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Last Of His Kind / Live-Action TV

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People who are the last of their kind in live-action TV.


  • The 100 creates one of these in Season 2: by the end of the season, Carl Emerson is the last surviving Mountain Man.
    • After Praimfaya, Clarke's adopted daughter Madi becomes the last natural-born nightblood on Earth. As the only person physically capable of taking the Flame and becoming Commander of the Grounders, this makes her a target. In season 6, the fact she has black blood at all (as does Clarke, though artificially), makes her a target of the Primes, who use similar AI technology as the Flame to achieve immortality through body snatching.
  • The titular character in ALF appears to be the only survivor of the disaster that destroyed his home planet Melmac. However, this is subverted later when he receives a signal from his girlfriend that she and several other Melmacians are still alive and have settled on a new planet.
  • Dylan Hunt of Andromeda is not the last of his species, but for much of the series he is at the least, the last of his civilization.
    • As of the end of the fourth season, Dylan is revealed to be the last of his species... the last Vedran
    • Tyr Anasazi is the last surviving member of the Kodiak Pride, though by no means the last of his fast breeding and highly factional species. Part of the reason why he even bothered siding with Dylan for so long was to get revenge on the Drago-Kazov Pride.
      • Technically, after the birth of his son, Tyr is no longer the last.
  • In Angel, the titular Angel is the sole surviving original member of Angel Investigations. Doyle dies in Season 1, in a Heroic Sacrifice, whilst Cordelia passes away midway through Season 5 after a prolonged coma.
  • Babylon 5:
    • Lorien, is the last of the very first species of beings to evolve in the galaxy that still remains within it. In fact, he was the first sentient being in this galaxy.
    • Warmaster Jha'Dur of the Dilgar, also known as Deathwalker (of the episode of the same name), is the last of her unlamented kind.
    • Aldous Gajic from "Grail" is the last of the Grail Seekers, and Thomas, also called Jinxo, takes up the mantle after Gajic's death.
  • Battlestar Galactica (2003) has a few of these, particularly D'Anna Biers, who becomes the last model Number Three Cylon in existence, and the Final Five, who not only prove to be the last Cylons revealed to the audience, but the last of the original Cylon race predating the modern models. The eponymous ship itself, for most of the series, was the last surviving Battlestar.note  For about a season, there was also the Pegasus, before it was destroyed in the Battle of New Caprica.
  • In the Castle episode "The Final Frontier", this is the premise of the Show Within a Show, a Star Trek clone dubbed Nebula 9. The cast are a group of Military Academy cadets who were offworld on a training cruise when Earth was destroyed.
  • In Charmed, the last wizard in existence was trying to kill the Source, who just happened to be Cole. Clearly subverted. Not only was that little guy not the last wizard, he was trying to become the Source.
  • Dureena Nafeel of Crusade seems at first to be the last of her kind, but they find a surviving colony later. Unfortunately the colony is infected with the Drakh plague, and their species is more susceptible to it than humans, leaving them only a year if no cure is found. Since the series was cancelled before the end of the first season, this is one of many story arcs that will remain unresolved.
  • Doctor Who:
    • Davros, creator of the Daleks, is the last living Kaled, although don't expect much angst from him — he turned on them in order to keep his precious creations alive (not that the Daleks were particularly grateful).
    • Scaroth in "City of Death" is the last of the Jagaroth.
    • Although it didn't come up much on the show, Nyssa was the last of the Trakenites after her planet was destroyed. along with the rest of her native galaxy, and all its neighbours. Subverted in the Big Finish Doctor Who audio drama Primeval, where it turns out that at least one Trakenite colony survived the destruction of the Traken Union.
    • Delta of "Delta and the Bannermen" is the last survivor of her species.Or at least until the queen egg she had kept safe hatched and Billy used their royal jelly to mutate himself into a male of their species.
    • Kane in "Dragonfire", due to his homeworld having long-since been vaporized by a supernova. Whether or not anyone else may have survived ends up being moot, as he's Driven to Suicide by this revelation.
    • Starting with the new series, the Doctor and his TARDIS. A rare heroic example of the survivor who's responsible for his people's extinction (the rest of his species were going to destroy the universe). It later turned out that the Master was still alive, but he's since died (twice). Then "The Day of the Doctor" reveals that the other Time Lords are not dead but trapped in another universe, frozen in a moment of time. However, their attempt to return results in a 900-year stand-off between the Doctor and the rest of the known universe, culminating in the Time Lords willingly closing their only means of return and giving the Doctor a new cycle of regenerations.
