Big Finish Main Range
**Spoiler Alert! There is almost no way to discuss this audio without giving away a key piece of the story so if you haven’t heard it, move along. Nothing to see here! Until you’ve listened, anyway.**
I don’t know if it was the subtle hints that came out from the Facebook posts I read about this story (no, they didn’t give away the twist) but I found it easy to tell what the twist was. The Doctor wasn’t acting quite right and when they mentioned the mind swapping technology, I thought HA! So Davros and the Doctor switched it up. I wonder how that happened? So the big cliffhanger at the end of episode 2 wasn’t really a huge shock for me. It just confirmed what I thought it was.
The story itself is very good, acting’s good, but it seems that Flip is almost forcing herself on the Doctor. That wasn’t a huge surprise either as she seemed ready to hop on the TARDIS from the moment the Doctor arrived. I do wonder if Davros would’ve been able to pilot the TARDIS as the Doctor. His brain waves were different so I’m not sure that it would’ve worked out. But he didn’t try during this story. And it was a bit confusing when the time changes from current day to the past, the Battle of Waterloo. And really, was Napoleon that brilliant of a tactician? I just don’t know much about him or this particular battle so I will have to take Davros’s word for it. Or Jonathan Morris’s.
I am looking forward to Flip as the 6th Doctor’s companion. She’s spunky so she will be a handful for him. It’d be REALLY interesting to see her with the 5th Doctor but this works for me. That would’ve been quite the contrast with Peter Davison’s Doctor. Colin Baker’s Doctor can handle feisty as his Doctor definitely has that element to him! Though he’s almost laid back in this story but we don’t really see him as himself for most of it. Terry Malloy and Colin Baker do a fantastic job of portraying each other, though I almost think Davros would’ve been even more cruel. But that would’ve given it away immediately and he was looking to “capture” a companion. Quite the fascinating concept but it just didn’t go quite far enough for me when they were switched. Good stuff!
Colin Baker and Lisa Greenwood
Writer: Jonathan Morris
Director: Nicholas Briggs
Released: January 2012