Flip-Flop (audio story)

Flip-Flop
Doctor:	[[doctor::Seventh Doctor]]
Companion(s):	Melanie Bush
Main enemy:	The Slithergees Puxatornee humans The Quarks (unseen)
Main setting:	Puxatornee, 24 and 25 December 3060 and 3090
Key crew
Publisher:	[[publisher::Big Finish Productions]]
Writer:	Jonathan Morris
Director:	Gary Russell
Producer:	David Darlington
Release details
Release number:	46
Release date:	July 2003
Format:	4 Episodes on 2 CDs
Production code:	7E/B
ISBN:	ISBN 1-84435-028-2
Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories
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Flip-Flop was a 2003 release in the Big Finish monthly Doctor Who range featuring the Seventh Doctor and Melanie Bush. It was notable for its highly experimental format. Each of the two discs contained two episodes which could be listened to in whatever order the listener chose. The serial detailed what happened when the Doctor was coerced into changing the past by altering the fate of the president of a human (audio story) colony, but offered no conclusions about which of the versions of history was the "correct" one.

The play was further notable for being the closest the Quarks have ever come to returning to performed Doctor Who since The War Games. Though never heard, the Quarks are essentially the MacGuffin of the story and are mentioned at least once in each episode. From the Doctor and Mel's perspective, the events of Flip-Flop were merely a side-trip from their current "mission" to defeat the Quarks aboard the space-yacht, Pinto.

Publisher's summary

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 hangs 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...

Cast

• The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
• Melanie Bush - Bonnie Langford
• Mitchell - Richard Gibson
• Bailey - Pamela Miles
• Stuart - Francis Magee
• Reed - Audrey Schoellhammer
• Potter - Trevor Littledale
• Professor Capra - Trevor Martin
• Slithergees - Daniel Hogarth

References

• The Quarks are mentioned.
• The Doctor and Mel experience (and become part of) events locked in a time loop (though one from which they are able to escape).
• Edgar Allan Poe is mentioned.

Notes

• The planet's name Puxatornee is an in-joke reference to the movie Groundhog Day.
• This is another of Big Finish's 'experiments'. A black disc and a white disc comprise the adventure. They can be listened to in either order and the story can still make sense.
• In one of the timelines, Trevor Martin's character, Professor Capra, invented a time machine. Incidentally, Martin played an alternative Fourth Doctor in SP: Doctor Who and the Daleks in The Seven Keys to Doomsday and subsequently, BFA: Seven Keys to Doomsday, as well as a Time Lord in DW: The War Games.
• Professor Capra, is named for Frank Capra, director of the classic Christmas movie, It's a Wonderful Life. The other characters are also named for characters and actors in It's a Wonderful Life.
• The anti-radiation gloves, which the Doctor claims were created by one of his previous incarnations, is a reference to DW: The Daleks, where William Hartnell was supposed to say "anti-radiation drugs" but instead said "anti-radiation gloves".
• The first and second halves of this story take place at the same time. The same is true of both BFA: The Veiled Leopard and CC: Peri and the Piscon Paradox.
• This audio drama was recorded on 16 and 17 March 2003.

Continuity

• The Doctor first encountered the Quarks on Dulkis in the company of Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot during his second incarnation. (DW: The Dominators)

Timeline

• Flip-Flop occurs after BFA: Bang-Bang-A-Boom!
• Flip-Flop occurs before DW: Delta and the Bannermen

External links

• Official Flip-Flop page at bigfinish.com
• Flip-Flop at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• DisContinuity for Flip-Flop at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide