TARDIS Console Room 2023 (Potential Spoilers)

[Mark_Nguyen]

Doctor Who is the topic of a Blue Peter segment for the billionth time, and a contest winner got a set visit, including to the current TARDIS set. Potential minor spoilers, as it looks like it was filmed towards the end of series 14 going by other set photo leaks:

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At around 3:20 we see a 3D print of the "complete" TARDIS set, showing assorted bridges and portals on the "missing" wall from the set and how it all fits together. The three bridges to the console platform seem intended to be equidistant to each other.

Also, they visit the actual set at 6:05 or so, and it looks like Fifteen hasn't yet gotten round to installing any chairs (or anything else) to his console room since he hammered it out.

Mark

 

[Macintosh]

Oh you have no idea how much I'd be willing to pay for that 3D printed model of the interior

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Doctor Who is the topic of a Blue Peter segment for the billionth time, and a contest winner got a set visit, including to the current TARDIS set. Potential minor spoilers, as it looks like it was filmed towards the end of series 14 going by other set photo leaks:

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At around 3:20 we see a 3D print of the "complete" TARDIS set, showing assorted bridges and portals on the "missing" wall from the set and how it all fits together. The three bridges to the console platform seem intended to be equidistant to each other.

Also, they visit the actual set at 6:05 or so, and it looks like Fifteen hasn't yet gotten round to installing any chairs (or anything else) to his console room since he hammered it out.

Mark

That whole video is such a treat! I'm super jealous of Verity and her amazing artistic creativity. I loved seeing her just light up at everything she got to see and everyone she got to meet. She must be on cloud 9.

 

[publiusr]

The in-universe explanation for the visual changes in the TARDIS's external appearance is "chameleon drift" –

Here's an image I made showing the current TARDIS design next to the blueprint of a genuine Mark II McKenzie-Trench Metropolitan Police Box

I would like to see that larger version.

So when do you expect Missy to step out of her jukebox?

You KNOW that has to figure prominently at some point.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

In the Christmas Special, we see how the new series is tackling how you see the inside of the TARDIS from the outside. We already saw a hint of it in "Wild Blue Yonder", but here we can see that the entire background of the console room is a CG construct, and now pans around depending on the camera angle and movement outside. So there must be some sort of fancy backlit greenscreen on the inside of the police box prop, which allows you to see the ceiling and even the nonexistent wall of the set. In short the production isn't nearly as confined to certain angles to make it seem believable. The previous console room set incorporated the interior of the police box into its design, meaning you could cheat the angles a lot since the inside walls of the box are visible regardless; but here they've fully embraced matching the inside and outside of the TARDIS whenever they can (and at greater cost). Disney money is awesome.

Mark

 

[David cgc]

Yeah, it looked like they were green-screening in the TARDIS interior in most of the shots, but in one of them near the end (I think it was when Ruby was looking inside), the perspective seemed weird and I wondered if maybe it was just a very elaborate physical backdrop with computer-controlled lights to match the set rather than just being a large photo like before.

The previous console room set incorporated the interior of the police box into its design, meaning you could cheat the angles a lot since the inside walls of the box are visible regardless; but here they've fully embraced matching the inside and outside of the TARDIS whenever they can (and at greater cost).

I thought the best solution was the "foyer" incorporated in the the Smith/Capaldi room.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

That was a good one, from the inside it made the door look smaller and from the outside it made the interior look bigger - but it was still at the end of the day a backlit graphic with pipe insulators on the sides. :P

Mark

 

[Jedman67]

in the BTS the TARDIS interior is a green screen. Looked seamless in the episode.

 

[Macintosh]

That was a good one, from the inside it made the door look smaller and from the outside it made the interior look bigger - but it was still at the end of the day a backlit graphic with pipe insulators on the sides. :P

There was some speculation at the time that those "pipes" were intended to allow a sort of in-built flexibility for the door to change size and shape in a TARDIS with a working camouflage unit. We even sort of see this in "Flatline". I've never been terribly keen on the police box doors being visible inside the console room for this reason.

