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The monsters got scarier the moment they left the mountains

The Yeti are robotic monsters from Doctor Who, created by writers Henry Lincoln and Mervyn Haisman as servants of a disembodied villain called the Great Intelligence. They debuted in 1967's The Abominable Snowmen, guarding a Himalayan monastery, and returned the following year in The Web of Fear, where they overran the London Underground beneath a web-like fungus. Despite their popularity, the Yeti barely appeared again after that, aside from a brief cameo marking the end of Patrick Troughton's run as the Doctor and another small appearance in the anniversary special The Five Doctors. Their retirement came about because Lincoln and Haisman fell out with the BBC in 1968 over the handling of another of their creations, which ended their involvement with the show and shelved further Yeti stories, including one that would have written out a companion character.

The costumes themselves caused persistent headaches. The original suits were bulky, bamboo-framed affairs that actors could barely move in, and rainy location filming made the fur flop into a softer, cuddlier look than intended, requiring hairdryers to fluff it back up. For the second serial a rougher design with glowing eyes and yak hair replaced the originals, though the new Yeti still proved too heavy to perform basic action like lifting a person, frustrating the director. A reused, flea-infested costume later did duty for the anniversary cameo. Sound designer Brian Hodgson gave the creatures their roar by slowing down a recording of a flushing toilet.

The Yeti never returned when the Great Intelligence came back in the show's 2005 revival, which instead gave it new servants like living snowmen and faceless Whisper Men, reportedly because the Yeti's lumbering, teddy-bear-like design was seen as too silly for modern television. Critics have long been divided: some praised how placing the second batch of Yeti in the familiar London Underground made them genuinely frightening for children, comparing the effect to what Psycho did for showers, while others argued their inflexible costumes and voiceless, puppet-like role as the Intelligence's foot soldiers made them less compelling than monsters capable of reasoning with characters. The rediscovery of the long-lost Web of Fear episodes in 2013 prompted a fresh look at the Yeti, and many came away feeling the creatures were less effective than nostalgia had suggested. Even so, the Yeti have persisted in spin-off novels, audio dramas and the direct-to-video film Downtime, and remain fondly remembered as one of the series' earliest attempts to explain a real-world myth through science fiction.

The Yeti began as a conversation between the show's lead actor, Patrick Troughton, and two writers before any script existed and were pitched to the production office from there.

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