As I watched "The Doctor's Wife" a few times, something struck me about the cage in which Uncle had placed Idris. While she is trapped inside the cage talking to the Doctor, her hands grasp the metalwork of the cage, metalwork which forms a hexagonal framework. We have all recently learned how much the Doctor(s) love "the round things" in the walls of the Console Room (although they have no idea what they do!), but there is another design element that we see repeated in the Console Rooms and corridors of the Tardis during the times of the most recent Doctors. Hexagons! Does anyone else think that the set designers for the episode "The Doctor's Wife" intended the hexagonal patterns of the cage grid work to be an allusion(?) to the interior design of the Tardis? The cage with the hexagonal pattern imprisoned Idris, just as the physical structure of this Type 40 TT capsule had held the soul of the Tardis, until she was released, enabling her to interact directly with the Doctor. This may have just been a coincidence, but if this was intentional, I think it was a clever, subtle visual reference back to the Tardis. (Or maybe it is just very, very late here as I type this!)
Probably intentional, and like you said, maybe some foreshadowing about it. Same with the round things inside the hexagonal things on the wall of the under-gallery at the end of TDOTD. It was the Curator's TARDIS.
^ Yes! I think the hexagonal/circular pattern of the 'art'(?) on the wall was a very nice touch that hints towards the true nature of the Under-Gallery. I also forgot to mention above that the Console itself, of course, is another six-sided bit of the Tardis.
What I thought was so neat about the Curator was that, while I had no clue Tom Baker was going to appear, I recognized his voice instantly, exclaiming that to my husband. He asked (no joking intended), "Who?" I said, "Tom Baker! MY Doctor!" And I loved how he WAS the Doctor in that scene. "If I were you. But maybe you are me" or whatever it was he said. Omg! His eyes were so clear! And I noticed those hexangonal things with the round things...and wondered about them.
^ I, too, thought Tom Baker's appearance was beyond wonderful. That voice, "You know-- I really think you MIGHT...." had me jump in my chair. The trademark Tom Baker intensity AND playfulness with what he was saying... teasing... shooshing, even! It was that Doctor that had first fired my interest in the program, and he was back. I don't want to think too hard about exactly HOW he was back... but it was magical and quite fun for me (I was glad that we got to see Paul McGann get some good screen time during the celebration of the 50th Anniversary, too!).
And thinking about it, the console was six-sided when the roundels were there for the original series, but when the hexagons arrived in 9/10's time, the console became round - albeit with six segments to it. So you got one and the other, but swapping round, but never both... except in the war Doctor and 11's ships.
I'd always assumed the circle inside a hexagon motif was meant to represent what the control console looks like from above. As for the Curator scene; I noticed those things on the wall too and my first thought was that the whole building was his Tardis. I mean he's bound to fix that chameleon circuit at some point, no? And what safer place to store alien artefacts than inside the Tardis? There's an odd symmetry if you think about it. The Doctor retires to become a curator of a museum while the Tardis retires and becomes that museum.
^ Nice point about the Console and the circle inside a hexagon motif! And about The Curator and the "museum'.
You might also like to recall that in Invasion of Time the Doctor had disguised the TARDIS's ancillary generator as an art gallery...