‘THE TIME OF THE TIPPING POINT’
Please feel free to comment on my review.
The Tipping Point with Simon, Liz, Charlotte(?), Neil and Jade
Is this really the end of the ‘Timeslip’ audio series by Big Finish? 😐
Here we are on what is supposedly the final audio adventure in the ‘Timeslip’ saga called ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’, starring Spencer Banks as Simon, Cheryl Burfield as Liz, Sarah Sutton as Charlotte, Orlando Gibbs as Neil and Amanda Shodeko as Jade. I say ‘supposedly’ pretty lightly here.
Now before we go any further, I want to stress how much I’ve enjoyed the latest couple of ‘Timeslip’ audios by Big Finish, which were released in 2023. All the audios are worth my attention, and I’m pleased that I got to hear Sarah Sutton (my favourite ‘Doctor Who’ actress) in something different. 🙂
When it came to checking out ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’, a four-part audio story by writer/director Helen Goldwyn – who has directed all of the ‘Timeslip’ audios by Big Finish – I expected this is to be a full-on epic story to round off everything that had gone in the audio series by this stage.
This is a story that should have had elements of ‘The Age of the Death Lottery’, ‘The War That Never Was’ and ‘A Life Never Lived’ rounded off in ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’. Much like how the first three stories of the short-lived TV series had elements being rounded off in ‘The Day of the Clone’. 🙂
Sadly, I didn’t get that expectation fulfilled when listening to ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’ and I’m sorry to say that it’s a story that I have… mixed feelings about. Now, let me stress, I do think Helen Goldwyn is a competent writer, especially when she has written some Big Finish audios in the past. 🙂
This includes ‘Doctor Who’ audios like ‘The Taste of Death’ for ‘The Tenth Doctor Chronicles’ and ‘Star Cops’ audio episodes like ‘Human Kind’ in the ‘Mars’ series. What it comes down to is the overall direction of the ‘Timeslip’ audio series and what Big Finish decided in telling the whole narrative.
From watching the TV series, you got a sense of it being a continuous story and that it resolved things in a reasonably satisfactory manner. This included Simon and Liz discovering alternative futures with the Ice Box and the Burn Up, and a satisfying redemption arc for Commander Traynor. 🙂
With the Big Finish audios, I’m not entirely sure if the production team had a clear agenda from the start as to where the stories were supposed to go. I mean, you have Simon and Liz who are older, they meet Neil and Jade from 1982, and Charlotte Trent accompanies them, often causing trouble. 😐
Those elements are well-set up in the first two audio stories by Big Finish. That’s absolutely fine. And I think it benefits those stories to be six-parters in order to establish the epic proportions of what’s going on in alternative pasts and futures, and you have mysteries to solve as to how they happened.
Spencer Banks and Cheryl Burfield in ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’.
With the last two stories by Big Finish, I don’t think the pay-offs of those mysteries being introduced are well-handled, especially when ‘A Life Never Lived’ and ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’ are four-part stories instead of six-parters. Big Finish really should have made them six-part stories instead. 😦
At least we would get a sense that disaster is happening when involving the ‘time barrier’, which seems to be sentient and is trying to warn Simon, Liz and the ‘Timeslip’ team that the world as they know it is going to end and it’s all because of something or someone tampering with human history.
A missed opportunity in the ‘Timeslip’ audio series is to explain how the Second World War’s history changed in ‘The Age of the Death Lottery’ and ‘The War That Never Was’. You’d think that Liz’s interaction with Flora Walsh would have been the cause of that when venturing back in time to 1914.
In fact, another missed opportunity is to have it established that Flora Walsh caused the Second World War to change. She caused the war to last longer from 1945 to 1948 when perhaps she found the ‘time barrier’ whilst in 2016. I’m surprised Big Finish didn’t take this story opportunity. Or perhaps it’s yet to happen. 😐
I’d like to think Big Finish prepared the ‘Timeslip’ audios in advance, even in 2019 when chronicling what Simon and Liz’s journey was going to be like in matching to the four-story structure of the TV series. I’d like to think they had planned for all the ‘Timeslip’ audio stories to be six-part adventures.
