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- See also TARDIS (for information on TARDISes generally) and TARDIS (disambiguation).
The Doctor's TARDIS is an obsolete Mark I Type 40 TARDIS used by the Doctor as his primary means of transport. Capable, like all TARDISes, travelling through space and time, the Doctor has travelled in his vessel from the beginning of time itself prior to the Big Bang (DW: Terminus, BBCR: Slipback) to the year 100,000,000,000,000 and the end of time itself (DW: Utopia).
Model and type
In his first incarnation, the Doctor implied that he had built his TARDIS himself. (DW: The Chase) This was revealed to be a fabrication: In fact, he had stolen it. (DW: The War Games, ST: The Exiles) Marnal was the Time Lord who previously owned the TARDIS. (EDA: The Gallifrey Chronicles)
The Doctor's TARDIS was referred to by the Time Lords as being a Type 40. By the time of the Doctor's fourth incarnation, all Type 40s had been officially decommissioned and replaced by newer, improved models. All models except the Doctor's had been accounted for. (DW: The Deadly Assassin)
The Monk claimed to have a Mark IV TARDIS, while the Doctor had a Mark I. The Doctor vaguely suggested that the two "Marks" were fifty years apart, although he could have been referring to the age gap between the time differential between when he and the Monk had left Gallifrey, or the age gap between himself and the Monk. (DW: The Time Meddler)
The Master's dematerialisation circuit was a Mark II compared to the Doctor's Mark I. It was unclear whether this meant that the Master's TARDIS, as a whole, was a Mark II. (DW: Terror of the Autons)
Exterior
Police box shape
Almost all TARDISes were able to blend in with their surroundings because of a mechanism called the "chameleon circuit", or "camouflage unit". On the one occasion on which the Doctor's was functioning, it appeared to automatically choose a form, although the circuit may not have been functioning properly even on this occasion (DW: Attack of the Cybermen). Other, later models seemed to allow the pilot to choose a desired exterior. Both the Master and the Monk appeared to be able to program their chameleon circuits. (DW: The Time Meddler, Logopolis, Time-Flight)
In any case, the defining characteristic of the Doctor's TARDIS was that its chameleon circuit had broken after assuming the shape of a police box in 1963's London. It apparently had been working up until it landed in I.M. Foreman's junkyard, because the Doctor's granddaughter stated that the TARDIS had previously appeared as a sedan chair and an ionic column, and because both she and the Doctor expressed surprise that it had not changed form when they travelled back to 100,000 BC. (DW: "The Cave of Skulls")
Eventually, friends and enemies would be able to locate the TARDIS because it failed to change shape. The Daleks recognized the police box as the transport of their enemy (DW: Death to the Daleks), as would the Cybermen (DW: Earthshock) and the agent of the Black Guardian known as the Shadow. (DW: The Armageddon Factor) Captain Jack Harkness was on the look-out for "a version of" the police box throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries. (DW: Utopia)
The Doctor tried to permanently fix the problem of the faulty chameleon circuit, not wanting old enemies to have such an easy way to recognize him, by measuring its exterior dimensions in relation to an actual police box and then by visiting the Logopolitans to complete the Block Transfer Computations they would have used to fix the faulty circuit. Due to interference of the Master, he never completed this task. (DW: Logopolis)
In his sixth incarnation the Doctor succeeded, however the TARDIS' ineptness at using the chameleon circuit showed itself when it appeared as first a cupboard, then an organ and a set of iron gates which did not fit in with their surroundings on Telos. It shortly reverted back to the old police box shape. (DW: Attack of the Cybermen)
During her brief time as the DoctorDonna, Donna Noble came up with a solution for the chameleon circuit problem, but was unable to impart this information to the Doctor before her mind began collapsing (DW: Journey's End).
