[Spoilers] Series 9 TARDIS With Preview
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I should point out that I actually like the Snowmen-onward TARDIS as well, and vastly prefer it over the Amy-Rory era TARDIS, but I felt it wasn't alien enough - which is an argument brought forth before.
Well, it really is the first one - the previous console room was close, but had a gaping hole in it which was partially covered over in series 7a with a big spiderweb coral thing. The current one is the first you could actually step inside while it was "sealed up" and have a full 360-degree turn inside without seeing a hole in the wall or gap in the ceiling.
I do really like how they've fleshed out the current set as well, adding in all the affectations that a Doctor SHOULD have closeby. Actually, last series we didn't really see anyone physically enter or exit the console room, except maybe once when Clara was changing clothes? He's got multiple workspaces in this room so he needs to leave it even less than ever before. Must make the producers happy so they don't have to maintain the (rather unconvincing) corridor sets we've seen so far on the current show.
Mark
I haven't been crazy about the new corridor sets, but I like it when we get to see parts of the TARDIS beyond the console room. One of my frustrations about the Davies era is that we never saw any other parts of the TARDIS except for a brief glimpse of the wardrobe in "The Christmas Invasion." I liked how roomy the TARDIS was in the Baker and Davison eras, with a number of stories taking place inside its corridors and rooms and exploring its architecture (and even using the mutability of its architecture as a plot point). Although I hate the way "The Invasion of Time" passed off some old hospital's corridors or something as the TARDIS interior.
I swear, I must be the only Whovian who actually likes the interior as seen in The Invasion of Time. Part of it is nostalgia, I freely admit, part of me isn't bothered by it simply because, as you said, Christopher, the interior is mutable. The TARDIS interior is vast and incredible. Sometimes it's alien, sometimes it's mundane. I see no problem with that.
^I can understand you liking it because of nostalgia, because part of the reason I hate it is because "The Invasion of Time" is a terrible story and I hate nearly everything about it.
And I wouldn't mind a TARDIS interior that looked like old Earth architecture if it were good architecture, like the inside of the British Museum or some centuries-old building at Oxford, say. But instead it was just some ratty old hospital, and it looked cheap and ugly. It just screamed "We have no set budget and a rubbish location budget so just deal with it." It's like when people complain about Killjoys and Dark Matter having "spaceship" interiors with cinderblock walls. It doesn't feel like an artistic choice, it feels like a low-budget compromise that pulls you out of the story.
I mean, sure, the show was always low-budget, but beyond this, it always managed to make the TARDIS interior look distinctive and stylistically consistent. Heck, the least they could've done was put up some photographic blowups of roundels along the hospital's corridor walls.
And I wouldn't mind a TARDIS interior that looked like old Earth architecture if it were good architecture, like the inside of the British Museum or some centuries-old building at Oxford, say. But instead it was just some ratty old hospital, and it looked cheap and ugly. It just screamed "We have no set budget and a rubbish location budget so just deal with it." It's like when people complain about Killjoys and Dark Matter having "spaceship" interiors with cinderblock walls. It doesn't feel like an artistic choice, it feels like a low-budget compromise that pulls you out of the story.
I mean, sure, the show was always low-budget, but beyond this, it always managed to make the TARDIS interior look distinctive and stylistically consistent. Heck, the least they could've done was put up some photographic blowups of roundels along the hospital's corridor walls.
Agreed. In "Invasion of Time" they could (nay, should) have re-dressed and reused all their fancy-schmancy Gallifreyan sets from the SAME EPISODE as TARDIS interiors. Even the previous episode "The Hand of Fear" had some funky sets that could have been repurposed. I'm guessing they didn't do this because of time and space issues in the studio itself (sic) preventing them from mounting all the sets they needed simultaneously, or at the times they needed them. So, they grabbed some garbage bags to tape over the windows of a disused hospital, and off they went to create the worst TARDIS interiors of all time (IMO).
The modern interiors we've seen are not BAD, but they really don't look all that livable or comfortable. In the case of "The Doctor's Wife" they're also incongruous with the organic look and feel of the console room; and in "Journey To the Centre of the TARDIS" they seem further cramped and cold. Compared to the interior sets seen in the JNT era, they felt like wandering around the ship's basement or working innards than to / around adjacent rooms which all looked like an extension of the console room. In "Journey..." this would probably have been more of the intent, and perhaps the relative close quarters (even for Clara's small stature) could explain why the Doctor spends his time in the cavernous control room whenever possible.