Even if the Covid-19 pandemic never occurred in 2020, you would’ve hoped Big Finish would have been able to carry on from where they left off in the first two audios in order to provide satisfactory, epic conclusions in the last two. Perhaps the last two ‘Timeslip’ audios were meant to be six-parters.
But for whatever reason, Big Finish had to cut costs on what they were making in terms of stories because of the pandemic and ‘cost of living’ crisis. Therefore, they decided to have ‘A Life Never Was’ and ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’ as four-parters instead. Perhaps ‘Doctor Who’ audios were affected in that same way.
This is speculation on my part, and I can’t confirm if that is the case in terms of behind-the-scenes information on these audios. It’s the impression I’m getting, especially as producer David Richardson states clearly that the last two audio stories are apparently bringing the mini-series to ‘a natural close’.
That’s what he says in the Backstage section of ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’ on the Big Finish website. However, Helen Goldwyn seems to be of a different opinion compared to David Richardson when she shares about the future of the ‘Timeslip’ audio series in the behind-the-scenes interviews.
She seems to give the impression that whilst this might be a possible close for ‘Timeslip’ on audio, there’s a chance it might be revived and it will continue. I certainly hope it will continue, since there are story ideas and character threads that I would like to have heard resolved in a satisfying manner.
Sarah Sutton, Cheryl Burfield, Amanda Shodeko, Spencer Banks and Orlando Gibbs in ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’.
This is especially the case for Charlotte Trent, who I don’t really feel has had a satisfying story arc in the ‘Timeslip’ audios overall, especially when it turns out that the Charlotte in ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’ isn’t the real Charlotte at all. But that’s something to talk about later on in the review.
In ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’, we follow on from where we left off with our ‘Timeslip’ heroes leaving 2016 to enter the ‘time barrier’. They find themselves in an alternate world where the ‘time barrier’ ends up underwater. Simon and Liz come up out of a river once they have exited the barrier.
This is quite an unusual exit point for our ‘Timeslip’ heroes to come out of. It’s also bizarre that we start with Simon and Liz coming out first and Neil and Jade afterwards, whereas at the end of ‘A Life Never Lived’; Charlotte went through first, then it was Neil and Jade, and then it was Simon and Liz. 😐
Now, considering that the ‘time barrier’ might be sentient – whether by alien or human design is never revealed by the end of the story at all – it does seem inconsiderate of the barrier to be opened underwater instead of on land. I mean, our heroes could have literally drowned upon their arrival. 😀
It’s revealed to Simon and Liz as well as Neil and Jade in their separate journeys that they’ve ended up in the year 2053. That’s like 37 years in the future. This is in contradiction to what the blurb by Big Finish says, since it’s stated this audio story takes place in an alternate world, 30 years in the future.
If our heroes really were 30 years into the future, they should have ended up in the year 2046. Why couldn’t Big Finish be accurate in their synopsis for this story by saying it takes place 37 years in an alternative future instead of 30 years? I know this sounds nit-picky, but it’s rather frustrating for me.
Also, there’s a missed opportunity here to have a link to ‘The Age of the Death Lottery’, as that story took place in an alternative future in 2042 and you could have linked things in ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’ by setting it in 2046. Even Charlotte’s character development could be utilised in this situation.
Anyway, our heroes discover that the people of the alternate 2053 are living simplified ‘back to basics’ lives. They’ve been told that they’ve averted the ecological tipping point by radically changing their way of life. This includes using horses instead of cars and not having any electricity in homes. 😐
It’s also forbidden for people to swim, apparently. There does seem to be this underlying current (no pun instead) of ecological issues involved in this story. This is especially when the world is being flooded and tsunamis are on their way, not helped by the government’s efforts to solve these issues.
