InnerSPACE | Blog

Doctor Who is chock full of iconic imagery. The Daleks, the Cybermen, Tom Baker’s scarf, David Tennant’s trainers, and the TARDIS itself, a vehicle that can traverse space and time and takes on the form (most of the time) of an unassuming police box. But what’s inside the TARDIS is just as iconic, even though it gets less attention from fans and viewers alike. What other program features a vehicle that’s bigger on the inside than the outside? That’s right, none. Amongst the many conceits the show gets away with, blatantly defying conventional perception of height, length and width as a matter of course ranks near the top.

Bits and pieces of the TARDIS control room have changed throughout the years. The clunky visual scanner (actually a TV) hanging from the ceiling eventually became a wall mounted monitor (actually some terrible bluescreen effects) which then migrated into the console itself as a small LCD screen. Even the decor of the control room changed from the shiny white walls of the classic series to dark and arty “coral theme” of the current series. And now that pictures of a new TARDIS set for Matt Smith's first season as the Doctor have leaked out, we can see already that the interior of the Doctor's time machine continues to change and evolve.

But there’s much more to the TARDIS than just the control room. Though we haven’t seen anything beyond a wardrobe with a spiral staircase in the new series (during “The Christmas Invasion” (2005)) in time gone by the TARDIS stretched through myriad corridors (what else?), vestibules and other strange chambers.

The cloister room, a small vine-infested park filled with stone carved benches and stately columns, figured prominently in “Logopolis" (1981), Tom Baker’s final episode, as well as in the 1996 TV Movie. Though the room itself is intended as a sanctuary, a low and ominous cloister bell rings whenever the Doctor is in cataclysmic, universe-shattering danger. Though the Cloister room has yet to appear in the new series, the bell has made its presence felt to the Tenth Doctor more than once.

Other notable stops on the TARDIS tour include the Zero Room, where the Fifth Doctor briefly enjoyed a respite from a decidedly unbalanced regeneration, rooms for companions (where else would Adric store all his math textbooks?) and a swimming pool.

But my personal favorite room in the entire, sprawling mass of the TARDIS is the secondary control room, used throughout Tom Baker's third season (1976-77). Decorated sparingly with a Victorian simplicity and made from what appears to be wood and the lowest of low- tech, the secondary control room exuded minimalism and class. The room only appeared in a few of Tom Baker’s stories, but it clearly made a lasting impression on my fragile young psyche.


So what's in store for the TARDIS next year? Set reports from the current filming have given spoiler-seekers a glimpse of the new TARDIS interior -- or at least a part of it -- and there doesn't seem to be a drastic change from what we had before. Despite the retro feel of both the TARDIS exterior (right down to the Sixties-inspired St. John’s Ambulance insignia on the door) and Matt Smith’s professorial garb, the new console room looks to remain modernized, though now with enhancements such as staircases showing what could be a multi-level affair, leading to many different and varied rooms. Because the only glimpse of the new set has been the backdrop used inside the TARDIS prop, much more of the new interior remains to be seen and as we approach Spring 2010 the excitement over any new look will build to a crescendo.