The Dying Breed

Classic Doctors New Monsters #5.2

Released: 21 January 2025

Listened: 3/30/26

This is one of the "Classic Doctors, New Monsters" sets where the "new" element isn't so much a monster as a species, in this case the Lupari, who appeared in "Flux," mostly in the person of the cranky-but-huggable Karvanista. That makes this the most recent "new monster" in the series to date. The Doctor and Leela arrive on the Lupari homeworld, the Loop (or possibly "Loupe"?), which turns out to be a ringworld rather than a planet. They're fairly early in Lupari history, before contact with humans, when the Lupari seem to be in a medieval phase, except they have energy weapons. They ingratiate themselves quickly with the local lord by pretending to be servants of K-9, who is accorded all the rights of a Lupari citizen. Personally, I find it hard to imagine that any bipedal canid species would recognize K-9 as one of them, or anything other than a box on wheels, but maybe I have less imagination than the Lupari. There's a standard-issue succession crisis going on, but also earthquakes, mysterious trees, unusual weather, and a temporal anomaly, all of which takes the Doctor a while to untangle. We learn an awful lot more about the Lupari than we did from "Flux," and writer Tim Foley puts a lot of effort into making the nonsensical parts at least somewhat plausible. As you might imagine, Leela is pretty comfortable in a warrior society, but she also uses her wits effectively when she judges that strength alone won't cut it. Bottom line: I love Karvanista, as many fans do, but I think the Lupari as a whole were rather half-baked in "Flux." I found myself liking this story more than I expected to.