It’s time to listen to and discuss Flip-Flop
Buy it online using the link above, or listen for free - you’ll find links where to listen free on the story page!
Once you’ve listened, talk about it below! Even if you listened to it before and just want to discuss it - dive right in! Just please use spoiler tags where appropriate.
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I found it neat. The way you can listen to either part in either order is a cute gimmick and is used in an interesting way to tell the story.
I suppose I should talk about the Grinch in the room - there is a weird political angle to this story. Personally, I found it more of just another gimmick. The aliens play victim and act all hurt when they very much are an oppressive, fascist regime. It’s not exactly unheard of.
However, most people generally interpret this as a vapid rag on political correctness. That doesn’t make this story very fun and more of a right wing fantasy. I can see where people are coming from, but I would argue that isn’t really the intent I got from the author. It seems to me like the Slithergee are more sinister than that - they weaponize progressive language to get their way and if they don’t, they turn to violence. They aren’t exactly the deepest villain but this doesn’t really feel like the deepest audio. It’s more of a quirky little experiment I didn’t hate on the whole. 8/10 but if this isn’t your cup of tea I get it.
Not my greatest ever review (a quickie I wrote back in 2015 
) but sums up my feelings. I think it’s a great story. I never ever got the sense of any dodgy political angle.
The Slithergees are horrid - obsequious and clearly manipulating the situation they are in. It’s just a different way of invading a planet.
Sometimes I just think people bring their own politics/opinions to things and want to see controversy where there isn’t any (and also to be outraged on the behalf of other people).
I don’t know what the public opinion of this one is at all, but I remember liking this one well enough. Not a favourite by any means but an interesting concept and not boring AND I have a vague remembrance of it which means it must have been okay
Yeah, about the political angle: I remember listening to Jonny Morris on a podcast somewhere (Hamster with a Penknife?) and he was adamant that there was no right-wing xenophobic ’fear of foreigners/refugees’ intended. So, there’s that!
That’s good to know. I would say the xenophobia also doesn’t match Morris’ larger body of work, either.
Bloodtide especially comes to mind. One could argue that story is pro-creationism but it is clearly just a bit of satire and having some fun with the idea over some sort of serious political point.
I have complicated feelings on this story. I LOVE the gimmick (I think it’s a bit stronger starting with Black since I think the Catch-22 hits a bit harder going from the oppressive Slithergee regime to the bleak post-nuclear winter, because where there’s life, there’s hope and everyone is on borrowed time in the 2nd timeline) and so much is already said on the less than savory accidental xenophobia. So I wanted to focus on an interesting realization/headcanon I thought of this time around to just be a little silly goofy.
You could actually use this story as a lynchpin if you really wanted to separate Novel and Audio canons. The timeline of the nuclear winter: dark, depressing, dreary sends the Doctor down the path of Time’s Champion and Faction Paradox. The timeline of the Slithergee domination takes the Doctor down the path of the Audios: still dark and bleak, but there’s an element of hope because life can continue.
But that’s boring and who really wants to do that when trying to shove them all into one coherent timeline is significantly more fun!
So, how 'bout that accidental xenophobia?
It’s been a long time since I listened to this so can someone remind me about the xenophobia and its context.
Apparently the monsters can be seen as a far-right, racist depiction of immigrants.
I found the gimmick used here was done pretty well, but admittedly it’s been a while since I listen to this one. I recall thinking it’s alright mostly, there are some great bits and the gimmick used here was executed rather well, but overall I don’t remember too much of it to properly judge it.
Eeeh, this one didn’t excite me.
Sylv and Bonnie are great as always, but this feels like a release mostly known for its gimmick rather than its story. The gimmick is clever, I admit, and executed very well. But the story itself is too drawn out and gave me nothing. I didn’t care for the characters or the world, and I was bored after finishing the first disc (White), despite thinking that the Black disc was better.
It’s a 5/10 for me!
I really really like the idea of this one but don’t particularly vibe with the result of the story. There’s the obvious unfortunate element that’s been mentioned already, and that only really the first one you listen to feels like a proper full story (like i get the fun into looking at similarities and differences between these two worlds, but also, now I’m partially listening to the same story twice…), and I guess the bleakness of it is cool? But idk, I find the running around the city just not very interesting. And once I’ve gone past all that I can’t find a lot more in it. So 6/10. Though cool concept!
I listened to this one maybe like three or four months ago when I was on the hunt for audios featuring Mel, and I have fond memories of it. The gimmick was really fun for me, even if the themes of the story are a bit weird.
I took it less as xenophobic rhetoric and more of a commentary on the paradox of tolerance and playing the victim in order to manipulate people, but I can definitely see why people would take it as the former.
I think about it a lot honestly, cause somewhere out there is an endless time loop of Mel and Seven and this colony that’s just flopping back and forth between timelines forever which is wild to think about.
Just listened to this one.
I’m so glad others noticed the xenophobia. As soon as I heard it (I started with the black disc), I cringed and thought oh no, is this a far-right writer?
It was at the back of my mind throughout the whole story and put a dampener on it for me.
All of these sound like exactly the kind of thing that Nigel Farage or Donald Trump says about foreigners, so I was appalled to hear it in Doctor Who. I know the idea is that these are aliens, and they are using the humans’ compassion against them, and maybe it is about tolerance, but to me the whole story felt like a bit of a hate crime.
I was glad to read in the reviews that other people caught onto this and it wasn’t me overreacting.
So whilst I tried to put that to the back of my mind and enjoy the story, I enjoyed the gimmick (and it really is that, a gimmick) of the alternate timelines, but as has been said above, once you’ve heard one disc the other is too similar.
It’s very clever. But the message is more muddled than Kerblam. Not for me. 2/5.
Hmmm.
I completely get what you are saying and those examples are really helpful for my poor addled memory.
I have a flipside/pushback to that but I can’t quite word it without making myself seem like a horrible racist.
I’m reading the reviews on the site now and loads of people picked up on it, and were more eloquent than me in explaining, I suggest you give them a read.
And PM me your flip-side because I want to hear it, I know you’re not racist lol.
I may well do that. I will say though that the refugee element probably hits differently now post Trump/Farage/Braverman where we are far more alert to the rhetoric. I always think it’s important to put stories in the context of when they were written and not assume either ill intent or even ignorance on the part of the writer. Things can be an unintentional result of story elements combining in a way not intended and, as I say, that combine differently in later years because the listener/reader/viewer brings different things to the story from their own experience.
I’ve heard that The Unquiet Dead can be read as anti-refugee, even though I’ve also read that the possibility of reading of it that way didn’t even occur to Gatiss during the writing process.
Yes it sort of can, in that the Gelth are all like “Pity the Gelth!” but then when they are let in they decide to take over the world.
However. That’s just an interesting twist, and can just be seen as a “baddies pretending to be good” trope.
This story are different because the author goes to great lengths to repeat every right wing fascist “fear” about left wing policies and how it will end up with white people humans becoming slaves to the foreigners aliens.