 

[publiusr]

In addition to the the rotating round tunnel (Six Million Dollar Man)—-wasn’t there was a hallway set that stretched? Often used in horror films—it might be good here.

A green screen might project this:

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-as an iris that solidifies into whatever aperture/exit is needed…or to force whatever is trying to run to face right back towards the console room.

 

[Macintosh]

In addition to the the rotating round tunnel (Six Million Dollar Man)—-wasn’t there was a hallway set that stretched? Often used in horror films—it might be good here.

A green screen might project this:

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-as an iris that solidifies into whatever aperture/exit is needed…or to force whatever is trying to run to face right back towards the console room.

Not that I recall being used in an actual Doctor Who episode, but there's a few novels where not having to worry about an effects budget means they do some weird and wonderful things to the TARDIS interior. There's certainly mention of corridors telescoping in the early New Adventures novels – if I recall correctly the Doctor had taken to pedalling through some parts of the TARDIS on an old bicycle so he could keep up if a corridor went strange!

There's also an 8th Doctor novel where the TARDIS gets damaged by intersecting a wormhole while in flight (I think – it's been 20+ years since I read it), and the interior melts. It describes in detail the physical structure of everything from walls and floors to decorations and furniture decaying and flowing and pooling like candle wax, and the Doctor trying to sculpt levers and buttons back out of the substance of the console to regain some control. When the entire structure finally gives way and everyone starts drowning the TARDIS vomits them out into the outside world and then shuts itself down to rebuild for the remainder of the story.

I also remember a fan concept design for the TARDIS interior back in 2003 when the revival was first announced, where the TARDIS had a single door in the console room that you could configure to go to anywhere you wanted. It was both the entrance/exit door, and the door to any room in the TARDIS you wanted to go. It wouldn't have had anything so mundane as corridors, just these "magic doors" that could link together in whatever way the Doctor or the TARDIS wanted.

 

[David cgc]

At the end of "The Lodger," when they break into the Silence's crashed pseudo-TARDIS, there's a moment where you can see the exterior door glitching.

I also remember a fan concept design for the TARDIS interior back in 2003 when the revival was first announced, where the TARDIS had a single door in the console room that you could configure to go to anywhere you wanted. It was both the entrance/exit door, and the door to any room in the TARDIS you wanted to go. It wouldn't have had anything so mundane as corridors, just these "magic doors" that could link together in whatever way the Doctor or the TARDIS wanted.

I remember there was an illustration of the 2005 version, before the revival began designing more console rooms and stopped implying that the coral was how it "really" looked underneath, that had the TARDIS "interior" being a bunch of spherical coral bulbs all orbiting around the main console room, so there presumably wouldn't be corridors, one room just sort teleported you to the next.

 

[Macintosh]

I remember there was an illustration of the 2005 version, before the revival began designing more console rooms and stopped implying that the coral was how it "really" looked underneath, that had the TARDIS "interior" being a bunch of spherical coral bulbs all orbiting around the main console room, so there presumably wouldn't be corridors, one room just sort teleported you to the next.

The "time sceptre", yes. I was never terribly keen on this idea, I've never liked concepts that show the TARDIS interior to be a glorified space station floating in a magic void, especially when it also just looked like a giant sonic screwdriver. From what I recall the spheres around the outside were supposed to be "TARDIS modules" that could "link to the core as required".

EDIT: found an old scan of it from one of the mid-2000s Doctor Who Visual Dictionaries. I believe they removed any mention of this from the reference books etc once the console room design changed for the first time in 2010.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

That whole video is such a treat! I'm super jealous of Verity and her amazing artistic creativity. I loved seeing her just light up at everything she got to see and everyone she got to meet. She must be on cloud 9.

Verity! C'mon, no one else had a chance at that contest.