In many respects, there is an echo of ‘The Year of the Burn Up’ story where the world was heating up to its demise whilst in ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’, the world is facing its demise through flooding. It was a challenge to get my head around the story’s themes, but it was fascinating to hear.
Spencer Banks and Cheryl Burfield in ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’.
Let’s talk about the story’s cast for a bit. There’s Spencer Banks as Simon Randall. I like how Simon’s character has progressed in the ‘Timeslip’ audios, especially as he seems to be a natural leader when keeping the group of himself, Liz, Neil, Jade and sometimes Charlotte together in perilous situations.
It’s a contrast to hear him on audio as an experienced man compared to seeing him as a young teenager in the TV series. I like the time he spends with Liz, especially as they try to find out what’s happening in this alternate future of 2053 from people such as Petro Danek and his daughter Janine.
Simon gets to visit the Oasis, one of the worldwide buildings that keeps the government safe from the effects of the Tipping Point situation. He works hard to stop the government’s plans that involving flooding, and he gets to rescue Jade and Luka, Janine’s daughter, when they’re locked up. 🙂
Cheryl Burfield returns as Liz Skinner in this audio story. Like Simon, it’s interesting how much he and Liz have developed as characters, especially in the audios. I like Liz’s warmth and honesty, especially with being wiser and more thoughtful compared to when she was a bit reactionary in the TV show. 🙂
It’s nice how Liz and Simon share things when being concerned about how the future of their world will turn out with the Tipping Point situation causing flooding and such. It was interesting to hear Liz’s affronted reaction to when she was being chucked out of the Oasis building by the President. 😐
I also liked it when Liz worked out that Charlotte had accidentally killed Janine but left her to drown. It did confuse me when I heard that moment being played towards the end of ‘Episode Three’, but I’m thankful that it’s established clearly what happened between Liz and Charlotte in ‘Episode Four’.
Speaking of Charlotte, it was lovely to hear Sarah Sutton play her ‘Timeslip’ character again. Listening to Charlotte’s journey in every ‘Timeslip’ story is always a joy for me, especially when Sarah plays her. Mind you, I can’t say I’m satisfied by how her character turned out in the ‘final’ audio story.
I was expecting there to be a proper redemption for Charlotte in the last ‘Timeslip’ audio story by Big Finish, which would have matched to how things turned out for Commander Traynor in the TV series. After all, it transpired that he had been locked in a room and a clone of him was running about.
There’s not much of that in ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’, especially when it turns out the Charlotte Trent in this audio story isn’t the real Charlotte at all. 😮 She’s the one who lives in the alternative 2053. I must admit, I was fooled into thinking that this was the real Charlotte in this audio story.
This is when I was hoping that Charlotte had amended her ways, especially when attending the protests against the government. But of course, she ended up killing Janine Danek. When Liz asks alternate Charlotte what happened to the real Charlotte, she says she doesn’t know and doesn’t care.
Sarah Sutton, Orlando Gibbs and Amanda Shodeko in ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’.
We don’t even get to have a proper appearance of the real Charlotte at all in this story. We’re to put up with the more villainous alternate Charlotte. 😐 This is an example of another missed opportunity made by Big Finish, as ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’ could have been a six-parter instead of a four-parter.
If ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’ had been a six-parter, it would have allowed the opportunity for the real Charlotte to appear and have her redemption once Simon, Liz, Neil and Jade find her. That way, all five of our main characters can return safely to their home times without so many problems.
I know Simon and Liz claim that the real Charlotte will find a way to return once they’re back in their home time, but I’m disappointed we don’t get to learn the fate of the real Charlotte. This is especially when the alternate Charlotte ends up drowning and, presumably, she’s killed in a tsunami.
I hope that a spin-off series called ‘Charlotte Trent Strikes Again’ will be made by Big Finish at some point, since I would like to know the fate of the real Charlotte. Incidentally, Sarah Sutton and Amanda Shodeko suggested that title when they were interviewed for the behind-the-scenes extras.