In my view, a TARDIS is like a big box of Lego, which can be built and reshaped as needed of the mission or the user's preference. As such, the Doctor can go about switching bits and pieces around as he feels, whether following one of many default templates or desktop themes, or not - so even two Type 40s would not be exactly alike either. Other TARDIS models may come with extra, newer blocks (think 1980s Space Lego versus Star Wars sets) and thus be capable of doing newer stuff or with extra bling, but in the end you still have a machine that gets the job done. The Doctor's is 1980s Space Lego, with a few Duplo, Mega Bloks and Playmobil thrown in to keep it going over the centuries.
Mark
The modern interiors we've seen are not BAD, but they really don't look all that livable or comfortable. In the case of "The Doctor's Wife" they're also incongruous with the organic look and feel of the console room; and in "Journey To the Centre of the TARDIS" they seem further cramped and cold. Compared to the interior sets seen in the JNT era, they felt like wandering around the ship's basement or working innards than to / around adjacent rooms which all looked like an extension of the console room. In "Journey..." this would probably have been more of the intent, and perhaps the relative close quarters (even for Clara's small stature) could explain why the Doctor spends his time in the cavernous control room whenever possible.
In my view, a TARDIS is like a big box of Lego, which can be built and reshaped as needed of the mission or the user's preference. As such, the Doctor can go about switching bits and pieces around as he feels, whether following one of many default templates or desktop themes, or not - so even two Type 40s would not be exactly alike either. Other TARDIS models may come with extra, newer blocks (think 1980s Space Lego versus Star Wars sets) and thus be capable of doing newer stuff or with extra bling, but in the end you still have a machine that gets the job done. The Doctor's is 1980s Space Lego, with a few Duplo, Mega Bloks and Playmobil thrown in to keep it going over the centuries.
Mark
Not sure they would've needed the sets simultaneously, since at that point it had been many years since they'd needed to shoot as if live. They would've presumably shot in the standard manner of doing each set straight through and then moving to the next set.
Good idea about repurposing the Gallifrey sets, although that might've been confusing if there was no clear distinction between Gallifrey and the TARDIS interiors. But I don't see why they couldn't have used the same hallway sets we'd seen before in "The Masque of Mandragora" and the like.
There was that episode where Amy asked the Doctor if he had a room, and he just smiled and went back to working on the console's underside. I've seen summaries of that scene saying that he gave no answer, but I think he did implicitly give the answer: He was already in his room.
Ooh, envy envy envy. The closest I've ever come to that is visiting it in on Google Maps. They had that Easter egg in the Street View of a real police box somewhere in London, where you could go inside and it'd be the "Snowmen"-era console room.
^ I was there last month and couldn't do the set tour, because they were still USING it to film the show - how dare they! But the Experience itself is not to be missed and worth the day trip to Cardiff, even with wife and kid in tow. 
Among things, they have a version of all the previous new series console rooms, plus the Five Doctors and a pastiche of the preceding ones, all available to walk through (if not touch directly). A real treat to this particular console room nerd.
I looked over the entries on the old Historium site to correct my own errors int he previous post. For one, I was confusing "The Deady Assassin" and "The Invasion of Time" and their precursor stories. It's important to note that in general, the classic TARDIS console room sets were never permanent standing sets as they are now, and were assembled as-needed for a given episode. In some earlier shows they were rather elaborate (Hartnell's first season even had a whole story in the TARDIS, including multiple rooms), and could also be incredibly simplistic (at least one Troughton story used only the console at two wall segments, one of which was that photo blow-up wall).
In "Masque of Mandragora", the TARDIS corridor walls seen there were really just the previous console room's walls set up differently.
Those walls date back through at least the Pertwee era and possibly further. Anyway, the walls in "Masque" were subsequently lost or destroyed between production blocks, and when the "white" console room reappeared the following year (sue to the wooden console room set being "warped" while in storage between seasons), it returned with the simplified look that carried through until season 25, excepting various adjustments along the way.
