The Tertiary Console Room: Review - Doctor Who

'It is a fascinating opportunity to see the difference one person can make...'

In matters of narrative structure, particularly in performed Doctor Who stories, it's traditional to start at the beginning, progress to the middle before concluding at the end. Not so for Jonathan Morris' second Big Finish audio Flip-Flop, which follows in the footsteps of Doctor Who and the Pirates and Creatures Of Beauty in experimenting with the standard storytelling techniques. The Doctor and Mel arrive on Christmas Eve on the planet Puxatornee, where he is surprised to find that the prosperous human colony is no longer thriving. Is Puxatornee a world devastated by a war, which now finds itself on the brink of extinction? Or is it a place where the alien invaders - the Slithergees - have insinuated themselves into society covertly and are not the true masters of Puxatornee? Perhaps, it's both…

Advance publicity for Flip-Flop has ensured its audience is aware of its billing as 'a unique innovation in storytelling' as it is written in such a way that you can listen to either of its two CDs in either order, and it will still remain a cohesive story. In striving to show that there isn't a 'correct' way to hear the story, Big Finish have taken the unusual step of departing from their usual packaging, presenting Flip-Flop in a cardboard slipcase with both the black and white discs contained within two single CD cases. It's an impressive look and certainly compliments the concept behind the story.

All credit must go to Morris for the idea and especially for actually making it work as well as it does as no matter whether you listen to the white or black disc first it does make sense when the next part of the story unfolds on the other one. To ensure its success, Morris turns to the perennial audio theme of time travel itself, but rather than going down the well trodden path of placing paradoxes at the core of the story, he takes a different direction and uses parallel universes to explore the difference that a single person's life can have. This means we get, in effect, two stories which examine what would have happened had a particular event happened or not, in this case whether Puxatornee's President Bailey lived or died, and how the world would be subsequently effected.

As parallel timestreams are involved, both discs develop in similar fashions. The choice of which of the two discs to hear first does influence the listener's perception of the story, as choosing, say, the black disc over the white will result in certain characters being cast in a particular way which is different to how they otherwise would have been had the white disc been heard first. This gives the story certain connotations reminiscent of Creatures Of Beauty, but the issue is less important here but it is still important to a full understanding of the story as both the discs are closely linked and part of the fun is seeing how the two stories impact upon each other. Interestingly, Flip-Flop has another similarity to Creatures Of Beauty in that it is, in part at least, a non-linear narrative thanks to the Doctor and Mel's constant time travelling as while their part of the story is presented linearly, the bigger picture of the occurrences on Puxatornee happen out of sequence. The most startling effect of this is that the actual resolution of the story comes much sooner than you'd expect - and neither scenario offered ends well for the human inhabitants…

With Flip-Flop structured the way it is, the ending to each disc inevitably leads into the beginning of the next, which means that, technically, after one disc finishes - regardless of whether you've already heard the other or not - the next one begins again. While this could conceivably lead to some Castrovalva like recursive madness where the play never ends, it remains a clever way to make the story work as it allows the listener to recognise that both discs take place contemporaneously which explains some of the plot developments which seem out of place initially. Morris recognises that even a circular story such as this needs a real ending, and appropriately for something that examines the implications of time travel, it comes nowhere near the end of the actual disc which gives the story an overriding sense of tragedy, as despite the Doctors' belief that their counterparts will sort everything out, the path to ruin for Puxatornee has been set and even the Doctor's involvement cannot change that.

By featuring such bleak endings, the dark subtext of Flip-Flop is revealed as it shows the veracity of the Doctor's warnings about interfering with the flow of time - it isn't like changing a light bulb or fiddling around with a broken spin dryer, as it will inevitably result in dire consequences for everyone involved. The Doctor's attempts to help the people he meets on Puxatornee are doomed to failure because the circumstances they have set in motion have gone beyond the Doctor's control. By wishing to change their present, the humans who alter their past to give themselves a new hope of a better future actually causes the nightmare scenarios in the first place. The alien Slithergees - visually impaired invertebrates, as Mel calls them at one point, which is as good a description as any - also form a dark undercurrent as they have ingratiated themselves into Puxatornee society by portraying themselves as a meek and humble minority whose rights need to be protected, but because President Bailey feels constrained to agree to their requests - however outlandish thanks to interference from the future - they have gained so much power that their wants are the prime consideration over the native human population. This is certainly one of the most novel alien invasion strategies seen in Doctor Who but whether it was Morris' intention or not the Slithergees come across as a thinly-veiled allusion to the issue of asylum seekers and how extreme levels of political correctness can alter the balance of power in their favour ahead of the indigenous population and it's rather heavy-handed as the real life implications undermine the black humour they are written with. What makes the issue more palatable here is the fact that we discover the Slithergees arrived in very big battleships with the power to devastate the planet (see the white disc's setting for proof that they weren't overestimating their strength) and as such there is the implicit threat they pose to Puxatornee's safety if their wishes are not agreed to.

