TARDIS (Dr. Who and the Daleks)



TARDIS was a space-time vessel invented by the Human scientist Dr. Who. It was larger inside than without and filled with electronics and masses of wiring, This changed in the next film to a neater arrangement, similar to the neo futurism of the TARDIS of the first six Doctors.

Its exterior resembled a police box. (Dr. Who and the Daleks, Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.) Considered a matter transmitter, TARDIS is described by Dr Who as simply breaking itself and everything inside it into constituent electrical charges which are sent to the destination.

Travel was instantaneous in the first film - it took only a second for TARDIS to travel from Earth to Skaro. This changed. In the next film, the travel function appears to have altered, the journey becoming gradual, although the reason for this change is never specified.

TARDIS appeared to travel in some kind of vortex - probably a wormhole, which acted as a spatial drive with a temporal displacement field for time travelling. Dr Who told Tom Campbell that TARDIS could travel to any age, any planet and any universe, implyings the machine had the ability to travel to alternate universes safely and easily and could return to its primary universe with little to no trouble. The machine, unlike its television counterpart, was more reliable - in the second film Dr. Who was able to control the machine to get Tom Campbell back to the point in time before the robbers left the jewellery store.

In spite of its nomina reliability, TARDIS landed in the middle of a Roman legion in the first film.

This could mean that TARDIS was still recalibrating from its first. unprogrammed journey to Skaro or TARDIS was still readjusting itself from Ian and Barbara knocking the control lever.

Behind the Scenes

 * The interior of TARDIS (not called "the TARDIS" in the films) did not use the familiar television set-up of a central console with walls on each side, but more a random assortment of technological apparatus. The dialogue did not indicate that Dr. Who's TARDIS could change shape, thus making it a mystery why it resembled a police box on the outside (though it's likely Dr. Who simply used an old police box as the shell for TARDIS).


 * Later on in the sequel movie, TARDIS underwent a change to the interior and was no longer a random assortment of wires and electronic circuits but had control consoles in silver casings. There was also a bench with lab equipment; test tubes, bunsen burners etc. In both instances, before and after the overhaul of the time ship, there was a control lever which moved TARDIS through time and space. When Tom Campbell stumbled into the machine from the recent robbery, Susan was seen next to a gauge on some sort of generator and she was recording the reading on a clipboard. Whether this was TARDIS' primary power source is unknown.


 * TARDIS seems to lack a lock and key mechanism, unlike the television TARDIS, and several people have entered the machine - Ian Chesterton, Alydon and Tom Campbell to name a few.


 * This is the first TARDIS to have white police box doors inside the console room. The main Doctor Who series would adopt this detail beginning with the revived Series 1 in 2005.