So, when Sarah Jane left in "The Hand of Fear" (right after "Masque") the old walls were still there for use only in "The Deadly Assassin", and they weren't. By the time of "Invasion" the following year, those few old TARDIS walls were no longer available or were in use AS the main console set. They could have re-used the various spacey sets from "Underworld", which preceded it, but it may be that they just weren't suited to the chase-story needs of the script. And we should never discount just how little studio space the show had at the time - if the console room had to be struck routinely to make room for other sets, they probably had very little to play with in the first place. Between the TARDIS console room being used a lot in that story, plus the various Gallifrey sets, I'm not surprised they reached their limit with that one.
Mark
Among things, they have a version of all the previous new series console rooms, plus the Five Doctors and a pastiche of the preceding ones, all available to walk through (if not touch directly). A real treat to this particular console room nerd. I looked over the entries on the old Historium site to correct my own errors int he previous post. For one, I was confusing "The Deady Assassin" and "The Invasion of Time" and their precursor stories. It's important to note that in general, the classic TARDIS console room sets were never permanent standing sets as they are now, and were assembled as-needed for a given episode. In some earlier shows they were rather elaborate (Hartnell's first season even had a whole story in the TARDIS, including multiple rooms), and could also be incredibly simplistic (at least one Troughton story used only the console at two wall segments, one of which was that photo blow-up wall).
In "Masque of Mandragora", the TARDIS corridor walls seen there were really just the previous console room's walls set up differently.
Those walls date back through at least the Pertwee era and possibly further. Anyway, the walls in "Masque" were subsequently lost or destroyed between production blocks, and when the "white" console room reappeared the following year (sue to the wooden console room set being "warped" while in storage between seasons), it returned with the simplified look that carried through until season 25, excepting various adjustments along the way. So, when Sarah Jane left in "The Hand of Fear" (right after "Masque") the old walls were still there for use only in "The Deadly Assassin", and they weren't. By the time of "Invasion" the following year, those few old TARDIS walls were no longer available or were in use AS the main console set. They could have re-used the various spacey sets from "Underworld", which preceded it, but it may be that they just weren't suited to the chase-story needs of the script. And we should never discount just how little studio space the show had at the time - if the console room had to be struck routinely to make room for other sets, they probably had very little to play with in the first place. Between the TARDIS console room being used a lot in that story, plus the various Gallifrey sets, I'm not surprised they reached their limit with that one.
Mark
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Unfortunately there's this ocean-y sort of thing in the way. And though I've overcome my fear of flying over land, the thought of flying over the ocean still gives me the heebie-jeebies. Maybe someday I'll take an ocean cruise over to the Old Country (my ancestors came from Kent)... but I get seasick.
If only I had a TARDIS to give me a lift to the TARDIS set...
I liked the first Tom era console room.
Pertwee's era was totally off the wall, though (almost literally). What with having the console able to stand by itself outside the TARDIS, the dishbowl console room, still having the coloring of Hartnell's B&W era TARDIS, which meant this really off pale green which was used to stand in for white since white resulted in a bleach out effect.
Pertwee's era was totally off the wall, though (almost literally). What with having the console able to stand by itself outside the TARDIS, the dishbowl console room, still having the coloring of Hartnell's B&W era TARDIS, which meant this really off pale green which was used to stand in for white since white resulted in a bleach out effect.
My favorite console was the one introduced in "The Five Doctors." It looked so high-tech and snazzy. Although I now know that if you look at it up close, its controls were a lot more generic than the old one or the later ones, just a few basic types of button cluster repeated over and over. One reason I like the "Snowmen"-era console (and the peripheral consoles off to the side) is that it evokes that clean, high-tech look while also having more individualized control faces.
You mean the room that appeared maybe two serials ("Pyramids of Mars" and "Planet of Evil") before replaced with the "Jules Verne/HG Wells" set debuted in "...Mandragura"? That one had the deep roundels of the 60s and seemed a bit more spacious than the one introduced in "The Invisible Enemy". Too bad that one wasn't featured longer. That one is briefly discussed on this page...
http://www.themindrobber.co.uk/tardis-set-history-console-room-design2.html
...along with the ones that preceded and followed it. Check out the entire "Mind Robber" site. He has thoroughly researched the sets, console and exterior police box props. It's the first place I check concerning those elements.
Sincerely,
Bill
The 12th Doctor's console room is so much warmer and inviting than 11's or maybe it's just the bookshelves 
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