The TARDIS, an acronym of Time And Relative Dimensions (or Dimension) In Space, is a fictional time travelling machine in the British television programme Doctor Who and is the product of Time Lord technology. A properly piloted and working TARDIS is capable of transporting its occupants to any point in all of space and time, and in the series, a Type 40 TARDIS is piloted by the main character of the Doctor. The name TARDIS is a registered trademark of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
There is some disagreement over whether the "D" in the name stands for "dimension" or "dimensions"; both have been used in various episodes.1 Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter, claimed to have coined the name TARDIS, but the name appears to be applied to all Time Lord time machines by others. This apparent inconsistency, like others over the course of the programme's history, has generated some lively debate among fans. TARDIS is correctly spelled as an acronym but there are many examples of the non-acronym format Tardis being used in media and licensed publications.
The vehicle (referred to as a ship) "travels" by dematerializing (vanishing) from one point and, after traversing the space-time vortex, simply rematerializing (appearing from nothing) anywhere else. This peculiar device was one of the trademarks of the show, allowing for a great deal of versatility in setting and storytelling without a large expense in special effects. The distinctive sound of this dematerialization/rematerialization effect, a cyclic wheezing, groaning noise, was originally created in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop by Brian Hodgson running his keys along the strings of an old, gutted piano.
TARDISes draw their power from a variety of sources, but their primary source of power is a dimensional link to an artificially created black hole created by the legendary Time Lord Omega. Each TARDIS's individual link, and the black hole itself, is known as the Eye of Harmony. Other elements needed for the proper functioning of the TARDIS and requiring occasional replenishment include mercury (used in its fluid links) and the rare ore Zeiton 7.
The Doctor's TARDIS
In the programme, the Doctor's TARDIS is an obsolete Type 40 that he borrowed "unofficially" when he departed his home planet of Gallifrey. All the other Type 40s have long since been decommissioned and replaced by new, improved models, although the changing appearance of the primary console room over the years implies that the Doctor does upgrade the TARDIS's systems every now and then.
The Doctor's TARDIS appears from outside to be an ordinary 1950s style blue British police box (a phone booth designed for police communications). Although it is only as big as a telephone box on the outside, the TARDIS is extremely large inside with a vast number of rooms and corridors. The show has explained that this is because the TARDIS is "dimensionally transcendental", meaning that its exterior and interior exist in separate dimensions. In The Robots of Death, the Doctor uses the analogy of how a larger cube can appear to be able to fit inside a smaller one if the larger cube is further away, yet immediately accessible at the same time.
Although it is supposed to blend inconspicuously into whatever time or environment it turns up in, it invariably shows up in the police box shape. At the time of the series' debut in 1963, the police box was still a common fixture in British cities. With some 700 in London alone, it was a logical choice for camouflaging a time machine. The concept of the police box disguise came from BBC staff writer Anthony Coburn, who re-wrote the programme's first episode from a draft by C. E. Webber. Coburn is believed to have had the idea for the time machine's external form after spotting a real police box while walking near his office on a break from writing the episode.
The idea may also have been a creative ploy by the BBC to save time and money in props, but soon became an in-joke genre convention in its own right as the old-style police box was phased out of use. The anachronism has become more pronounced since there have been very few police boxes of that style left in Britain for some considerable time.
The rationalisation for being "stuck" in the shape of a police box was attribued in the second episode of the series to a malfunction in the ship's chameleon circuit, the mechanism which is responsible for changing the outside appearance of the ship in order to fit in with its environment. Despite his considerable ingenuity in other fields and his ownership of a sonic screwdriver, the Doctor has been unable to fix this problem completely; the occasional temporary success has always been followed by a return to the status quo. Ironically, the exterior appearance of the TARDIS (despite slight changes in the prop) has become the most unchanging feature of the show over the course of its run, and the shape of the police box is now more immediately associated with the Doctor than with the police.
The Doctor's TARDIS has at least two console rooms - the primary, white-walled, futuristic one seen most often throughout the programme's history and the secondary console room used during the fourteenth season (1976–1977), which has wood panelling and a more antique feel to it. The cavernous, steampunk-inspired console room seen in the Doctor Who telemovie may be a reconfiguration of either of these rooms or another console room entirely. The main feature of the rooms, in any of the known configurations, is the TARDIS console that holds the instruments that control the ship's functions. The appearance of the primary TARDIS consoles have varied widely but share common details; hexagonal pedestals with controls around the periphery and a moveable column in the center that bobs rhythmically up and down when the TARDIS is in flight. The secondary console was smaller, with the controls hidden behind wooden panels, and had no central column. The entrance to the TARDIS can be locked and unlocked from the outside with a key, which the Doctor keeps on his person.