    • The new series has also shown us the last Dalek in existence too. Several times, in fact, because they keep coming back, and generally in greater and greater numbers, and thus arguably somewhat reducing the impact of them being totally wiped out.
    • Cassandra of "The End of the World" is the last human being. This has interesting subtext, as it turns out that she is only the "last" of her kind by her own racist metrics, every other human being some kind of hybrid with another alien species where Cassandra's parents and grandparents were all human.
    • Chantho from "Utopia" is the last of the Malmooths.
    • "The Sound of Drums": The Master refers to President Winters as "the last president of America" shortly before having his minions kill him when he begins to enact his plan.
    • The new series also created Jenny, a clone-daughter of the Doctor in "The Doctor's Daughter". Last seen leaving for Adventure and forgotten by continuity.
    • "The Beast Below": The captured Star Whale that forms Starship UK's engine is said to be the last of its kind.
    • "The Hungry Earth": A captured Silurian claims to be the last of her kind. The Doctor doesn't buy it.
      Alaya: I'm the last of my species.
      The Doctor: No, you're really not. Because I'm the last of my species and I know how it sits in a heart. So don't insult me!
    • The Teller from "Time Heist" is claimed by the bank it works for to be the last of its species, which forms the basis for the special terms of its contract. There's a second one chained up and kept prisoner in the bank's most secure vault, and it works for them in exchange for the imprisoned one's safety.
    • "Demons of the Punjab": The two Thijarians appear to be the last of their species after their homeworld's destruction.
    • As of "Spyfall", the Doctor and the Master appear to be the last living Time Lords again. The others are dead by the Master's hand, as he ravaged Gallifrey after discovering some long-buried Awful Truth relating to the history of the species that horrified him so much he felt the other Time Lords had to "pay" somehow. And then twisted on its head in the season finale, when it's revealed that the Doctor isn't even Gallifreyan, making the Master the sole example of this trope for his race. At least until he's killed by the death particle... but it's only a matter of time until his Joker Immunity kicks in again.
    • Karvanista becomes this in "The Vanquishers", when the Sontarans mercilessly open the airlocks on all the Lupari ships protecting Earth, leaving the Lupar to die in space. He gets his vengeance when he helps the Doctor trap the Sontarans into getting swallowed by the Flux.
  • Liam Kincaid from Earth: Final Conflict, whose proper name would be something more akin to Liam Sandoval-Beckett, son of Ha'gel. Whilst also a Half-Human Hybrid he's also the last of the ancient Kimera race who were killed by the Taelons eons back. He's the son of Ha'gel, probably the original Last Of His Kind in the show, who died just after Liam was conceived. Unlike his alien daddy, Liam was the lead character for three seasons and sadly the show didn't play up this trope much.
    • Part of that was that Liam himself appeared to dislike Ha'Gel immensely, and only acknowledged his Kimera heritage when absolutely necessary. Being the product of Ha'Gel's rape of his human parents probably had something to do with it.
    • There's also Ra'jel, the first and last Taelon (It Makes Sense in Context). While Zo'or is briefly revived by the Atavus, he is almost immediately turned into one of them, leaving Ra'jel once again the last Taelon.
    • Howlyn's son Yulyn almost becomes the last of the Atavus, but he convinces Renee to save hundreds of others in stasis and return them to the original Atavus homeworld.
  • Elementary: As of the series finale, Sherlock Holmes is the only surviving member of his family. His mother died some time before the series began, his brother Mycroft died of a brain hemorrhage at some point between the second and fifth seasons, and their father Morland is killed by Odin Reichenbach in the penultimate episode of the series.
  • In Emerald City, Glinda worries considerably that she and West might become the last Cardinal Witches ever. The Wizard seems convinced that Mother South's death means no more witches will be born in Oz again. Subverted when it's revealed that Glinda's lying. Not only is she hiding Mother South, who is still alive, but Glinda's secretly breeding and training a new generation of witches to fight the Wizard. Further subverted near the end of Season 1, when West frees the witches trapped in the Prison of the Abject, unleashing them on the city.
  • John Crichton of Farscape isn't by any means the last human. But, he's the sole human in that part of universe and once the wormhole to Earth was destroyed, it pretty much ended any possibility someone from Earth would be joining him.