Key
Entry to the Doctor's TARDIS was effected by inserting a key into the lock, just as would be expected from a real police box. However, the locking mechanism was anything but ordinary. It did not respond to police-issued keys, and indeed would not even open when unauthorized persons used the Doctor's keys. The Brigadier was prevented from opening the TARDIS in the Doctor's absence, because of the metabolism detector on the lock. Presumably, this safeguard gave the Doctor the ability to precisely define the people for whom the key would work. (DW: Spearhead from Space) Nevertheless, there were occasions on which strangers were able to successfully use the Doctor's key, perhaps suggesting either a flaw in the metabolism detector or a sentient choice on the part of the TARDIS. (DW: Doctor Who (1996), The War Machines)
The external design of the key changed over time. As would be expected on a vintage police box, it primarily appeared to be an ordinary Yale lock key (DW: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Spearhead from Space, Black Orchid, Aliens of London, Blink). However, it did occasionally appear to have a more ornate, Gallifreyan motif (DW: Planet of the Spiders, Robot, The Android Invasion, Ghost Light, Doctor Who (1996)). It was unclear why the key's design changed.
The key itself seemed to have some ability to act as a locator of the TARDIS, but this functionality may have been limited to those occasions in which a change to the "natural order" of events rendered the Doctor separated from his TARDIS. On at least one occasion, the key expressed a link to the TARDIS by glowing and becoming extremely hot to the touch. (DW: Father's Day).
The lock could be manually secured from inside the TARDIS, preventing even authorized individuals from using the key to unlock the doors from the exterior. (DW: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Utopia)
It was unclear whether the lock automatically secured from the exterior however. There were occasions on which the Doctor or his companions needed to use the key to lock the doors (DW: The Sensorites) but others (DW: Spearhead from Space, The Christmas Invasion) in which the act of merely closing the doors locked the TARDIS. It was possible that the lock could be set secure either automatically or manually.
Despite the unique properties of the Doctor's TARDIS key, "master" keys did exist back on Gallifrey. These keys, under the control of the Castellan's office, could open any TARDIS, including the Doctor's. (DW: The Invasion of Time)
Interior
Periodically the TARDIS interior goes through various metamorphoses, changing and altering, sometimes through choice or because of other reasons. Some of these changes are physical in nature (involving secondary control rooms, etc.) but it is also possible to change the interior design of the TARDIS as one would change the desktop theme on a computer (DW: Time Crash).
Console or Control Room
There have been many variants of the Doctor's TARDIS main control room. They usually share common features such as a hexagonal control console, and a set of doors allowing access to the outside via the outer plasmic shell as well as to other rooms in the TARDIS and usually a scanner or some other means of observing the outside.
Main console room
First version
When the interior of the TARDIS was first viewed by humans (Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright) the console was a bright white room, with roundels on the walls with a large computer bank taking up a major part of the 'back' wall. A few knick-knacks lay about the console room.
- These computer banks contain the fault locator along with various systems relating to navigational control and navigational piloting and plotting. (DW: An Unearthly Child, The Daleks)
This console was removed by the Doctor in his third incarnation during his exile on Earth and remained in his laboratory. (DW: Inferno) The Doctor returned it to its old place later (DW: Terror of the Autons)
The Doctor continued to rebuild the TARDIS console and the main interior of the TARDIS console room using "UNIT funds and equipment" throughout his exile as UNIT's scientific adviser. (DW: The Three Doctors)
The Doctor briefly changed the walls of the console room with what appeared like plastic furnishings appearing along the edges of the roundels. One of the roundels served as a replacement of the scanner, a picture appearing in its center. (DW: The Time Monster), however he soon reverted to the more traditional design (DW: The Three Doctors)
The Doctor rebuilt the console following its damage by Cyberguns. (DW: Earthshock). He later refurbished it completely, giving it a more sleek, high-tech appearance. (DW: The Five Doctors)
Second version
The whole TARDIS interior went through its most radical change seen following the TARDIS's entrapment inside the Doctor's family estate; the House of Lungbarrow (NA: Lungbarrow) the console had assumed a more Gothic, Victorian appearance, and included a library. Like the roof of an observatory or a planetarium, the ceiling of the control room "opened", revealing the Infinity Chamber which showed the outside and could display holographic images. The smaller scanner, which resembled an antique black and white television set, displayed other information. (DW: Doctor Who (1996))
Third version
By the Doctor's ninth incarnation, the control room had reverted to a more familiar form, although this newest design was far more organic than any previously seen. Hexagonal impressions on the walls had replaced the roundels, and the console itself incorporated many odds and ends ranging from a device resembling a bicycle pump to a mallet used for occasional percussive maintenance. (DW: Rose onwards) The current design is one of the TARDIS' "desktop themes" and is called "Coral" - a "leopard skin" theme also apparently exists.(DW: Time Crash). The console room consists of a circular room with a red tiled ramp leading from the doors to a hexagonal platform. on the hexagonal platform lies a second platform but circular. The entire room is supported by six coral pillars that meet with the top of the time rotor at the rooms ceiling. Under the main platform are storage areas large enough for the Doctor to enter (DW: Army of Ghosts), though some are packed to just below the top (DW: The Unicorn and the Wasp).
