Gaiman Q&A about 'The Doctor's Wife'

[JoeZhang]

I don't see a thread on this? A few nuggets:

Because I came up with the story before the Year Four Specials aired, I was able to ask them to keep the Christopher Ecclestone TARDIS interior. It stood in the studio for an extra eighteen months, and they lied to anyone who came past about why it was still there.

1) Yes, Pull to Open obviously refers to the hatch. But it is an instruction, and it is on her door, and Police Box doors did open out. (Opening in makes much more sense for a spaceship though.)

2) Yes, there were lots more TARDIS rooms in earlier versions of the script. I was particularly fond of the Zero Room sequence, with Rory having to learn to levitate, but alas, Zero Rooms and levitation cost money and take time to shoot, as do Swimming Pools and Halls of Mirrors, and we were all out of both at that point.

However, now we have TARDIS corridors existing as standing sets. We never did before. And that means that other writers can use the corridors to go somewhere. Like the New Swimming Pool. Or the ballroom.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-ra...11/may/16/neil-gaiman-doctor-who-doctors-wife

 

[Starkers]

Cool, thanks for posting that!

 

[Admiral_Young]

Sweet. Thanks for that. I wonder if Neil will be allowed to post his script online? I would love to read this. I wonder if they'll return to doing the script book or something like RTD did by posting his scripts online, I doubt it but it would be awesome if that happened.

 

[Neroon]

"However, now we have TARDIS corridors existing as standing sets. We never did before. And that means that other writers can use the corridors to go somewhere. Like the New Swimming Pool. Or the ballroom. "

Thx for posting this link, Joe! I've put it out on Facebook and already have a few hits.

 

[Deckerd]

Do you have a dedicated DW page Neroon?

 

[davejames]

Kinda cool that they just kept the Tennant console room around all that time. Especially considering it probably took up a LOT of valuable space that could have been used for other things.

I really doubt we'll see any other rooms any time soon though. As much as I'd love to see entire episodes set within the TARDIS, it's clear Moffat is content just using the console room for his stories.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Kinda cool that they just kept the Tennant console room around all that time. Especially considering it probably took up a LOT of valuable space that could have been used for other things.

After everything that happened, I think the BBC owes Doctor Who fans some storage room.

 

[DS9Continuing]

Interesting that he refers to it as the Ecclestone Tardis, not the Tennant Tardis. I wonder if we ought to read anything into that.

 

[Guartho]

I read into that that he calls it by the Doctor it was built for.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Interesting that he refers to it as the Ecclestone Tardis, not the Tennant Tardis. I wonder if we ought to read anything into that.

That it started with Eccleston?

 

[Rosalind]

Thanks for posting this Joe.

I find this answer quite interesting:

Q: Will you write another episode? If so, do you know what it might be about? Would you consider becoming a regular DW writer?

A: I don't know. I'd love to write another episode: this is DOCTOR WHO we're talking about. Nobody's asked me, and, which is harder to admit, one reason that the episode was good was that I spent much too much of the last two years writing and rewriting it, while not doing things that people were waiting for.

For one thing, it shows how big a fan he is. I think this answer also applied to Moffat when he wrote one story a season, he had a lot more time to plan one story than what he has now.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Wow, that was awesome. Thank you for posting this.

I think it's telling that in the original script that it was clear cut that House survived...

 

[Brent]

The Zero Room idea did indeed sound cool.... I was wondering if the TARDIS even had one anymore

 

[Starkers]

Thanks for posting this Joe.

I find this answer quite interesting:

Q: Will you write another episode? If so, do you know what it might be about? Would you consider becoming a regular DW writer?

A: I don't know. I'd love to write another episode: this is DOCTOR WHO we're talking about. Nobody's asked me, and, which is harder to admit, one reason that the episode was good was that I spent much too much of the last two years writing and rewriting it, while not doing things that people were waiting for.

For one thing, it shows how big a fan he is. I think this answer also applied to Moffat when he wrote one story a season, he had a lot more time to plan one story than what he has now.

This is why I liked the idea of RTD still doing the odd story cos I think it would have been good to see an RTD script he really had the time to focus all his efforts on.

 

[davejames]

For one thing, it shows how big a fan he is. I think this answer also applied to Moffat when he wrote one story a season, he had a lot more time to plan one story than what he has now.

Yeah you can definitely see the difference in how much more economical and tightly plotted episodes like Doctor's Wife and Blink are than what we normally get.

Hopefully we'll at least get one more episode from Gaiman someday though. I'm sure this wasn't the only DW story he's been dying to tell.

