Vortex Ice

Main Range #225

Released: 16 May 2017

Listened: 8/12/20

This story is by Johnny Morris, who can do twisty, but this is about as timey-wimey as any Moffat story (Colin Baker even uses the phrase in the extras). The trick is that Flip and the Doctor are in the story at two different points in their timeline. Saying anything more about that would be a spoiler, but I should say that the timey-wimey is confusing enough that you probably won’t be able to follow it on the first listen. Or the second, if enough time has passed between listenings, as it did for me. Even spending a chunk of time at the end of the story explaining it didn’t really help, and does drag the story down, although there is a thread about Flip having to do some agonizing things for the sake of preserving the timeline. I’m not sure that holds up, to be honest -- sometimes in this show the timeline is sacrosanct, and other times it’s more flexible. But that’s Doctor Who for you. How you feel about that contradiction will probably inform your enjoyment of this story.