Possible fourth version
- See 'Behind the scenes', below.
Secondary control room
There exists a small secondary control or console room which the Doctor claimed was the original console room. It was far simpler than the main control room, with the console resembling a desk, no visible time rotor and all the controls hidden behind what appears to be wooden panelling. It had more subtle roundels, some of them framing stained glass windows. For a brief period in his fourth incarnation, the Doctor used this as the main control room. (DW: The Masque of Mandragora, The Hand of Fear. The Deadly Assassin, The Robots of Death, The Invisible Enemy)
Tertiary control room
There also exists a tertiary control room, which is cool and dark grey with a small mushroom shaped console. (NA: Nightshade, Deceit)
General Interior Appearance and Layout
Using the Architectural Configuration system, the Doctor was able to change and re-arrange the interior of his TARDIS with ease. (DW: Logopolis, Castrovalva, DWA: 2006 Doctor Who Annual)
The TARDIS interior walls generally consists of roundels; a circular indentation that line all of the TARDIS walls. Some roundels conceal TARDIS circuitry and devices (DW: The Wheel in Space, Logopolis, Castrovalva, Arc of Infinity, Terminus), while others function for viewing the outside. (DW: The Claws of Axos) The design of the roundels may vary depending on where in the TARDIS they are; a basic circular cut-out with black background, roundels resembling washing-up bowls stuck to the wall, recessed wood paneling with a few decorative ones in what appeared to be stained glass, translucent illuminated discs or hexagonal shapes with nodes in the centre.
Specific Control Systems
The TARDIS' controls are said to be isomorphic, that is, only the Doctor can operate them. (DW: Pyramids of Mars) However, various companions have been able to operate the TARDIS and even fly it. (DW: Four to Doomsday, The Visitation, The Five Doctors, The Parting of the Ways, The Sontaran Stratagem, Journey's End) The Time Lords are also able to pilot the TARDIS by remote control, usually, as the Doctor once bitterly noted, so he may take care of "some dirty work they don't want to get their lily-white hands on." (DW: Colony in Space, The Brain of Morbius)
The second incarnation of the Doctor once used a portable Stattenheim remote control to summon his TARDIS to him (DW: The Two Doctors). The TARDIS is also vulnerable to diversion or relocation by the Guardians, Eternals, and other immensely powerful beings such as the Keeper of Traken. (DW: The Ribos Operation, Enlightenment, The Keeper of Traken)
For a brief time the Doctor's fourth incarnation installed a Randomiser in the navigational subsystems, though this was eventually removed. (DW: The Armageddon Factor, The Leisure Hive)
Other Rooms
- Many of the companions of the Doctor had their own rooms, (DW: Meglos), though some lived in previously used rooms. (DW: Terminus) Some companions were seen to share accommodation. (DW: The Edge of Destruction)
- There were at least 14 bathrooms. One had a leaky faucet for three centuries. Because he had misplaced his washers, the Doctor kept it from flooding the TARDIS by sealing it in a temporal bubble that made the same drops of water leak out over and over again. (MA: The Well-Mannered War)
- The Wardrobe was where the Doctor kept some of the clothes from his previous regenerations, as well as clothing for other people. (DW: The Twin Dilemma, Time and the Rani, The Christmas Invasion)
- The Cloister Room in the TARDIS sounded the cloister bell when disaster was imminent. (DW: Logopolis, Time Crash) When the TARDIS interior went through a metamorphosis, the Cloister Room became a grand and gothic room with an interface with the Eye of Harmony. (DW: Doctor Who: The TV Movie)
