Time-Space Visualiser
A Time-Space Visualiser (also known as a Space-Time Visualiser or Time Television) was a device that allowed the operator to view any event in history. It was based on Venderman's Law. (PROSE: The Chase [+]Loading...["The Chase (novelisation)"])
The Doctor's Visualiser
Acquisition by the First Doctor
One damaged Visualiser was captured by the Morok Empire following the capitulation of Grantanimus Five. (PROSE: "A Parting Gift" [+]Part of The Time Lord Letters, Loading...{"namedpart":"A Parting Gift","1":"The Time Lord Letters (novel)"}) It was then placed on a Morok Space Museum on Xeros, and was eventually given to the First Doctor by Tor as a souvenir after he and his companions helped them to defeat the Moroks. (TV: "The Final Phase" [+]Part of The Space Museum, Loading...{"namedep":"The Final Phase (4)","1":"The Space Museum (TV story)"}) It had an instruction manual. (AUDIO: The Doctor's Tale [+]Loading...["The Doctor's Tale (audio story)"])
The Doctor finally began fixing it shortly after leaving Sonning in 1400 (AUDIO: The Doctor's Tale [+]Loading...["The Doctor's Tale (audio story)"]) and spent hours working on it either side of a visit to 57 Acacia Avenue in 2004. (PROSE: Every Day [+]Loading...["Every Day (short story)"]) After getting the Visualiser working, the Doctor and his companions used it to observe Queen Elizabeth I and Francis Bacon meeting with William Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln delivering his Gettysburg Address and the Beatles performing "Ticket to Ride". The Visualiser later showed them the Daleks launching their time machine on a mission to exterminate them, which let them buy some time. (TV: The Chase [+]Loading...["The Chase (TV story)"]) The Doctor tries to avoid using the Time-Space Visualiser for purposes other than entertainment due to the risk of paradoxes that might be created from foreknowledge of certain events. (AUDIO: Purification [+]Loading...["Purification (audio story)"])
According to the Dalek Survival Guide, this Time-Space Visualiser was actually a hoax created by a group of criminal Daleks forced to chronicle Dalek history as punishment. These prisoner Daleks noticed the Doctor using the device before being pursued by a squad of Daleks they recognised as their future selves. They knew such a machine was scientifically impossible, but in order to ensure their future freedom, they built what would serve as an apparent Time-Space Visualiser that actually displayed recordings of the Daleks' human slaves performing reenactments of the events they knew the Doctor and his companions would view.
The criminal Daleks smuggled themselves out of prison, but were allowed to continue their plan by the Dalek Supreme, who knew they were incompetent and broadcast their attempt for the amusement of other Dalek chroniclers. The criminal Daleks left their fake visualiser on the Xeron Space Museum for the Doctor to find. One of the Daleks was killed by a Morok curator due to not paying admission and became an exhibit, while the rest were indeed those that chased the TARDIS crew through time and ended up being defeated by the Mechanoids. (PROSE: Dalek Survival Guide [+]Loading...["Dalek Survival Guide (novel)"])
Later uses
The Third Doctor later used the Visualiser to trace the origin of an alien spaceship fragment to the island of Salutua in 1934. He used the same experiment to try and create a time bridge to that year in an attempt to bypass his exile, but this was only possible due to the unique nature of the omicron radiation contaminating the fragment. The time bridge project was abandoned after his trip to Salutua nearly had disastrous consequences for history. (PROSE: The Eye of the Giant [+]Loading...["The Eye of the Giant (novel)"])
With the Visualiser returned to its original purpose, the Doctor kept it as late as his eleventh incarnation where he used it to observe the timeline after he repaired the Daleks' alterations using the Eye of Time. (GAME: City of the Daleks [+]Loading...["City of the Daleks (video game)"])
The Sixth Doctor watched the 2006 cricket Test Match between Australia and South Africa shortly after defeating Davros and the Daleks at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815. Flip Jackson described it as a "manky old thing" and criticised it for being in black-and-white. (AUDIO: The Fourth Wall [+]Loading...["The Fourth Wall (audio story)"])
Shortly before arriving on Olleril, Bernice Summerfield watched something funny on the Visualiser. (PROSE: Prelude Tragedy Day [+]Loading...["Prelude Tragedy Day (short story)"])
While his granddaughter Susan Campbell and great-grandson Alex Campbell were celebrating Christmas in the TARDIS with him and Lucie Miller, the Eighth Doctor wanted to watch the Queen Elizabeth II's 1953 Christmas speech using the Visualiser as that was a "great year." (AUDIO: Relative Dimensions [+]Loading...["Relative Dimensions (audio story)"])
Other Visualisers
The Sixth Doctor once told Evelyn Smythe that the Time Lords had Time-Space Visualisers which they used to spy on him. (AUDIO: The 100 Days of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The 100 Days of the Doctor (audio story)"])
At the onset of the New Dalek Paradigm, the Strategist Dalek used a Time-Space Visualiser to observe the Dalek Empire's Robomen, ordering the Scientist Dalek to create the Dalek puppets based off their designs. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe [+]Loading...["Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe (short story)"]) They later developed their own version of the technology, the Visualiser, which Amy Pond called a "Librarian Dalek". (GAME: City of the Daleks [+]Loading...["City of the Daleks (video game)"])
The Monk also had a Time-Space Visualiser. He used it to show Tamsin Drew the Eighth Doctor repairing the atmospheric re-ioniser for the Ice Warriors. (AUDIO: The Resurrection of Mars [+]Loading...["The Resurrection of Mars (audio story)"])
Iris Wildthyme had a similar device, a time-space kinetograph. (PROSE: Beguine [+]Loading...["Beguine (short story)"])
Functions
The Visualiser could "tune in" to events all over the universe in many time eras. The First Doctor said that the Visualiser converted "neutrons of light energy into electrical impulses" and that it could only show events in the past. (TV: The Chase [+]Loading...["The Chase (TV story)"])
However, Faction Paradox used a Time-Space Visualiser to forecast Fitz Kreiner's future, showing him an image of himself as Father Kreiner. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell [+]Loading...["The Ancestor Cell (novel)"])
Izzy Sinclair used the Time-Space Visualiser to play various video games, such as Happy Deathday, which involved the Eighth Doctor and his past incarnations. (COMIC: Happy Deathday [+]Loading...["Happy Deathday (comic story)"])
Behind the scenes
As documented in the Terry Nation Army documentary The Doctor's Time Television: Lost Lore and Design Development, Terry Nation's original script for The Chase described the device somewhat differently, more closely resembling a television set rather than the huge circular machine eventually realised by the props department. It was called a Spatio-Temporal Visiscope, and instead of being a gift from the Moroks, it would have been presented as being built from scratch by the First Doctor, who would comment that "in his home time", such devices were commonplace and considered children's toys.