A distinctive architectural feature of the TARDIS interior is the "roundel," a circular decoration that adorns the walls of the rooms and corridors of the TARDIS, including the console room. Some roundels conceal TARDIS circuitry and devices, as seen in the serials The Wheel in Space , Logopolis, Castrovalva , Arc of Infinity and Terminus. The design of the roundels has varied throughout the show’s history, from a basic circular cut-out with black background to a photographic image printed on wall board, to translucent illuminated discs in later serials. In the Third Doctor serial The Time Monster , the interior console room of the TARDIS was dramatically altered, including the wall roundels. This new set, designed by Tim Gleeson, was disliked by producer Barry Letts who felt that the new roundels resembled washing-up bowls stuck to the wall. As it turned out, the set was damaged in storage between production blocks and had to be rebuilt, so this particular design only saw service in The Time Monster. In the aforementioned secondary console room, most of the roundels were executed in recessed wood paneling, with a few decorative ones in what appeared to be stained glass.
Because the Doctor's TARDIS is so old, it is inclined to break down. The Doctor is often seen with his head stuck in a panel carrying out maintenance of some kind or another, and he occasionally has to give it "percussive maintenance" (a good thump on the console) to get it to start working properly. Efforts to repair, control, and maintain the TARDIS were frequent plot devices throughout the show's run. This creates the amusing irony of a highly-advanced space-time machine which is at the same time an obsolete and unreliable piece of junk.
The TARDIS is possessed of telepathic circuits, although the Doctor prefers to pilot it manually. In Pyramids of Mars, its controls are said to be isomorphic, that is, only the Doctor can operate them. However, this characteristic seems to appear and disappear when dramatically convenient, and various companions have been seen to be able to operate the TARDIS and even fly it. The Time Lords are also able to operate the TARDIS by remote control, (Genesis of the Daleks) and, once, so did the renegade Time Lord known as the Rani (The Mark of the Rani). In The Two Doctors the Doctor himself used a portable Stattenheim remote control to summon his TARDIS to him.
Some of the TARDIS's other functions include the Hostile Action Displacement System (HADS), which can teleport the ship away if it is attacked. The Cloister Room on the TARDIS sounds the Cloister Bell when disaster is imminent. The interior of the TARDIS also exists in a state of "Temporal Grace", which is supposed to ensure that no weapons can be used inside its environs. This last function is also inconsistent in its application.
At times the TARDIS also appears to have a mind of its own. It is heavily implied in the television series that the TARDIS is intelligent to a degree, and has a bond with those who travel in it (in Enemy Within, the Doctor calls the TARDIS "sentimental"). These characteristics have been made more explicit in the spin-off novels and audio plays. In the Big Finish Productions audio adventure Omega, the Doctor meets a TARDIS which "dies" after its Time Lord master has passed away.
Other TARDISes
The Master has his own TARDIS, a more advanced model whose chameleon circuit was not broken. In the serial Logopolis, the Master tricks the Doctor into materializing his TARDIS around the Master's, creating a dimensionally recursive loop.
Other Time Lords with TARDISes include the Meddling Monk and the Rani. The War Chief provided dimensionally transcendent time machines named SIDRATs to the alien race known as the War Lords. Gallifreyan Battle TARDISes have appeared in the comic books, novels and audio plays, which fire "time torpedoes" that freeze the target in time. In The Chase and The Daleks' Master Plan , the Daleks named their time machines DARDISes.
The TARDIS has been immortalized in space: Asteroid 3325 has been named "TARDIS" in its honour.
Notes
- The very first story, 100,000 BC uses the singular Dimension and other episodes follow suit for the next couple of years. The 1964 novelisation Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks uses the plural Dimensions for the first time and the 1965 serial The Time Meddler introduces it to the television series for the first time. Since then both terms have been used on different occasions.
External links
- TARDIS Manual http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~abr/drwho/tardis/type40/ - an extensive, fan-written guide
Last updated: 05-03-2005 17:50:55
