TARDIS Console Room 2023 (Potential Spoilers)

[Macintosh]

I want to say it was a redressed set from an Adventure in Space and Time. But I may well have dreamt that. Someone will correct me.

Adventure was 2013, seems kinda long to have a set in storage. Most likely it was the one used in Hell Bent when 12 stole a TARDIS with Clara and Me. Although that was in 2015, and Judoon was 2020.

IIRC the one used in the movie wasn't a full set but a partial recreation of the filming angles.

The Fugitive Doctor TARDIS interior used parts of various sets. The console prop was from An Adventure in Space and Time and was repainted white (this had previously also been used for the "Hell Bent" TARDIS and 1st Doctor's TARDIS in "Twice Upon a Time") and it used a combination of roundel walls from AAiSaT, "Hell Bent", and "TUaT". There are points with the Fugitive TARDIS where you can see the roundels are of slightly different sizes and designs – for example, in the below picture the smaller roundels on the right hand wall are from "HB", and the left hand wall is from AAiSaT. Not the gap between the top of the roundels and the ceiling on the right but not on the left.

"TUaT" roundels were featured in other parts of the room too – here they're on the forward wall, with the back wall being from AAiSaT – the "TUaT" roundels have a circular groove cut in them that catches the light and mimics the appearance of a stepped back while being physically simpler, whereas the AAiSaT roundels have an actual step, making them more accurate to the original 1963 TARDIS interior.

Before anyone asks, AAiSaT, "HB", and "TUaT" all had different roundel walls and main TARDIS doors built. The AAiSaT walls and doors ended up being part of the Doctor Who Experience permanent exhibition in Cardiff at the time of "HB" and "TUaT" being filmed, and it was considered easier/cheaper to build new walls and doors for "HB" than dismantle/move them. Unfortunately the walls in "HB" were built to the wrong scale (the roundels had the diameter of the smaller 1980s roundels but the 1960s more closely packed design), resulting in the doors being too small to be used on camera – Peter Capaldi hit his head going through them. So new walls and doors were built for "TUaT".

 

[Macintosh]

The Fugitive Doctor's console room was mostly new. it wasn't a 360-degree set, but was seen to be a regular hexagonal room with all the walls the same length. Two of the walls and the entrance were apparently made of the classic while roundel walls, salvaged or copied from the "An Adventure In Space and Time" console room (there were no actual doors). Two more walls seem to be monitors or screens, and the last big wall was probably constructed from the "glass cabinet" wall built for "Twice", but smaller and containing different greeblies. It's a fair callback to the Hartnell set built for "Twice" and "AAISAT" but not at all meant to be the same thing.

Afraid this is mostly wrong. It was a 360° set in that it had six complete walls arranged in a hexagon, and there were actual exterior doors, though they weren't used as such on screen.

Note the doors were still the smaller ones (barely taller than Capaldi) created for AAISAT and re-used in "Hell Bent". The not-quite roundel walls are re-used or copied from the museum wall art in "Day of the Doctor", suggesting the museum is a bit bigger than originally considered.

See my previous post for more discussion of this. The doors created for AAiSaT were not reused for "HB" because they were in the Doctor Who Experience at the time.

The pentagonal ceiling whatsit is certainly reused or recreated from AAISAT.

It's hexagonal, not pentagonal.

 

[Jedman67]

Thank you @Macintosh !
I love learning all these small details.
I assume the Fugitive TARDIS was reused when Yaz and Co returned to Earth while the Doctor was in prison?

 

[Macintosh]

Thank you @Macintosh !
I love learning all these small details.
I assume the Fugitive TARDIS was reused when Yaz and Co returned to Earth while the Doctor was in prison?

Yes, but it was slightly modified – changes were made to the entry opening, the hexagonal canopy light above the console, and the "fault locator" section with the glass panels and the down lights.

 

[Pindar]

The Fugitive Doctor TARDIS interior used parts of various sets. The console prop was from An Adventure in Space and Time and was repainted white (this had previously also been used for the "Hell Bent" TARDIS and 1st Doctor's TARDIS in "Twice Upon a Time") and it used a combination of roundel walls from AAiSaT, "Hell Bent", and "TUaT". There are points with the Fugitive TARDIS where you can see the roundels are of slightly different sizes and designs – for example, in the below picture the smaller roundels on the right hand wall are from "HB", and the left hand wall is from AAiSaT. Not the gap between the top of the roundels and the ceiling on the right but not on the left.

"TUaT" roundels were featured in other parts of the room too – here they're on the forward wall, with the back wall being from AAiSaT – the "TUaT" roundels have a circular groove cut in them that catches the light and mimics the appearance of a stepped back while being physically simpler, whereas the AAiSaT roundels have an actual step, making them more accurate to the original 1963 TARDIS interior.