- The Zero Room was a room which was unaffected by the outside world. It was used as a refuge for Time Lords undergoing difficult regenerations. This room was later jettisoned so that the TARDIS could escape from Event One. (DW: Castrovalva)
- There was also a library inside the TARDIS. (EDA: War of the Daleks, NA: All-Consuming Fire, NA: The Dimension Riders) Known book included Jane's Spaceships (EDA: War of the Daleks) and Every Gallifreyan Child's Pop-Up Book of Nasty Creatures From Other Dimensions (NA: All-Consuming Fire) and The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (DW: Doctor Who: The TV Movie) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (First print, signed, with last page missing), War and Peace, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The I-Spy Book of British Birds (BFA: Storm Warning). It probably also contained the book Black Orchid by George Cranleigh (DW: Back Orchid) At one point the console room also incorporated a library. (DW: Doctor Who: The TV Movie)
- There was a laboratory which Ace used to create her Nitro-9. (NA: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible)
- The TARDIS had a swimming pool area which was used by Leela. (DW: The Invasion of Time)
- The TARDIS at one point also had extensive utility areas and corridors, which along with the swimming pool area became battlegrounds during an attempted Sontaran invasion of the TARDIS. (DW: The Invasion of Time)
- During the time of the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, the console room included a storage area directly below the main console unit that was large enough for someone to enter and service the console (DW: Boom Town, Army of Ghosts). It was also packed with storage containers. (DW: The Unicorn and the Wasp)
- A food machine area was originally located near (but not in) the console room. (DW: The Edge of Destruction and others)
- There was a zoo of endangered animals, a coffee machine and a jungle like room. (DWM: Changes)
- When directing Rose Tyler to the wardrobe room, the Doctor gave her a complex series of instructions that hinted at other rooms. (DW: The Unquiet Dead) Rose later took new companion Mickey Smith on a tour of the TARDIS, though where they went is not known. (DW: The Girl in the Fireplace)
- There was what appeared to be a cricket club and pitch deep within the bowels of the TARDIS. (DW: Castrovalva)
- There was a large salon which the Doctor referred to as a "boot cupboard". When Sarah Jane Smith said that it was very big for a boot cupboard he replied, "I own a lot of boots." (DW: The Masque of Mandragora)
- The Doctor also possesses an art gallery containing various works of art from throughout history, having rescued the artworks from the disasters which history states destroyed them "BFA: Dust Breeding)
- According to an alternate version of the Ninth Doctor there was a zeppelin hangar somewhere in the TARDIS. (WC: Scream of the Shalka)
Other Systems
Temporal grace
The interior of the TARDIS is said to exist in a state of "temporal grace", which is supposed to ensure that no weapons can be used inside its environs. This last function is inconsistent in its application (DW: Earthshock, The Parting of the Ways).
- There are two possible explanations for this seeming inconsistency. Like the HADS (see below), the "temporal grace" could need to be manually activated (although this would raise the question of why it would be deactivated). The other possibility is that the Doctor is lying, and claims "temporal grace" to prevent intruders from attempting violence. A third option is that the temporal grace has since broken and is one of the many things the Doctor has to work on.