It’s revealed by Liz that Charlotte happens to be in her mid-30s. This is quite bizarre, considering Charlotte doesn’t look like she’s in her mid-30s and looks like how Sarah Sutton is on the story’s cover. Then again, the older Nyssa did appear to be in her 50s and not look like she was in her 70s. 🙂
That’s in the Big Finish audios featuring the older Nyssa with the Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Turlough from the stories ‘Cobwebs’ to ‘The Entropy Plague’. Incidentally, I’m sure Simon and Liz are supposed to be in their 60s according to the story covers compared to how Charlotte is meant to be.
Orlando Gibbs returns to play Neil Riley and an older version of Neil living as President in the alternate 2053. This was interesting to listen to, as usually it would be Charlotte who would be in a position of authority compared to our heroes Simon, Liz, Neil and Jade. The older Neil is intriguing. 🙂
As the story progresses, it’s revealed that President Neil is a corrupt man who’s behind the flooding of the entire world and isn’t willing to rescue people’s lives. He’s only keen for the elite members, including scientists, as well as government officials to remain in the many worldwide Oasis buildings.
This is something that Simon and Liz disapprove of greatly. It was fascinating to hear the young Neil and the older Neil interact with each other in this story. Once young Neil discovers older Neil’s true colours, he’s shocked and horrified, determined not to be like him once he returns to his home time.
Amanda Shodeko returns as Jade Okafor. I can’t say there’s much in terms of character development for Jade, as she’s kind of the same person we know her for being from beginning to end. It was intriguing to hear her reaction to the alternative Jade’s fate and that she and older Neil were lovers.
I like that Jade gets to share scenes with young Neil in the story, especially when they exit the ‘time barrier’ underwater to find themselves captured and taken to meet President Neil. Jade’s reactions to older Neil are intriguing, but she doesn’t get much interaction with him compared to young Neil.
Jade also gets to interact with Luka Danek, who works at the Oasis building in London. Both she and Luka discover things that are amiss with the government, causing them to end up being arrested and locked up. I like how Jade is relieved to see Simon once he comes to free her and Luka from their cell.
The story’s special guest star is Keith Drinkel, who plays two characters in this. He plays Petro Danek, a fisherman, and he plays Dr. Steel, who works in the Oasis building for President Neil. For me, Keith Drinkel played Flight Engineer Scobie in the ‘Doctor Who’ TV story ‘Time-Flight’ with Peter Davison.
I enjoyed hearing how the reunion between Sarah Sutton and Keith Drinkel turned out when listening to the behind-the-scenes interviews, as Keith Drinkel was recording his lines in France whilst everyone else was in London. Sarah didn’t realise it was Keith until he said ‘hello’ to her via video call.
Keith Drinkel has also worked with Sarah Sutton in the audio story ‘Wirrn: Race Memory’ and he’s well-known for being in the ‘A Family at War’ TV series. I like how Keith plays the two different characters with Petro being distrusting of Simon and Liz whilst Dr. Steel is attempting to be a very efficient scientist.
Esmonde Cole and Heather Coombs in ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’.
The cast also includes Heather Coombs as Janine Danek, Petro’s daughter and Luka’s mother. It’s a contrast to hear Janine being helpful to Simon and Liz after they exited the ‘time barrier’ compared to Petro who’d told them to get out of his boat when they claimed they worked for the government.
Janine tries to get to see her son Luka in the Oasis building, especially when her father Pedro disappears. She teams up with Liz and Charlotte for a bit, but tries to warn the authorities on them when she learns they’re to use a boat, which is a forbidden. Janine is accidentally killed by Charlotte.
Esmonde Cole stars as Luka Danek, Petro’s grandson and Janine’s son. It’s a shame that we don’t get to have any scenes featuring Luka, Janine and Pedro as a family threesome. I believe he meets up with his grandfather Pedro at some point, especially after Pedro has been through the ‘time barrier’.