Before anyone asks, AAiSaT, "HB", and "TUaT" all had different roundel walls and main TARDIS doors built. The AAiSaT walls and doors ended up being part of the Doctor Who Experience permanent exhibition in Cardiff at the time of "HB" and "TUaT" being filmed, and it was considered easier/cheaper to build new walls and doors for "HB" than dismantle/move them. Unfortunately the walls in "HB" were built to the wrong scale (the roundels had the diameter of the smaller 1980s roundels but the 1960s more closely packed design), resulting in the doors being too small to be used on camera – Peter Capaldi hit his head going through them. So new walls and doors were built for "TUaT".

Thanks, that's very interesting.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Thanks for the corrections! My follow up question is I wonder just how much of this is still available to the current era of production. Console aside, it'd be great if they could keep the Fugitive set in a flat-pack somewhere so they could break it out as a guest TARDIS now and again. No one blinked when it showed up again at the end of "The Timeless Children", so it could easily show up again as needed by a story.

Mark

 

[Jedman67]

Thanks for the corrections! My follow up question is I wonder just how much of this is still available to the current era of production. Console aside, it'd be great if they could keep the Fugitive set in a flat-pack somewhere so they could break it out as a guest TARDIS now and again. No one blinked when it showed up again at the end of "The Timeless Children", so it could easily show up again as needed by a story.

Mark

With the specials at ~£10 million per episode, and the full Series 14 likely budgeted at £7m+ per episode (RTD has denounced £100m series budget, but we know it's far more than in 2020) they can probably rebuild the set from scratch if they need it.
Part of the move to Bad Wolf was a new soundstage/studio, they are no longer shooting at BBC Cardiff, so we don't know what sets it makes sense to move vs just rebuild.

 

[Macintosh]

Thanks for the corrections! My follow up question is I wonder just how much of this is still available to the current era of production. Console aside, it'd be great if they could keep the Fugitive set in a flat-pack somewhere so they could break it out as a guest TARDIS now and again. No one blinked when it showed up again at the end of "The Timeless Children", so it could easily show up again as needed by a story.

My understanding is that they preserve as much as they can for sets that are likely to reappear, and TARDIS interiors are one of those "we should make a special effort here" things. The original Smith set was demolished, though the console and specific elements were preserved, and the Smith/Capaldi set and the Whittaker set have been packed away and preserved, but as they're more constructions than sets it would be a major undertaking to fully rebuild them... at least the possibility exists though, and a partial reconstruction like the Eccleston/Tennant set in the Doctor Who Experience (which was where the scenes for "The Day of the Doctor" were filmed in situ!) is a possibility, especially with recent advances in virtual sets.

On the topic of returning TARDIS sets specifically, the Eccleston/Tennant room reappearing in "The Doctor's Wife" wasn't the original plan. Neil Gaiman wanted a classic series console room, but at the time the budget didn't extend to it, and this was before An Adventure in Space and Time was a thing of course. Because "TDW" was originally planned for series five they just delayed the dismantling of the Eccleston/Tennant set to accommodate it, and then left it standing for another year when "TDW" was pushed back to series six.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Behind the scenes of the 2023 console room!

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Apparently it's designed to evoke the look of a tokamak generator, which we've seen before in stuff like Borg ships.

Mark

 

[Marc]

Behind the scenes of the 2023 console room!

fuck that's a BIG SET!!!!

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Yeah, they didn't build that set only to destroy it after the Specials are done. That's going to be around for a while.

 

[David cgc]

I wonder how much soundstage space Bad Wolf has. I mean, the bigger the TARDIS console room is, as impressive as it is, the more it limits their capacity to use other sets, either per episode or if they wanted something more elaborate they could use for multiple episodes (some kind of UNIT set or something). I suppose if they're planning to do more location shooting, they might have the floor area to burn.

 

[Macintosh]

fuck that's a BIG SET!!!!

The approximate size is around 20m/65ft in diameter. Compared to other interiors:

• The original console room used in 1963 was around 10m long (from the door to the back wall of the fault locator)
• The 1983-1989 set introduced in The Five Doctors was around 8m across
• The TV Movie set used for Paul McGann in 1996 was around 23m at its widest point (the diameter of the outer colonnade – it didn't have true walls for large parts of the set apart from the doors and the library, using drapes and lighting to give it the impression of going on forever into the gloom)
• The Eccleston/Tennant ("Coral") set and Smith/Capaldi ("Toyota") set were each around 12m in diameter

So it's not much smaller than the famously huge TV Movie console room set, while having a lot more vertical space. It really is a strong contender for the biggest TARDIS interior we've ever had.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

And to think, someone actually thought it would be destroyed after one scene.

