tardis's chamelon circuit

[Haggis and tatties]

The chamelon circuit malfunction might actually have caused the actual chamelon circuit to become affected by its own chameleonic( is that a word), effects, and the Dr has been trying to repair the wrong circuit all this time. lol

 

[Christopher]

The chameleon circuit and the perception filter both seem redundant given that the thing has a perfectly functional cloaking device...and has had such since the second doctor. Why bother blending in when you can hide completely?...

Making it invisible all the time would be stupid, because you always run the risk of people bumping their heads walking into the thing.

Plus, of course, there's the fact that the chameleon circuit was introduced (though not named) in the second episode in 1963, while the invisibility effect wasn't introduced until "The Invasion" five years later. Not to mention that in "The Invasion," the invisibility was an accident due to a damaged visual stabiliser circuit. The TARDIS is supposed to be visible.

I also think the appearance is not a holographic disguise that is layed over the actual appearance. I think the actual appearance changes to the police box, hence the doors being part of the outer shell being police box doors even from the inside (though that apparently was different during the classic run.)

Exactly right. The plasmic shell takes the actual physical form of whatever it's mimicking.

As for the doors, in the original version of the pilot, you could see both sets of doors, the police-box doors on the outside and the zigzaggy roundelled doors on the inside. They did a very clever effect where they took a recording break to cut from a shot of Barbara moving toward the police box on the junkyard set to a close-up shot of her pushing through a pair of police-box doors that had been set up on the TARDIS set, showing how the interior connected to the exterior more clearly than the reshot, aired pilot did. For some reason they never attempted the effect again, and beyond the interior doors was either a dark void or the outside scenery.

However, the Peter Cushing movies did have the police-box doors visible on the interior set. That's probably the inspiration for the new series doing the same.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Anyone else think, Donna's solution to fix it would simply be pushing the factory reset button?

They are right there next to the hand brake

 

[Iamnotspock]

Anyway, the telephone in a police box only connected to the station, so it couldn't be used for personal calls. It was a way for the public to contact the police station or for police to check in. The light on top was to signal officers in the area to call the station, or for the public to signal them in an emergency. And you didn't need to enter the police box interior to use the phone; you just open the hatch with the sign on it (despite what Idris said in "The Doctor's Wife," the PULL TO OPEN sign refers to the phone hatch that it's printed on, not to the big doors). The interior contained various supplies like an incident book, a fire extinguisher, and a first-aid kit. I read once that they could be used to lock up suspects until a wagon could arrive to take them in, but I can't find any confirmation of that at Wikipedia or the other online sources I checked.

This is an interesting little documentary, although it doesn't mention the "mini prison cell" thing either. It makes sense as a function of the box, but I've never heard about it outside of Boom Town.
[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3avd8xwzzCk[/YT]

 

[MacLeod]

The chameleon circuit and the perception filter both seem redundant given that the thing has a perfectly functional cloaking device...and has had such since the second doctor. Why bother blending in when you can hide completely?

I also tend to think that the writers forget that the police box is camouflage and not how the TARDIS actually looks. Given that the circuit is not supposed to work, it does seem odd that the TARDIS would retain the fiction of a broken police box even as its dying on Trenzalore.

Forgot like in TDOD when we actually see what the Type 40 looks like without the Chameleon circuit in use?

And the circuit does work, it just got stuck in the shape of a Police Phone box. But I suppose it is possible that the circuit works absolutly fine it's just that the TARDIS likes the shape of a Police Phone Box, sort of a favourite dress so to speak. And the TARDIS is a living ship (of sorts)

 

[diankra]

The chameleon circuit and the perception filter both seem redundant given that the thing has a perfectly functional cloaking device...and has had such since the second doctor. Why bother blending in when you can hide completely?

I also tend to think that the writers forget that the police box is camouflage and not how the TARDIS actually looks. Given that the circuit is not supposed to work, it does seem odd that the TARDIS would retain the fiction of a broken police box even as its dying on Trenzalore.

Forgot like in TDOD when we actually see what the Type 40 looks like without the Chameleon circuit in use?

And the circuit does work, it just got stuck in the shape of a Police Phone box. But I suppose it is possible that the circuit works absolutly fine it's just that the TARDIS likes the shape of a Police Phone Box, sort of a favourite dress so to speak. And the TARDIS is a living ship (of sorts)

That is what the lost scene from the 2010 season implies (see earlier in thread).