    • Technically, Sebaceans are genetic offshoots of humans, but there were DNA alterations, and it happened thousands of years ago.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • Daenerys Stormborn, the last of the House Targaryen after the death of one-hundred-year-old Maester Aemon who was sworn to celibacy and not holding titles twice over and whom Daenerys probably presumed died decades ago, if Viserys ever got round to telling her about him at all, believes she'll never have children. Well, she also has her second cousin Stannis, second cousin once removed Shireen, Robert's surviving 13 bastards, third cousins of various degrees of removal descended from her great-great uncle Aerion Brightflame, and fifth cousins of various degrees of removal descended from her great-great-great-great half-uncle Daemon Blackfyre, though later Shireen went up in smoke. Except she's really not the last, seeing as Jon Snow is her nephew, as he is actually the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, a fact which neither of them know.
    • Wun Wun, the last giant killed in the Battle of the Bastards.
    • Ramsay is the last living Bolton after murdering his father, his elder trueborn brothers, stepmother and newborn brother to secure his position. With his death in the "Battle of the Bastards", House Bolton's line has come to an end.
    • With the death of Ser Barristan Selmy in Season 5, Jaime is now the last remaining member of the Kingsguard of Aerys II.
    • Cersei invokes this in the trailer for Season 7 to Jaime, telling him that they're "the last Lannisters". Not true, of course, since they have relatives still alive (including their brother Tyrion) but she clarifies they are "the last ones who count".
    • Due to the deaths of Robert, Renly, Joffrey, Shireen, Stannis, and Myrcella, Tommen is the last Baratheon (though not biologically), and with his suicide the Baratheon line has officially been snuffed out. Then was brought back, when Daenerys legitimized Gendry as a Baratheon and lord of Storm's End.
    • The last of the original Small Council that governed King's Landing, Varys defected along with Tyrion to Dany and managed to dodge Cersei's purge.
    • Gendry is the last of the Baratheon bastards after Joffrey's purge and the only Baratheon-blooded person in the world after Stannis's family line is extinguished.
    • With Theon's death during the Battle for the Dawn, Yara is the last of Balon's line and the second-to-last Greyjoy on Westeros. With Euron's death in "The Bells", she is the last Greyjoy.
    • Before the Battle for the Dawn, Jon Snow, Sam Tarly and Dolorous Edd realized they were the last of the Night's Watch. Edd fell in battle, bringing it down to Jon and Sam.
    • By the end of Season 8, Tyrion is the last surviving member of House Lannister, Jon is the last surviving member of House Targaryen, and Drogon is the last dragon in all the world.
    • Sansa, Arya and Bran are the last Starks. With Bran unable to have children, Jon in exile and still considered a Bastard, and Westeros' Lineage Comes from the Father inheritance laws note , they are THE last Starks.
  • Garulu (a.k.a. Jiro), Basshaa (a.k.a. Ramon), and Dogga (a.k.a. Riki) from Kamen Rider Kiva are the last of the Wolfen, Merman, and Franken races, respectively. This is thanks to the Fangire, and you can bet they're none too happy about it.
  • Kamen Rider Dragon Knight: Len/Kamen Rider Wing Knight is the only survivor of the Ventaran riders after they lost to Xaviax. Their defeat meant the End of the World as We Know It, so he is also the only survivor of Ventara. Later it turns out another rider — Kase / Siren — managed to escape and spent the time inbetween that and appearing in the story recovering and fighting on her own.
  • In an episode of Legend of the Seeker, Richard ends up trapped in the Valley of Perdition, where he's trapped in a nightmarish vision of the future, in which the Keeper has won, and all the living humans have been killed... except Richard. As the spirit of Darken Rahl (his half-brother) points out, there's no one left to kill Richard, meaning he is left to wander the empty world for the rest of his life. Fortunately, he quickly snaps out of the vision.
    • Interestingly, unlike the books, Kahlan is not the last Confessor. There are several others remaining. Then it's revealed that all the others have been killed, including Kahlan's sister Dennee and her infant son. However, Denee's spirit is later brought back in the body of a prostitute and, as far as anyone knows, she's still alive and has her Confessor powers.
  • Kai of Lexx is the last of the Brunnen-G. In a slight variation, he isn't actually a survivor, but a technologically reanimated corpse (he was the last one to die, so he briefly fit the bill perfectly).
    • He is eventually brought back to life, but only because he's about to be destroyed anyway.
    • His Arch-Enemy His Divine Shadow was really the essence of the last Insect to survive the Great Insect Wars.
  • In the Merlin (1998) series, the eponymous character is the last of the wizards, as he says himself.
  • Merlin (2008) has Kilgharrah, the last dragon. The rest were slain by Uther and he was imprisoned through trickery. After Merlin stops him from destroying Camelot in revenge he begs Merlin not to be responsible for the extinction of dragons, as he is the last one.
    • Not true anymore, with the birth of Aithusa.
      • Merlin himself is the last of his kind, the last dragonlord.
