The Moons of Vulpana

Main Range #251

Released: 7 May 2019

Listened: 2/17/21

This next story looks like it might immediately follow the last, although it doesn’t necessarily have to. The Doctor brings Mags back to her homeworld of Vulpana, which she hasn’t seen since she was very small, in the hopes of seeing how her ancestors dealt with their lupine sides. It works, in a way -- under the influence of her four native moons, Mags is in control of her lycanthropy, and only changes voluntarily. However, there’s a lot they don’t know about the society at this moment in time. “Pure bloods” are rare and getting rarer, but Mags happens to be one, which makes her a marriage target for the sons of the noble family they blunder into. The planet is on the verge of a social revolution, with the noble houses still clinging to power, but the populace about to rise up, and scientific developments taking place in the background. It seems like it’s about to be a Romance-era novel, or at least Game of Thrones style political drama, but it takes a jump into sci-fi in ways you may not have expected. Unfortunately, by the end, the villain ends up typically villainous, and not much of a threat. Mags has a lot of time on her own, because the Doctor seems to keep leaving, partially because he’s injured and confused at first, but then because he’s distracted. Fortunately, Mags holds her own pretty well, although it seems like there should be considerable danger of messing up her own history, but nobody seems bothered about that. She’s also never in physical danger, being more powerful than just about everybody around her, which is good for her “strong character” cred, but does let a little of the tension out of the story. At the end, Mags seems to have accepted herself, which is a rather quick character arc, but we’ll see how long that lasts.