 

[Rarewolf]

The Zero Room idea did indeed sound cool.... I was wondering if the TARDIS even had one anymore

With all the deletions it must keep building new ones. That was at least the second swimming pool to be deleted.

Bit odd the Doctor is so quick to delete it in fact, given that it was a lifesaver this series!

 

[starsuperion]

The Zero Room idea did indeed sound cool.... I was wondering if the TARDIS even had one anymore

With all the deletions it must keep building new ones. That was at least the second swimming pool to be deleted.

Bit odd the Doctor is so quick to delete it in fact, given that it was a lifesaver this series!

when the Tardis deletes rooms, it must have a backup of it on it's memory, and rebuilds them after to replace what was lost due to the usage for what ever reason...burning up rooms for extra thrust, or to get rid of an invader, etc..etc..it may even archive different pools, libraries and so on..

so in addition to 30 different control rooms, it may have 10 different cricket pavilions..

 

[Tom]

The question is if the the Tardis burns off 30 percent of the the rooms, does it get the mass back somehow by growing it back or something? it should be a small tardis by now if not:

25% in Catrovalva
30% going in to the bubble universe
30% coming out of the bubble universe

 

[starsuperion]

The question is if the the Tardis burns off 30 percent of the the rooms, does it get the mass back somehow by growing it back or something? it should be a small tardis by now if not:

25% in Catrovalva
30% going in to the bubble universe
30% coming out of the bubble universe

actually no..

think of the Tardis in terms of the Star Trek TNG Episode entitled "Remember Me" Following an anomaly in a warp bubble experiment, Dr. Crusher finds that crewmembers are beginning to disappear, while she is the only one who seems to notice. It later comes out that she was trapped in a warp bubble which created a separate reality based on her living memory..but because she is just a human, and the bubble was unstable, it began to collapse.. and since her memory isn't constant, it started to fade with the people on the ship

The Tardis can create it's interior Dimensions based on it's living mind, (it appears that only a living mind can create a reality as shown repeatedly in Doctor who-logopolis-house-tardis...and star trek TNg to date) and since it is a computer mind that is also sort of alive, together with the copy of the eye of harmony, it can sustain the interior pocket dimension and rebuild objects and rooms with ease. Including rebuilding console rooms from scratch. However, the Tardis can not create anything that it can not copy on a molecular level..and since it's systems are grounded to what it knows, the ship's console rooms are upgraded from Gallifrey via a wireless connection to the panopticon..with Gallifrey gone, it must seek out nearby contrivences to use to build consoles..so a bike gear, or a old typewriter is used instead..

however, with the newer (unofficial) revelation that the ship's systems may be nothing more then chameleon circuitry for those junkyard objects, it could be that the reason the Tardis looks so junky in it's controls is because of the personality of the Doctor, and his whimsical nature, to which the Tardis styles it's systems to tailor to his preference..thus making it harder for an intruder to pilot. maybe through psychic bond with the ship guiding him, he then knows what those junky controls are and what they can do..

however, since this was a mention in the doctor who confidential interview with Neil Gaiman, I refuse to accept it as ultimate canon until it is expressly stated in an episode.. in the classic series, the only thing the chameleon circuit controlled was the outer shell.. it could be that if a tardis is destroyed it's parts are then chameleonised to save it's tech from replication.. but never the less, I prefer the reason that sites it's need to upgrade with technology on hand..

 

[starsuperion]

one more thing.. since the Tardis is essentially a pocket dimension, or an artifical pocket of warped space.. there is no need for it to have a spaceship type design, as I previously surmised..the interior is all the rooms and corridoors, and if you were to walk to the end of the ship, you would then end up back on the other side of the ship..where the pocket dimension begins.. like walking around the earth, only you don't fall off the edge, eventually you end back up where you started..The Tardis is much the same. Since the Dimension the Tardis exists in is artifically generated through energy, matter, and mathematics which govern it's molecular form, the ship can create rooms with ease.. since it is creating real matter from energy, deleting the room converts the matter back to energy which is then deposited into the vortex via it's engines which are linked to the vortex, and produces extra large thrust.

if one were to look at the Tardis outside the bubble, it would look like a massive building or groups of rooms, hallways, and extra storage..like a cuttaway with all the rooms visible, and below the machine a massive set of engines..because the outer shell of the ship's interior is the bubble itself, it seems like the ship can go on forever.. it can grow or shrink based on it's power output, which dictates the expansion and contraction of the artificial dimension which the ship rests..