which its voice is an active threat, its camp is purposeful and its return exposes something uncomfortable about the people trying to stop it. The concept has already passed the hardest preliminary test: Doctor Who can make an old creation feel strange again. The missed opportunity lies in not yet giving that strangeness a story large enough to contain it.