Flip-Flop

"You've traded in your history... and there's no way you can get it back."

Writer: Jonathan Morris 

Format: Audio

Released: July 2003

Series: Main Range 46

Featuring: Seventh Doctor, Mel

Synopsis 

Christmas Eve in the year 3060 and the planet Puxatornee is home to a prosperous human colony. 

A space craft has arrived in orbit carrying the Slithergees, a race of obsequious alien slugs. Their home world has been destroyed and they are humbly requesting permission to settle on the first moon. 

And if they don't get permission, then they are humbly threatening to declare all-out war.

The future hands in the balance. The decision rests with Bailey, the colony's president - but she has other things on her mind...

Christmas Eve in the year 3090, and the planet Puxatornee has changed beyond all recognition. 

The Doctor and Mel arrive, on a completely unrelated mission to defeat a race of terrible monsters, and soon discover that something rather confusing has been happening to history...

Verdict 

Flip-Flop was a great audio adventure and probably the most audacious yet of Big Finish's experimental stories! We've had comic strip characters make their performed Doctor Who debut in The Holy Terror, novel characters arrive to the performed world in The Shadow of the Scourge and even a take on a Doctor Who musical in Doctor Who and the Pirates! Not to mention the out of narrative presentation for Creatures of Beauty. But this was just incredibly audacious and experimental. A story with two discs, each containing two episodes, that could be listened to in either order? Could it possibly work? Did it work? Well, the answer is yes. Jonathan Morris isn't usually my greatest thought of writer but fair play to him for pulling this off in the way he did. The reason though the rating isn't as high as it might have been is because there was a lot of repetition over the two discs, which I understand but that's the price for doing a flip-flopped story. The pairing of the Seventh Doctor and Mel were wonderful together and I just enjoy this incarnation's stories so much more when he's with his first companion than with Ace. Sylvester McCoy seems so much more Doctor-like and that's probably down to Doctor-companion interaction. Mel and the Doctor just get along without any arguments which can't be said for the same incarnation and Ace. What the pair were up to involving the Quarks would have been nice to be seen in a story or some sort! Maybe we'll get it at some point in the future. I'd certainly like to think so as this whole story was actually a sidestep to the battle with the Quarks! I think they'd be magnificent on audio to be honest. They deserve another chance after The Dominators. Instead the enemy aliens here were the Slithergees who could have been improved a bit. They were quite threatening but they lacked a decisive edge. They didn't feature too prominently though so that wasn't much of a problem which was nice. Stuart and Reed, the first versions we met, well from the perspective that I listened to the story, were superb characters. They were quite aggressive in trying to achieve what they wanted but it made for the whole topsy turvy timey wimey affair that this story was. First they wanted to kill the president. Then they wanted to reverse their actions. Then they wanted to prevent the president from being shot. And they wanted those actions later reversed. If you weren't concentrating it really would be easy to get caught up in what was going on. Bailey actually made an excellent president I thought - I really liked her. Mitchell was also very good and I liked the comedic radio calls that came with the arrival of an alternative timeline Stuart and Reed. It was quite a shock that although this story almost seemed to happen twice, everybody died. Both sets of the Seventh Doctor and Mel left in a hurry so the other could arrive without destroying the TARDIS which in itself seemed a bit of a paradox. This whole story certainly was like one big time loop! Although one that could be escaped from. I bet the Axons would be a tad jealous. There was a lot of comedy in an otherwise quite dark story which I thought was a good sidetrack. It didn't perhaps seem as dark and aggressive as it later seemed when looking back now. It's not often that everyone other than the Doctor and companion dies but that was the case here, twice in some cases actually. Overall though, a very good and audacious story! A decent plot, excellent guest cast and a more than reasonable resolution. However, despite the good there was a lot of overlapping repetition which is the main reason why the story lost the marks that it did. 

Rating: 8/10