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.

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

Travel is instantaneous in the first film - it took only a second for TARDIS to travel from Earth to Skaro. This changed as later in the next film, the travel function appears to have altered, the journey becomes gradual.

TARDIS appears to travel in some kind of vortex - probably a wormhole, which acts as a spatial drive with a temporal displacement field for time travelling. The machine, unlike its primary counterpart, is 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.

This indicates that the machine is more reliable, in spite of the fact 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 and 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 with control consoles in silver casings. There is also a bench with lab equipment; test tubes, bunsen burners etc. In both instances, before and after the overhaul of the time ship, there is a control lever which moves 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 is TARDIS' primary power source is unknown.


 * TARDIS seems to lack a lock and key mechanism, unlike the primary 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.