Emergency Systems
The Doctor's TARDIS contains various emergency systems, one such is the Jade Pagoda, a 'life boat' of some description, which can in theory be piloted (NA: Iceberg), but in emergencies it will lock onto the nearest (spatially and temporally) planet with a breathable atmosphere and bearable climate. (NA: Sanctuary) The TARDIS also has a system which, when the TARDIS is left adrift in space unmanned, will automatically lock onto the nearest central gravity. (DW: Voyage of the Damned)
The TARDIS is also capable of repairing itself after suffering a hull breach. (DW: Voyage of the Damned). The TARDIS has an alarm system known as the cloister bell that activates in dire circumstances. (DW: Logopolis, Doctor Who (1996), Children in Need Special, Time Crash, Turn Left)
Defensive Systems
Some of the TARDIS's other functions include the Hostile Action Displacement System (HADS), which could teleport the ship a short distance away if it is attacked. (DW: The Krotons)
- The TARDIS gains some offensive systems of a sort; although this could have been caused by its development into the Edifice. This weapon allowed the Edifice / the Doctor's TARDIS to destroy Gallifrey, although this was only accomplished by channelling all of the Edifice's energy into the weapons. (EDA: The Ancestor Cell)
It was temporarily given a defensive shield utilising a Tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator. (DW: The Parting of the Ways)
Problems
As the TARDIS is one of the oldest in full service and given how much the Doctor uses his TARDIS many problems are going to occur; mechanisms that once worked only work sporadically or (or not) in times of extreme crisis.
- The TARDIS gravitational tractor beam has functioned only sporadically since it was used to pull a neutron star away from Chloris. (DW: The Creature from the Pit) Compassion was unable to use it to rescue the Doctor when he was trapped outside the TARDIS (Implying that his previous use of it had burnt out the tractor beam) (EDA: The Taking of Planet 5), but it was functioning once more to enable the Doctor to rescue the rocket from Krop Tor. (DW: The Satan Pit)
- The chameleon circuit does not work; despite the Doctor's few attempts to fix it, he prefers it to look like a police box (DW: Boom Town). The Doctor felt so adamantly about it, that he purposefully smashed the functioning chameleon circuit with a mallet, so it would never work again. (NA: No Future)
- At the time he was using a TARDIS which had once belonged to a dead version of his third incarnation, which the main universe's Doctor later found. (NA: Blood Heat)
- The TARDIS pool leaked and was jettisoned, (DW: Paradise Towers) but the TARDIS gained two new ones following its regeneration after the Doctor's second exile on Earth. (EDA: Escape Velocity)
- To be piloted correctly the TARDIS needs six pilots. The only known time this has happened is when the Doctor, Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, Captain Jack Harkness and Mickey Smith piloted it to bring the Earth back to where it belonged. That time the TARDIS flew like it should have with a minumum of shaking and they easily acomplished what they were trying to do with no problems. The only ones onboard that didn't act as pilots were Jackie Tyler, Donna Noble and the Meta-Crisis Doctor. (DW: Journey's End)
Personality
TARDISes are sentient creatures grown for use by Time Lords. The Doctor's TARDIS has been called "sentimental" (DW: Doctor Who (1996)) and "stupid" (by K-9) (DW: The Invasion of Time).
The TARDIS has also displayed a prejudicial fear of the time-locked Jack Harkness, probably relating in some way to its time travelling abilities, as the Doctor admits that due to his time related senses he finds it harder to look at Jack now. (DW: Utopia)
Anyone who travels in it (or, perhaps, anyone of whom it approves, whether they travel in it or not; such as Harriet Jones and her staff) is telepathically connected to it, thus giving them the ability to understand almost any language in the Universe. (DW: The Edge of Destruction, Doctor Who: The TV Movie, Boom Town, The Christmas Invasion, The Fires of Pompeii)
The TARDIS also appears to be able to lock-on to the presence of another Time Lord, particularly the Doctor's family. (DW: The Doctor's Daughter) Alternatively it would block access (to seemingly create a situation) whereby another linked Doctor would be created. (DW: Journey's End)
Although the Doctor was reluctant to believe it possible, the TARDIS seems to have such a strong affinity for the Doctor that it would open and shut its doors when he snapped his fingers. (DW: Forest of the Dead)
While the Doctor was away on an adventure the TARDIS hummed to itself. (TDA: The Doctor Trap)
Behind the scenes
With the arrival of new showrunner Steven Moffat and a new Eleventh Doctor, UK media in 2008 and 2009 have speculated that the new era may result in a new interior design for the TARDIS. As of May 2009 there has been no confirmation that such a change will occur.