It’s time for another “Classic Doctors, New Monsters” set and for the first time we get a Thirteenth Doctor era “monster” to meet a classic Doctor in the Lupari, the dog-like warriors from the um, not-that-great Flux series. The issue here is that a lot of what make them at least a little unique is the fact that they look like dogs so on audio all this story really feels like is a really basic “combat-obsessed medieval society” story with one gag that sees the bipedal and human-sized dog-people somehow believe K9 is one of them, but even that gets old quick. Well… anyway, let’s take a look!
After a rather plain opening sequence that has a Lupari Soothsayer (Miriam Margoyles) begin to tell the story of this episode to some kids (or pups, I guess?) it really starts with The Doctor (Tom Baker), Leela (Louise Jameson) and K9 (John Leeson) arrive on the Lupari homeworld and wouldn’t you know it? They’re mistaken for the killers of the local Lord’s son, though K9 manages to claim to be from the Lupari capital and that his underlings are innocent, the heiress Kira (Selina Jones) somehow sees this small metal box with a head and no legs are one of her own kind and agrees to at least take them to see her father, Lord Garzan (Peter Guinness) The deception somehow works on him as well though and soon The Doctor is not only meeting the Lupari Doctor Heppet (George Naylor) but also allowed to see the still-dying heir, while Kira, who wishes to just kill them and not let them disturb her brother’s passing, shows Leela around only to challenge and then beat her in one-on-one combat using dirty tactics.
The Doctor puts some theories together and heads out with the other Doctor while Leela and K9 keep an eye on Kira, and as it turns out they had every right to. The Doctor is ambushed by Kira’s men resulting in Heppet’s death while Kira tries to blame The Doctor for it instead (having surprisingly quick knowledge on what’s happening far away!) The Doctor escapes his pursuers thanks to the nearby Soothsayer, who then confirms the Time Lords’ theory: early era humans are on the planet…
As I mentioned, it’s a perfectly fine story but it really isn’t anything out of the ordinary given its supposed to be a big deal we’re getting a Lupari story. Ah well…
The Continuity:
I don’t remember the Lupari having Force Lighting, but it has been a while since Flux aired…
The Lupari first appeared in the Thirteenth Doctor story “Flux: The Halloween Apocalypse” and continued to appear for the rest of the Flux story arc. The Doctor has no knowledge of the species and is surprised about them being “species-bonded” with humanity, but this lack of knowledge is explained in this story, in a rather on-the-nose way.
Overall Thoughts:
“The Dying Breed” is a pretty bog-standard “space medieval” story, with all the feudal royal bickering and combat you’d expect, and thanks to it being audio the fact they’re the Lupari is rather lost as well. Oh well, could be worse, could be better. Very much in the middle.
Kira finds out about the humans and prepares her army to head out and meet them, meanwhile Lord Garzan’s son passes away and The Doctor brings forth his killer: a small human child who unknowingly spread a disease when he was forcefully pulled to the planet by a temporal wormhole. Garzan is initially frustrated that he can’t take out his anger on one so innocent but then sees how that’s The Doctor’s point, and as Leela defends the other stranded simple-minded humans by besting Kira in a rematch Garzan arrives and calls off the assault.
We then get a flashforward back to the opening as the Soothsayer finishes her tale and says about how the Doctor kept the wormhole open and that the humans and Lupari would end up allies and then species-bonded, and that The Doctor would “appear several more times in important events before forgetting about us completely”, so… I guess that’s that explained, or will be explained later, I guess. An older, travelling-with-Adric Doctor arrives and basically reminisces with the Soothsayer (and says he’ll pretend he didn’t hear about his future adventures!) for a nice little end sequence.
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