Police box

A police box or police public callbox was a telephone kiosk or callbox for use by members of the police.

History forgot the police box, with one of the last of its kind sitting on the Barnet By-Pass in 1981. (DW: Logopolis)

Incidents and appearances

 * Early in his travels, the Doctor's TARDIS assumed the exterior shape of a police box during a five-month stopover in 1963 London. Due a malfunction in its chameleon circuit, the TARDIS became locked into that shape (DW: An Unearthly Child)


 * Though it has briefly changed its shape on occasion, for the most part, the Doctor's TARDIS has remained in the shape of police box ever since.


 * Returned to London in 1965, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright amused themselves after sighting a real police box. (DW: The Chase)


 * To amuse himself, the Doctor manipulated the chameleon circuit of the Monk's TARDIS to make it assume several shapes, including that of a police box. (DW: The Daleks' Master Plan)


 * Dodo Chaplet entered the TARDIS believing it to be a police box and wanting to make an emergency call about an accident (DW: The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve) The exact circumstances of why Dodo needed to make such a call, and her willingness to leave with the Doctor, became evident only later. (PDA: Salvation)


 * In 1981, as part of a complex plot, the Master materialized his TARDIS around a real police box on the Barnet Bypass. The Doctor's TARDIS, still disguised as a police box, materialized around the Master's TARDIS, also disguised as a police box, creating a dimensional anomaly and a trap for the Doctor. (DW: Logopolis)


 * Tegan Jovanka entered the Doctor's TARDIS shortly after, mistaking it for an actual police box. (DW: Logopolis) Later, the TARDIS dematerialised, leaving the nearby policemen with the normal police box.


 * A police officer at first mistook the Doctor's TARDIS for a real police box until invited inside by him. (DW: Black Orchid)


 * When the Doctor once more met the Monk, he had voluntarily configured his TARDIS into the shape of a police box. (DWM: 4-Dimensional Vistas)


 * In Foxgrove, in 1951, Sarah Jane and Luke stumbled upon a police box. They thought that the Doctor had arrived to help them, but realized it was an ordinary police box when PC Ferguson popped his head out. (SJA: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith)


 * In 1959 Wales, American secret agents Hawk and Weismuller used a police box to contact their superiors at the Pentagon. (DW: Delta and the Bannermen)


 * An actual police box sat across the street from where the Doctor had landed the TARDIS. (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks)


 * During a trip to 1966 London, the Doctor appreciated the fact that it was one rare occasions the TARDIS' police box exterior was "any cop as a disguise." Rose Tyler pointed out the fact that the TARDIS had landed next to a real police box, and asked if they normally came in pairs. (DWM: The Love Invasion)


 * Bridget showed LINDA slides of the Doctor's TARDIS, which she described as looking like "a faux police box". In fact, she only had photos of various real police boxes. (DW: Love & Monsters)


 * DI Billy Shipton was familiar enough with real police boxes to recognise the TARDIS as a counterfeit. (DW: Blink)

Behind the Scenes

 * The British Broadcasting Corporation holds a trademark to the British design of the police box as used on Doctor Who.


 * Although the TARDIS is depicted and referred to as resembling a wooden box on a number of occasions in the series, the historical police box was usually made of concrete.


 * The production team planned to feature the Barnet By-Pass box in the series in Logopolis, only to discover that it had been vandalised shortly before the filming dates. The series' spare police box prop was pressed into service to stand in for the actual box.


 * In the programme, the TARDIS is in the shape of a 1930s-era Metropolitan police box. (This makes the officer's recognition of the TARDIS in Black Orchid anachronistic.)