The Doctor's TARDIS
The Doctor's TARDIS is an obsolete TARDIS a Type 40 Mark I that he borrowed "unofficially" when he departed his home planet of Gallifrey. All the other Type 40s had long since been officially decommissioned and replaced by new, improved models, although the Master does possess a Mark II Type 40 TARDIS, and the Monk's TARDIS also appears to be a Type 40.
Police box exterior
Almost all TARDIS's should be able to blend in with their surroundings thanks to a chameleon circuit which allows a TARDIS to change its form to fit in with its surroundings.
The chameleon circuit of The Doctor's TARDIS did not help it blend in particularly way in 1963 when it resided in Totter's Yard in the year 1963. It had assumed the shape of a police box, a common sight in 1960s England, but not in a junk yward. To the Doctor's unease, it still remained as a police box when it traveled back in time and remained in that shape thereafter. (DW: An Unearthly Child)
The Daleks would later recognize 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)
When the Doctor to permanantly fix the problem of the faulty chameleon circuit, thinking that he not want old enemies to such an easy way to recognize him, by measuring it's exterior dimenions 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 this sixth incarnation the Doctor suceeded, however the TARDIS's ineptness at using the chameleon circuit showed itself when it appeared as first a cupboard, then an organ and a set of Iron Gates, the iron gates especially did not fit in with their surroundings on Telos. (DW: Attack of the Cybermen)
- The Doctor's TARDIS then settled back into its old police box shape.
Interior
Periodically the TARDIS interior goes through various metamorphoses, changing and altering, sometimes through choice or because of other reasons.
Console or Control Room
There have been many several varianst 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
Development
At the time we first saw it, 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 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 advisor. (DW: The Three Doctors)
The Doctor briefly changed the walls of the console room. (DW: The Time Monster) and shortly after reverted to a previous design.
The Doctor rebuilt the console following its damage by Cyberguns. (DW: Earthshock). He later reburished it completely, giving it a more sleek, high tech appeaarance. (DW: The Five Doctors)
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. The roof of the control room "opened", like that of an observatory, with the smaller scanner replaced by the Infinity Window, which could also project hologram images (DW: Doctor Who: The TV Movie)
An indeterminate time later, the control room had reverted to a more familiar form, losing the hexagonal shape, high tech more more, but in a different, more organic way. (DW: Rose)
Secondary control room=
There exists a small secondary control or console room which the Doctor claimed was the original console room, a much more simple affair, with the console resembling a desk, no visible time rotor and all the controls hidden behind what appears to be wooden paneling. (DW: The Masque of Mandragora) 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)
Tetriary control room
There also exists a tertiary control room, which is cool and dark grey with a small mushroom shaped console. (NA: Nightshades, Deceit)
General Interior Appearance and Layout
Using the architectural programs of the TARDIS, the Doctor was able to create different styles of rooms with ease (Doctor Who Annual 2006).
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 panelling 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 Parting of the Ways) 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 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)
Other Rooms
- Many of the companions of the Doctor have their own rooms, though some will live in previously used rooms. (DW: Terminus)
- The Wardrobe is where the Doctor keeps some of the clothes from his previous regenerations, as well as clothing for other people. (DW: The Twin Dilemma, The Mark of the Rani, The Christmas Invasion)
- The cloister room in the TARDIS sounds the cloister bell when disaster is imminent. (DW: Logopolis)
- When the TARDIS interior goes through a metamorphosis, the Cloister Room becomes a grand and gothic room with a real world interface with the Eye of Harmony. (DW: Doctor Who: The TV Movie)
- The Zero Room is a room which is unaffected by the outside world. This room was later jettisoned to escape from the Big Bang. (DW: Castrovalva)
Other Systems
The interior of the TARDIS also exists in a state of "temporal grace", which is supposed to ensure that no weapons can be used inside its environs. This last function is also inconsistent in its application (DW: Earthshock).
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 (spacially and temporally) planet with a breathable atmosphere and bearable climate. (NA: Sanctuary)
Defensive Systems
Some of the TARDIS's other functions include the Hostile Action Displacement System (HADS), which can teleport the ship a short distance away if it is attacked (DW: The Krotons).
- The TARDIS gains some defensive systems of a sort (although this could have been caused by it's development into the Eddiface.
This weapon allowed the Eddiface / the Doctor's TARDIS to destroy Gallifrey. (EDA: The Ancestor Cell)
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 sporadically since it was used to pull a star away from Chloris, Compassion was unable to use it to rescue the Doctor when he was trapped outside the TARDIS, but it was functioning once more to enable the Doctor to rescue the rocket from Krop Tor. (DW: The Creature from the Pit, EDA: The Taking of Planet 5, DW: The Satan Pit)
- The chameleon circuit, does not work, despite the Doctor's few attempts, he prefers it to look like a police box. (DW: Boom Town)
- The TARDIS pool leaked and was jettisoned. (DW: Paradise Towers. But the TARDIS gained two new ones following its regeneration after the Doctor's exile on Earth following the destruction of Gallifrey at his own hand. (EDA: Escape Velocity)
Personality
At times the TARDIS also appears to have a mind of its own. It is heavily implied that the TARDIS is intelligent to a degree, and has a bond with those who travel in it. (DW: Doctor Who: The TV Movie, Boom Town).