 

[DigificWriter]

And to think, someone actually thought it would be destroyed after one scene.

Wrong.

What I said is that I didn't think it was a 100% certainty, based on the visual evidence from The Star Beast, that the new console room design that debuted in said episode wasn't a one-and-done set.

However, Wild Blue Yonder fixed the not-so-insignificant problem of the TARDIS being on fire, proving my cautious skepticism invalid.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Potato, potatoe.

 

[Macintosh]

And to think, someone actually thought it would be destroyed after one scene.

My personal thoughts here are that the original intent was Donna throwing a coffee into the console and the TARDIS crashing was what caused the TARDIS to change from the 13th Doctor's interior to the shiny new one we have now. But as the 13th Doctor's TARDIS interior was dismantled almost immediately after filming on "The Power of the Doctor" had concluded the set was no longer easily available, and it would have been prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to rebuild it just for one scene, even if it were just a partial set. So instead we have this rather odd juxtaposition of the TARDIS choosing to rebuild itself for no apparent reason in "The Star Beast", and then almost immediately afterwards having to rebuild itself again in "Wild Blue Yonder".

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Moreover, the exterior doesn't seem to have changed between "Power" and "Star Beast". Not that it NEEDED to, but the TARDIS is fickle enough to have changed multiple times whenever they got a new prop in the classic series, only rarely needing a plot-related reason to do so. Here, only the interior has changed, save for the new accessibility ramp.

(Which recalls all the times in the classic series that K-9 entered or left the TARDIS and the camera pans away from the lip of the police box, so the K-9 prop wouldn't be seen being unable to actually get up or down)

Mark

 

[Macintosh]

Moreover, the exterior doesn't seem to have changed between "Power" and "Star Beast". Not that it NEEDED to, but the TARDIS is fickle enough to have changed multiple times whenever they got a new prop in the classic series, only rarely needing a plot-related reason to do so. Here, only the interior has changed, save for the new accessibility ramp.

TARDIS exterior changes are odd beasts, because they're generally caused by "the prop's broken" rather than "we want something shiny and new". It's also complicated by the new series having multiple TARDIS props at any given time, mainly divided between location/studio shots but also to allow props to be rotated/refurbished between individual series and sometimes even individual episodes. What's interesting here is that if you know what to look for you can see subtle changes in the TARDIS between episodes (and sometimes even specific scenes) as a result. And of course the doors in the TARDIS interior set are often distinguishable from the doors on the props by slight variations in wood grain, paint colour, nicks and dents etc.

So it makes more sense to talk about generations of TARDIS prop designs rather than specific props in most cases, because there's usually multiple TARDIS props that are intended to be used simultaneously.

There are three known TARDIS props of the current design with its idiosyncratic corner post notches; the current design debuted in series 11 alongside Jodie Whittaker's 13th Doctor and is somewhat smaller than the previous design. Six boxes in total were used between 2005's "Rose" and 2017's "Twice Upon a Time", pretty much split between three for the RTD1 era and three for the Moffat era. This is, incidentally, how there were so many TARDIS props available for "The Day of the Doctor" – Matt Smith's 11th Doctor used a brand new prop that then went on to become the main prop for Peter Capaldi's first series, John Hurt's War Doctor used a prop that was first built for series 4 refurbished with "battle damage", and David Tennant's 10th Doctor used a composite prop built from the remains of the first two props built for series 1.

The in-universe explanation for the visual changes in the TARDIS's external appearance is "chameleon drift" – that the TARDIS only looks approximately like a real police box (sometimes only very approximately! ), and keeps getting it slightly wrong. Interestingly Doctor Who has NEVER had an accurate replica of a real police box in use as the TARDIS... the most accurate TARDIS prop ever was used in the Peter Cushing Dalek movies! One of the reasons behind this is that genuine police boxes were surprisingly large – 10ft 4in tall including the lamp – and would therefore be difficult to fit in some studio spaces or building interiors for location shoots etc.

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, the specific type of police box the TARDIS is supposed to mimic... you can see that the current prop is quite stylised, almost caricatured, and is much less "chunky" than a genuine police box. And also... those bloody corner post notches...

 

[C.E. Evans]

After initially noticing the changes in the TARDIS exterior as a kid, I just chalked it up that the chameleon circuit does indeed still work, but it can only change into different models of blue police boxes.

These days, though, I think the TARDIS just likes being a blue police box and will often give her facade a makeover.