Doctor Who

[cdybedahl]

I know roughly why the doctor himself changes appearance every now and again, but is there any canonical explanation to why the inside of the TARDIS does? Because the way it looks in An Unearthly Child and The Daleks is nothing at all like how it looks in the latest ep (Rose). Apart from being way bigger on the inside than the outside, that is. And having some kind of control doohickey middleish.

Comments

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

The TARDIS is part organic anyway, so the Doctor is able to change it if he feels like it. That's all there is to it, as far as the canon stories go.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

There was a change of design back in the Tom Baker period, too, all dark wood panelling. The canonical explanation was that there was more than one control room and he fancied a change. It changed back to the classic design after just one season because the fans didn't like it.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

A friend swears that they're recycling the Teletubbies set. But it has changed several times over the years.

[apel.livejournal.com]

Through time travel then since Teletubbies didn't start until 1997, a year after the previous series of Dr. Who stopped?

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I like to imagine that it's psychically linked to the Doctor and may change when he does.

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

Hm. TARDIS/Orac?

Tardis interior

[soren-nyrond.livejournal.com]

Squeaking as a long-term (c.1963) fan,
The Tardis has always been bigger on the inside. In the "original" (that is, Hartnell) era, it had at least 3 bedrooms (Barbara and Susan shared), a bathroom (Ian uses it to get a shower (with oil massage) and a shave), and a Food-And-Drink machine which dispensed bacon-and-egg mars-bars.
The boot cupboard, swimming bath and full-scale underground corridors come much later, as does the Zero Room, and the Cloister.

Yes, there has been a wood-panelled Control Room. Also, in the films, one festooned with alembics, and other macguffins.

The control thingy has always been there, generally hexagonal. Originally it definitely had the dematerialisation controls, the controls for the door and the scanner, and sundry emergency switches. It *ought* to have had guidance controls but of course until recently the Doctor has never been able to direct the Ship to go anywhere.

Given that it is canon that there is a telepathic link between Tardis and owner/user, and that the Doctor once "jettisoned" many rooms to save on power consumption, I can only assume that the Ship reflects the Doctor, and that incarnations #1 through #6 had a pretty consistent idea of what it ought to look like.

Missing from "newer" editions are, of course, the tall wooden chair (which proved to have a restraint device in it, for emergencies), the clothes-stand, the radiation monitor behind a screen, the Time-Space Visualiser they acquired, used once, and never mentioned again (a sort of trans-temporal television), and the large stuffed toy bear the Doctor showed to Steven Taylor (which also got ignored later, and probably, in a parallel universe, has a series of its own).

Soren the Lurker Nyrond

[kergillian.livejournal.com]

The TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) is just one of many time ships used by the Time Lords. Each TARDIS comes equipped with a Chameleon Circuit that allows it to alter it's external appearance and well as it's internal layout, though The Doctor's TARDIS has a faulty Chameleon Circuit and is stuck in the shape of a blue police call box. During the first few Peter Davidson (Doctor #5) episodes they covered the how and why the inside changes.