Flip Flop

The Doctor and Mel arrive on the planet Puxatornee not once, but twice at separate intervals some thirty years apart. Both times upon their arrival they discover that they are already wanted persons, either as dissidents undermining the rule of the slug-like uber polite Slithergees, or as Slithergee agents attempting to spy on the human population. In both threads of time, the Doctor and Mel are forced to travel in the TARDIS and assist in altering time for the betterment of the planet's human population, and in both threads the Doctor warns that changing the future can have unforseen consequences...

Flip Flop is actually pretty brilliant storytelling; it is a 4 episode story that has no defined beginning or end and more or less puts the Doctor and Mel into a loop of time as they try to free themselves from the goings on of Puxatornee. As their own understanding of the events around them unfolds they begin to realize that they are now in a race against time themselves to get off the planet before their alternate selves arrive in their own TARDIS.

I really picked the wrong days to try and listen to this audio, though; working nights you really need to have all your brain cells firing when concentration is required and I just kept dropping off and having to go back and listen to sections again. Flip Flop, like many of the other stories inserted into the background of season 24, maintains some elements of the televised episodes of the time; there's no real feel of a threat to the Doctor and Mel and the villains of the piece are hardly scary at all. The Slithergees are a bit of an absurdity, humbly requesting sanctuary on one of Puxatornee's moons and then gradually insinuating themselves into the power roles of the colony's government through political correctness. And the hint of nuclear war. And when the humans are in power and struggling to deal with the fallout of exactly that war, they are desperate and ugly, convinced that going back in time to stop the war is what they need to do, even though it may well land them under Slithergee control again.

This is actually the sort of thing I could see the new televised series trying to achieve; it's a clever premise, it's handled well and even if the Doctor seems to be a bit too calm throughout the show, he is still very much on form where his defence of the web of time is concerned. Mel is as always Mel, with more clever dialogue and still no screaming. I'm actually going to miss her. Or this new version of her.



NEXT EPISODE : RED