    • After the death of Nimueh, it is implied that Morgause is the last High Priestess of the Old Religion still alive, at least until she trains her younger maternal half-sister Morgana. Morgana herself will then become one when she will sacrifice her sister in the first episode of the fourth season.
  • Motherland: Fort Salem:
    • Abigail and her mother are the last surviving members of the Bellweather family line.
    • Tally is the last generation in the Craven witch bloodline, due to all other branches being killed. Because of this, her mother did not want her to enlist.
  • Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation villain Silver claims to be the last surviving Himalayan yeti, which he uses as crutch to commit his crimes.
  • October Faction: Alice is the last warlock, along with Viv and Geoff, since she's their birth mother.
  • The Once Upon a Time version of Mother Gothel is the last of the tree nymphs, and possibly the last magical creature in her world, period; after a princess first submits Gothel to personal humiliation and then leads her people in Van Helsing Hate Crimes against the nymphs, Gothel becomes vengeful against all humans, or at least all Muggles; she works with witches if only briefly.
  • The Outer Limits (1995): In "Lithia", Major Mercer appears to be the last man left on Earth. Eleven others were unthawed too, and an unspecified number were left in cryostasis though.
  • Power Rangers:
  • In Prehistoric Park this applies to many of the creatures who after being brought through the time portal into the 21st century, makes them the last living members of their species (unless Nigel and the park’s crew are successful in being able to get a breeding population for every species present at the park, which in some cases would require more specimens to be rescued from the past.
    • The young Tyrannosaurus rex siblings “Terrance and Matilda” are the only two t-rex’s that exist in the park.
    • Theo the triceratops is the only triceratops in the park.
    • Matilda the Woolly Mammoth is not only the only mammoth after being rescued and brought through the time portal but was also possibly the last mammoth in her own time when Nigel found her. The solution to her loneliness has be solved by the introducing her to the parks elephant herd. In the same episode a Elasmotherium is saved and is the only one of his kind in the park (luckily his natural preference is living alone)
    • a single Terror Bird is brought to the park
    • a trio of prehistoric insects (The Arthropleura, Meganeura and Pulmonoscorpius) also count.
    • The Giant dinosaur-hunting Crocodile “Deinosuchus” is the only one of his species at the park.
  • The Cat on Red Dwarf is the last known felis sapiens; the holy book of his people claims two arks of his people left Red Dwarf in search of "Fuchal" (Fiji). One ark flew straight into an asteroid; the other carried on into space. An episode was written for the seventh series that would have dealt with the Cat encountering the survivors of the remaining ark, but it was never filmed due to budgetary constraints. Effectively, then, both Lister and the Cat are the last of their species — neither knows this for sure, but both are unlikely ever to meet another survivor, even if they exist. Lister's isolation is reversed in the eighth series, however, when the crew of the Red Dwarf come Back from the Dead.
    • It's hard to count Lister as the last anything, being his own father and mother of two in the distant future not to mention all the alternate dimension versions of Red Dwarf they seem to bump into.
    • In The Cat's case, this is finally Subverted come "The Promised Land", where they come across a group of his species.
  • Played with on an episode of Seinfeld, where the issue of Kramer's sperm count is brought into focus, and when he learns his sperm count is too low, he begins to panic at the idea of him being "The last male Kramer — we're facing extinction!" and sets out for the rest of the episode trying to improve his sperm count (switching to boxers instead of jockstraps, to no underwear at all), and to find a consenting woman he can have sex with so the Kramer name may live on for generations to come.
  • Subverted in an old Sesame Street skit where Cookie Monster claims to be the last Cookie Monster in the world — even though in later seasons he was shown having a full family — just so he could buy himself cookies from the money he had been collecting for endangered species.
  • In Smallville, Clark, like his comic book counterpart, is supposedly the last of his kind. Then General Zod shows up in Season 5. Kara shows up in Season 7. Major Zod and a whole army of Kryptonians (later established to be clones created from DNA samples taken as part of an experiment before Krypton's destruction) came out of nowhere in the widely criticized Season 8 finale.
  • Snowpiercer: One of the tail section inhabitants is a man referred to as the Last Australian, who is despondent at the anti-breeding laws forced on the tail meaning that he can't pass on his heritage. Then Season 2 reveals that there's a woman named Emilia on the other train, Big Alice, who's also Australian and thought that she was the last. The two are ecstatic to meet each other.
  • In one episode of Stargate Atlantis John Sheppard is thrown 40,000 years into the future. Atlantis has long since been abandoned, and the McKay hologram informs him he might very well be the last human in the galaxy.
