The Monks: Doctor Who’s biggest baddie of the current sci-fi series and one that's recently rolled out an invasion of Earth. But what exactly are these mysteriously mouldy monsters? Are they a new alien or perhaps one we’ve seen before?

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Redditor EndymionFox thinks the latter. More precisely, that they are actually Time Lords.

Keep your sonic screwglasses on and calm down: there is evidence to say that these grimy aliens are the Doctor’s Gallifrian chums. Firstly, you’ll have to look back to a 1976 Who adventure called The Deadly Assassin, a story featuring The Master in his 13th and final regeneration – and not a pretty one. The Time Lord appears withered and decayed, speaking without opening his mouth wide, merely rattling his gnashers. Sound monk-like enough for you?

Now, it's unlikely the monks are clones of The Master, but it’s a tad odd these baddies are adopting Time Lord characteristics. And what’s to say we’ve already seen the monks using Time Lords tech that we haven't noticed: could that giant pyramid we saw in ‘The Pyramid at the End of the World’ simply be a really big Tardis? Did its chameleon circuit force the time machine to take the form of a desert structure?

And what about those robes? The monks are all dressed in scarlet and gold gowns – ones that we’ve seen Time Lords rocking before in classic Who episodes...

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But what about the monks’ vapourising powers? We’ve never seen the Doctor mush somebody into dust with a few energy beams from his hands, right? Well not exactly. Our Doc hasn't shown off this exact power, but we have seen him blow a fair bit of energy from his arms during regeneration. Perhaps the monk Time Lords have turned all their regeneration energy into a deadly weapon.

So, which Time Lords could they be exactly? EndymionFox argues the monks could be just one: Omega. You know, Omega? No? Well, he’s the founder of Time Lord society that we see in old Who storyline The Three Doctors. In that story we learn that Omega sat on the High Council member on Gallifrey until accidentally falling into a black hole while trying to harness its energy for time travel experiments. As you do.

However, this didn’t kill Omega as he fell through the hole’s event horizon (the shell) and into the antimatter universe. He’s been able to enter our universe a few times, but has been forced to inhabit the bodies of others to exist. Could he be controlling all the monks – perhaps all Time Lords themselves – at once perhaps?

And here's the kicker: the ‘truth symbol’ you can see plastered all over the trailer for the next episode looks very like the anti-matter Time Lord’s helmet…

Now there's a coincidence...

And to make things more interesting, this theory suggests that Omega could have a role in the series finale too: the synopsis for episode 11 – World and Time Enough – specifically mentions an event horizon of a black hole…

"Friendship drives the Doctor into the rashest decision of his life. Trapped on a giant spaceship, caught in the event horizon of a black hole, he witnesses the death of someone he is pledged to protect."

Just how Omega fits into this final it’s hard to guess, but maybe this baddie will be responsible for the death of the one The Doctor is sworn to protect (probably Missy or The Master)? But how would the Mondasian Cybermen – the monsters we know that will be in the finale – work within that storyline? Are we simply wasting time pondering this? Only time (and space) will tell…

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Doctor Who continues on BBC1 this Saturday 3rd June at 7:35pm

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