Flip-Flop (audio story)
Flip-Flop was the forty-sixth monthly Doctor Who audio story produced by Big Finish Productions. Released in 2003 featuring the Seventh Doctor and Melanie Bush, it was notable for its highly experimental format. Each of the two discs (which each contained two episodes) 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 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...
Plot
to be added
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
Individuals
- Edgar Allan Poe is mentioned.
Musical groups
- Pakafroon Wabster had their first number one hit single in 3012.
Species
- The Quarks are mentioned.
Substances
- Leptonite crystals make Quarks explode.
Time travel
- The Doctor and Mel experience (and become part of) events locked in a time loop (though one from which they are able to escape).
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 the stage play Doctor Who and the Daleks in Seven Keys to Doomsday and subsequently, AUDIO: Seven Keys to Doomsday, as well as a Time Lord in TV: 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 a so-called "Hartnellism" in TV: 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 AUDIO: The Veiled Leopard and AUDIO: Peri and the Piscon Paradox. This is the only one of the three stories not to feature Peri Brown.
- This is one of a few stories in which almost all the characters, except for the Doctor and his companions, die.
- 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. (TV: The Dominators)
- The musical group Pakafroon Wabster is mentioned for the first time in this story. They would be mentioned in a few more stories before making an actual appearance in COMIC: Interstellar Overdrive.
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