For most of the story, Luka spends time with Jade when he’s giving her a tour around the Oasis building. The young Neil was with them for a bit of the tour before the older Neil took him away. I like how Jade and Luka share things whilst interacting together and they uncover what’s happening.
The story concludes with Simon, Liz, Neil, Jade, the alternate Charlotte and the alternate Neil about to pass through the ‘time barrier’ when a tsunami approaches. Simon and Liz go through and Neil and Jade go through, but unfortunately, the barrier closes on the alternate Charlotte and alternate Neil. 😦
Both alternate Charlotte and alternate Neil get drowned. I know I shouldn’t be too distressed by that since they did terrible things in the story, but with the fact there’s no appearance of the real Charlotte in ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’, it feels so depressing once alternate Charlotte and Neil are drowned.
Back with Neil and Jade, they end up back in the year 1982. Ah, great. I’m glad they managed to get back home safely. One question though. What happened to Sam? Yeah, remember him? He was with Neil and Jade when they started their time-travel adventures in ‘The Age of the Death Lottery’.
In fact, Sam doesn’t get mentioned at all in ‘A Life Never Lived’ and ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’. Did he die or got killed off in the series? Perhaps it was the case in ‘The War That Never Was’, but it’s frustrating no mention is made of Sam. Surely it wouldn’t have hurt to acknowledge him by the series’ end.
Meanwhile, Simon and Liz have returned to St. Oswald’s. Now this is interesting, as I expected them to return to Crystal Palace in London, which I thought was the new home for the ‘Timeslip’ audio series. I do know they went through the ‘time barrier’ in St. Oswald’s in ‘A Life Never Lived’, but still.
It’s not clear what year Simon and Liz have ended up in when they’re in St. Oswald’s. Liz doesn’t seem to care, since she’s glad to be on firm ground. I’d like to think Simon and Liz have ended up in the year 2023 and not in the year 2020. It would be ideal. After all, as Doc Emmet Brown would say…
For the record, this is the fourth time that I’ve used this ‘Back to the Future’ 2020 meme joke. The first time was in ‘The Age of the Death Lottery’, the second time was in the ‘Doctor Who’ audio story ‘Displaced’, and the third time was for my quick review on ‘Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery’. When will I use this joke a fifth time? 😀
‘The Time of the Tipping Point’ has been an intriguing and enjoyable conclusion to the ‘Timeslip’ audio series. I can’t say it’s an entirely satisfying conclusion. I would’ve liked it if ‘A Life Never Lived’ and ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’ were six-parters, not four-parters, but they’ve been nice to hear.
It’s been a pleasure to hear Spencer Banks and Cheryl Burfield reprise their roles of Simon and Liz in ‘Timeslip’ after so many years since doing the TV series and, for me, it was a delight to hear Sarah Sutton play Charlotte Trent – a distinctly different role compared to playing Nyssa in ‘Doctor Who’. 🙂
I don’t know what the future holds regarding ‘Timeslip’ and whether Big Finish will make more audio stories in future. Whether they’ll feature Simon and Liz is uncertain. I certainly hope this isn’t the definite end for ‘Timeslip’. I’d welcome a ‘Charlotte Trent Strikes Again’ spin-off with Sarah Sutton. 😀
The CD extras are as follows. At the end of Discs 1 and 2, there are behind-the-scenes interviews with the cast and crew, including Spencer Banks, Cheryl Burfield, Sarah Sutton, Orlando Gibbs, Amanda Shodeko, Keith Drinkel, writer/director Helen Goldwyn, etc.
As of March 2025, I’ve had my CD cover of ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’ signed by the lovely Sarah Sutton at ‘MegaCon Live Birmingham 2025’ in March 2025.
‘The Time of the Tipping Point’ rating – 7.5/10
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