Flip-Flop

Main Range #46

Released: 1 August 2003

Listened: 10/27/20

Although this one appears to be silly at first glance, it’s actually rather dark. It’s also a Christmas story in the sense that it takes place at Christmas, but it’s definitely not a silly panto, and it wasn’t released at Christmas, either. It does, however, have several references to It’s a Wonderful Life, mostly in the character names, plus a reference to Groundhog Day in the name of the planet, Puxatornee. Because this story is a loop, or perhaps a mobius strip. The CD version of the story came on two disks, one black, one white, which could be listened to in either order, and the story would remain intact, because of the circular timey-wimey involved. That’s a little less impactful as a download, although you can choose which half you want to listen to first. However, both halves of the loop have rather grim consequences as the characters try to change history, and then change it back, and there’s no breaking out of the loop either. (The Doctor and Mel get to leave, but as part of the loop; they don’t break out.) There’s no “better” version of history, and nobody gets a happy ending. There’s also the effect of listening to the same half-story twice over, which makes the story feel both shorter and longer than it ought to be. The time loop is convoluted enough that you probably have to listen twice in short order to keep track of which characters are where, but it’s grim enough that you might not want to. It’s a writing experiment more than an enjoyable story.