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.) TARDIS was described by Dr. Who as a matter transmitter, breaking itself and everything inside it into constituent electrical charges, which were sent to the destination.

Travel was instantaneous in the first film as it took only a second for TARDIS to travel from Earth to Skaro. In the next film, however, the travel appeared to have altered, the journey becoming gradual. The reason for this change was never explained.

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, implying the machine could travel to alternate universes safely and easily, and could return to its original universe with little to no trouble.

The machine was more reliable than its television counterpart — in the second film, Dr. Who had the machine get Tom Campbell back to immediately before the robbers left the jewellery store.

In spite of its nominal reliability, TARDIS landed in the middle of a Roman legion in the first film. It is possible that TARDIS was still recalibrating from its first, unprogrammed journey to Skaro or it 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 a more random assortment of technological apparatus. The dialogue did not indicate that Dr. Who's TARDIS could change shape, which made it a mystery why it resembled a police box outside. Possibly Dr. Who simply used an old police box as the shell for TARDIS.


 * In the movie sequel, TARDIS' interior underwent a change and was no longer a random assortment of wires and electronic circuits. It had control consoles in silver casings. There was also a bench with lab equipment: test tubes, Bunsen burners etc. Before and after the overhaul of the time ship, a control lever moved TARDIS through time and space. When Tom Campbell stumbled into the machine from the recent robbery, Susan stood 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 seemed to lack a lock and key mechanism, unlike the television TARDIS. Several people entered the machine — Ian Chesterton, Alydon and Tom Campbell to name a few.


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