  • Stargate SG-1:
    • The Goa'uld Nirrti, in setting a trap for the Tau'ri, killed all the inhabitants of an entire planet except for one nine-year-old girl named Cassandra. Cassandra was also stranded on the planet, surrounded by the dead bodies of everyone she knew and everyone she didn't for days before SG-1 found her. Needless to say, she was traumatized.
    • Ba'al became the last of the Goa'uld System Lords after the collapse of their empire turned him into The Remnant before his eventual demise in Stargate: Continuum. His former boss Anubis is technically still alive since he acquired immortality, but is trapped in eternal combat with his arch-enemy.
    • After SG-1 manage to assemble the Sangraal and use it against the ascended Ori, Adria ascends to become the last of the Ori, granting her the full power of worship that would have normally been distributed among the entire Ori race. Like Anubis, Adria is defeated when she is trapped in eternal conflict with Morgan le Fay (Stargate: The Ark of Truth).
  • Star Trek has played with this a lot, usually with alien menaces such as the salt-sucking creature from "The Man Trap", or godlike aliens, such as Apollo from "Who Mourns for Adonais?".
    • The Horta from the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Devil in the Dark" have a complicated life cycle where, every 50,000 years, most of the species dies off, leaving a single female last of her kind, laying a huge number of eggs to repopulate the species.
      • Several non-canonic Expanded Universe novels feature Horta characters (apparently, Federation members), including a Horta starship captain (with a specially-modified captain's chair). Yes, humans are ok with taking orders from an amorphous blob of rock.
    • Star Trek: The Next Generation: "Tin Man" features the telepathic Living Ship Gomtuu, which is the last of its kind.
      • The spin-off novel Q-Squared features a Time Crash caused by the powerful but childlike Trelane which causes three alternate timelines to crash together. Most significantly, one of these alternate realities is a world where Jack Crusher is captain of the Enterprise, with Trelane revealing that this Jack Crusher is the only Jack Crusher left alive in the multiverse.
    • For the first two years of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Odo had no idea whether there were any more of him, and it caused him all sorts of angst. Of course, that angst only got worse when he discovered there were lots more of him — all evil.
    • In the season 4 premiere of Star Trek: Discovery, Kwejian is destroyed by a Negative Space Wedgie. Cleveland "Book" Booker was the only one who wasn't killed because he was in his ship at the time, and The Federation has yet to find any others who were off-world, making him the last of his species thus far.
  • In Supergirl (2015), Kara and her cousin are initially thought to be the last Kryptonians. It's quickly subverted, when it's revealed that a number of criminal Kryptonians are still alive and have followed Kara to Earth. When Mon-El is introduced, he also thinks he's the last Daxamite, until a ship arrives with his parents and their servants, who have managed to make it out. Additionally, they reveal that a number of other Daxamites are scattered throughout the universe.
  • Supernatural:
    • There are two separate classes of Demon Lords and Archdevils that were reduced to the last individual.
      • Abaddon was the last remaining Knight of Hell after Cain (who trained the Knights) wiped out the rest of them when they tried to pull a Resignations Not Accepted on him. That is, until the Mark of Cain revived Dean Winchester as demon.
      • Asmodeus became the last Prince of Hell, of which there are only four (Lucifer modeled it after the Four Archangels), after Azazel, Dagon, and Ramiel all bit the dust. Ironically, it's pointed out that he was actually the weakest of the bunch, but he managed to outlast his siblings through cunning. He didn't last long until Gabriel incinerated him.
    • In "Funeralia", Naomi informs Castiel that aside from them, only nine angels remain in Heaven, and with one or two more located on Earth, with the rest of the angels having been driven to extinction.
    • As of "Let the Good Times Roll", Gabriel, Raphael, and Lucifer are all dead, leaving Michael, who is trapped and had been reduced to a blubbering mess in Lucifer's Cage, as the sole remaining Archangel of the main reality. Lucifer is resurrected for the penultimate episode as part of God's attempt to stop the Winchesters' schemes against him, but he is subsequently killed by Michael who is then killed by God, leaving the archangels extinct.
  • The Twilight Zone (1959): In "Probe 7, Over and Out", Colonel Cook and Norda are the last survivors of their respective races. Cook's people destroyed themselves in a war. Norda's planet left its orbit. She either managed to escape in a ship before her people died or was already in her ship at the time.
  • In Xena: Warrior Princess, Aphrodite and Ares becomes the only survivors of the "Twilight of the Olympian Gods", organized by Xena when the deities, under Athena's flag, join together to kill Eve.


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