 

[David cgc]

The "time sceptre", yes. I was never terribly keen on this idea, I've never liked concepts that show the TARDIS interior to be a glorified space station floating in a magic void, especially when it also just looked like a giant sonic screwdriver. From what I recall the spheres around the outside were supposed to be "TARDIS modules" that could "link to the core as required".

EDIT: found an old scan of it from one of the mid-2000s Doctor Who Visual Dictionaries. I believe they removed any mention of this from the reference books etc once the console room design changed for the first time in 2010.

That's it. I'm back at my main computer, I had a lower-resolution but wider-angle version of the same painting on my drive, along with a cutaway of the central globe. Once I had the lead, I found the aforelinked much larger versions on the artist Peter Mckinstry's website.

I feel like something abstract and weird like this makes more sense than the ideas that the TARDIS "interior" is a conventional spaceship that's understandable aside from being hidden in an alternate dimension with just a little door sticking out into normal-space like a periscope. If anything, it should be even more abstract and weird, since apparently the "coral" is as much of an affectation as the plastic or the steel (good thing they deleted that scene of the metacrisis Doctor getting a "cutting" of the TARDIS, and never said in the show Jack's desk-ornament was him growing his own TARDIS).

 

[Macintosh]

Verity! C'mon, no one else had a chance at that contest.

 

[Macintosh]

That's it. I'm back at my main computer, I had a lower-resolution but wider-angle version of the same painting on my drive, along with a cutaway of the central globe. Once I had the lead, I found the aforelinked much larger versions on the artist Peter Mckinstry's website.

Ah, Peter McKinstry... love his work. His website's had a BIG overhaul since the last time I visited it. His Doctor Who cutaways are worth visiting the site for alone.

 

[JoeZhang]

Interesting article in the new SFX - especially about how large the console is compared to classic Who - each metal insert is big as one side of the original Hartnell one…

Also the jukebox seems to the same model but not actually the same one that appear in that diner with Twelve.

 

[publiusr]

Ah, Peter McKinstry... love his work. His website's had a BIG overhaul since the last time I visited it. His Doctor Who cutaways are worth visiting the site for alone.

He is one of the few to tackle the spacecraft of Doctor Who.

Star Trek and Star Wars had ship art ages ago

 

[jaime]

Not that I recall being used in an actual Doctor Who episode, but there's a few novels where not having to worry about an effects budget means they do some weird and wonderful things to the TARDIS interior. There's certainly mention of corridors telescoping in the early New Adventures novels – if I recall correctly the Doctor had taken to pedalling through some parts of the TARDIS on an old bicycle so he could keep up if a corridor went strange!

There's also an 8th Doctor novel where the TARDIS gets damaged by intersecting a wormhole while in flight (I think – it's been 20+ years since I read it), and the interior melts. It describes in detail the physical structure of everything from walls and floors to decorations and furniture decaying and flowing and pooling like candle wax, and the Doctor trying to sculpt levers and buttons back out of the substance of the console to regain some control. When the entire structure finally gives way and everyone starts drowning the TARDIS vomits them out into the outside world and then shuts itself down to rebuild for the remainder of the story.

I also remember a fan concept design for the TARDIS interior back in 2003 when the revival was first announced, where the TARDIS had a single door in the console room that you could configure to go to anywhere you wanted. It was both the entrance/exit door, and the door to any room in the TARDIS you wanted to go. It wouldn't have had anything so mundane as corridors, just these "magic doors" that could link together in whatever way the Doctor or the TARDIS wanted.

The first bit you mention was the start of cats cradle — where the Tardis breaks into three cities with different time zones, and the fluid links have become mercury rivers between them. You can see Ace on the bike you mention on the cover of the book, Times Crucible, by Marc Platt. It breaks after an unusual Time Ram, when it hits one of Gallifrey very first Time Ships inside the Vortex.
It’s one of my favourites.