The level of inversion between the white and black discs help to show the significance of the effect that one person's life can make and the effect their choices have upon society because the differences between the range of characters Morris introduces on both discs shows the different paths they took, had they lived and grown in the two different Puxatornee environments. Stewart and Reed are the prime example here as they are the two characters whose fates contrast each other the most. In the Slithergee future, Stewart and Reed are terrorists who are prepared to strike back against the invaders and the collaborators to try and win back their planet, while in the future where the humans have triumphed over the Slithergees, they are the highest ranking officers of the Security forces. Audrey Schoellhammer and Francis Magee both adopt coarse voices which contrast their more cultured tones of their alternative universe counterparts which help the listener differentiate between the two, but it's more than just a simple way to tell who's who as it shows the wider ramifications of the change in the timeline, such as its potential diminishing effect on the humans education system. By illustrating the divergence, Morris can weave an ironic subtext into the script with perhaps the best example being Stewart and Reed's discovery of a hundred or so massacred human corpses, with them pondering what sort of people could commit such an action. The irony is, of course, the fact that it was their counterparts who did it and they also find the other Stewart and Reed's actions to be equally shocking.

While Stewart and Reed are Morris' main instruments to explore the changes to the timestream as they are the only anachronistic element present after the divergence, the characters of Bailey and Mitchell, played by Pamela Miles and 'Allo 'Allo star Richard Gibson, are also important because their immediate actions following the interference in the timestream are instrumental in determining the course of history and the shape the future. On the white disc, Bailey is a martyr and Mitchell waged a war in her name against the Slithergees through a combination of rage and hate which has all but destroyed Puxatornee. In the other, Bailey is castigated as an appeaser of the Slithergees, letting them take over the planet because of her failure to stand up to the invaders. This makes them both very different figures depending on which disc is listened to, and the way that they respond to the timeline divergence is a crucial factor in determining the future.

Despite the fact that the two discs unfold in the same manner, there is enough variation in the repetition to show how the characters are different for their differing experiences to sustain the momentum and it never feels as if you're merely retreading the same ground as the first disc covered. The Doctor and Mel's dialogue is similar too, but the differences are important to emphasise that they too are from divergent timelines and while they are the same Doctor and Mel, they too become effected by the changes in the timeline which means they react slightly differently to the environment they find themselves in as their counterparts. Unlike the previous release Project: Lazarus, where a similar two disc, two story approach was taken, the two halves of Flip-Flop do not work so well when taken individually as they both impact upon each other and knowledge of the events of one disc is needed to gain full enjoyment from the other because of the contemporaneous nature of the two Seventh Doctors' storyline. While it's initially confusing to find that the Doctor and Mel are already wanted felons on Puxatornee upon their arrival, Morris' script cleverly fills in the background in such a way that it can draw the listener into the story if the disc is the first one heard, or expand upon the nature of the structure if it is the second.

Setting the story at Christmas gives Morris a good way to clearly highlight the differences between the two realities by showing how the attitudes towards this event have changed. In one version, it's considered Retribution Day in honour of the fallen President and in the other, the Slithergees are pressing for its abolishment in favour of Slimetide Solstice as the idea of Christmas is an affront to their ethnic beliefs. Aside from this, Morris uses the setting memorably through Professor Capra's singing but otherwise it doesn't really add much to the story as enough isn't made of it.

Flip-Flop benefits from uniformly excellent performances from its cast, with the wit of the script suiting both Sylvester McCoy and Bonnie Langford perfectly, letting them develop a warm and believable relationship which provides a constantly enjoyable factor throughout the story. Interestingly, the Doctor and Mel are together here for almost all of the adventure which makes for a welcome change to the more conventional method of splitting them up and giving them their own separate subplots and because of the dual nature of Flip-Flop Morris can get away with and still have the story work. The Doctor and Mel's role within the story helps to establish the situation perfectly. In both discs, their presence is already known on Puxatornee before their arrival and their questioning helps the listener to understand why this is - something which is then emphasised during the second half. Morris writes for this team superbly with their dialogue sparkling and sharp with Mel getting more quality lines in this one story than her entire run in the television series, with the best one being a delicious parody of her awful 'I'm about as truthful, honest, and about as boring as they come' line from The Trial Of A Time Lord.

Of the other performances, Daniel Hogarth and Trevor Martin stand out the most. Hogarth brings the Slithergees to life extremely well, conveying their superficial meekness but also showing their darker intent lying beneath whilst drawing out the humour of Morris' script at the same time. Martin's Professor Capra is a role that is little more than a cameo appearance but he almost steals the show with it. The black disc allows him to be a very peculiar torturer, offering the Doctor and Mel a Christmas cracker and singing carols at them before threatening to destroy their minds with his Mind Peeler, while on the white disc he's a much more sympathetic and tragic figure, whose obligation to help Puxatornee has cost him his family.

By labelling Flip-Flop as a 'unique innovation in storytelling' it's almost setting itself up to fail by raising the level of expectation, but Jonathan Morris forges a fascinating story in which the concept works spectacularly well. Due to the non-linear nature of the parallel-timeline part of the story the plot of Flip-Flop does border on being convoluted at times but Morris' lucid writing ensures that everything is made clear and understandable. Ostensibly, this is a witty and fun story, but scratch the surface and there is something much darker and more interesting going on beneath as this group of individuals struggle to survive in two harsh environments. Flip-Flop is inventive, provocative, and clever, all of which helps it achieve the status of being mind-bogglingly entertaining.