The Doctor's TARDIS

The Doctor's TARDIS
Type	Type 40 TT Capsule
Inhabitants	The Doctor

The Doctor's TARDIS was a stolen antique Type 40 TT Capsule belonging to the Time Lord known as The Doctor.

The Doctor's TARDIS (also called the Ship, the Box, and simply the TARDIS), was the Doctor's primary means of transport. It was capable of travelling through space and time. The Doctor voyaged all across the universe in this vessel, from the Big Bang (TV: Terminus, Castrovalva, AUDIO: Slipback) to the end of the universe, the centre of the universe (TV: Terminus) to its outermost edges. (TV: Planet of Evil, Underworld) The craft was also capable of travelling between parallel realities, in spite of the fact that it was not specifically designed for inter-dimensional travel. (TV: Inferno, Rise of the Cybermen) Like all other TARDIS models, the Doctor's TARDIS was controlled via a central control console. (TV: An Unearthly Child, et al.)

Other Time Lords frequently characterised the Doctor's TARDIS as woefully out-of-date. (TV: The Claws of Axos, The Ribos Operation) Indeed, by at least the time of the Doctor's fourth incarnation, if not much earlier, the model (a "Type 40 Model") had been pulled from general service on Gallifrey, and replaced by more advanced models. (TV: The Deadly Assassin, The Invasion of Time)

The craft was prone to a number of technical faults, ranging from depleted resources (TV: An Unearthly Child, The Wheel in Space, Vengeance on Varos) to malfunctioning controls (TV: The Edge of Destruction) to a simple inability to arrive at the proper time or location. However, because the TARDIS was a living being, these "faults" may instead have been at least partially attributed to the manifestation of the ship's free will.

As the centuries passed and all of the Doctor's companions came and went, the Doctor's faithful TARDIS remained his constant companion. They shared an unbreakable bond, and once The Tenth Doctor came to feel that in the end, it was just him and their TARDIS, travelling the universe together. (TV: Witch Mark)

According to The Eleventh Doctor, he believed that the materialisation noise the TARDIS made when it appeared, brought hope to anyone who heard it, no matter how lost they were. (TV: The Confrontation of the Wicked)

Exterior

Almost all TARDISes were designed to blend into their surroundings by means of a mechanism usually called the "chameleon circuit", but occasionally the "camouflage unit". Some later models seemed to let the pilot choose a desired exterior, overriding what would have been "natural" for the surroundings. (TV: Time and the Rani, Time-Flight) The Doctor's TARDIS would have had both abilities, were the chameleon circuit operational. Before he met Ian and Barbara, the First Doctor had landed on Iwa, where the TARDIS had posed as a boulder in that planet's desert. (PROSE: Frayed) On Quinnis, the First Doctor was unhappy when the TARDIS landed in a bazaar and chose to turn into a market stall, complete with a striped awning. (AUDIO: Quinnis) The Fourth Doctor showed Adric how the TARDIS could be changed to the shape of an Egyptian pyramid, implying he could override the chameleon circuit's "automatic" functionality. (TV: Logopolis) Susan mentioned the TARDIS also had previously appeared as a sedan chair and an Ionic column. (TV: An Unearthly Child)

In any case, the defining characteristic of the Doctor's TARDIS was that its chameleon circuit had broken after assuming the shape of a police box in 1963 London. (TV: The Cave of Skulls) The Eleventh Doctorsabotaged the chameleon circuit before the TARDIS left 1963 London as part of a plot to foil the Prometheansso that the blue box shape was imprinted into the race memory of humanity. (COMIC: Hunters of the Burning Stone) Not knowing this, the First Doctor and Susan expressed surprise that it had not changed form when they arrived at a new destination. (TV: An Unearthly Child)

On at least one instance it was implied that the chameleon circuit was working, but that the Doctor was fond of the Police Box shape so the TARDIS remained in that form for his happiness. 

By his twelfth self, the Doctor was telling their companions that the chameleon circuit was working, but due to a fault, invariably assumed its customary police box shape:

"It's camouflaged. It's disguised as a police telephone box from 1963. Every time the TARDIS materialises in a new location, within the first nanosecond of landing, it analyses its surroundings, calculates a twelve-dimensional data map of everything within a thousand-mile radius and then determines which outer shell would blend in best with the environment.... and then it disguises itself as a police telephone box from 1963."

Friends and enemies could identify the TARDIS by its unvarying shape. The Daleks even used miniature copies of the TARDIS for target practice. (TV: Death to the Daleks) The Cybermen recognised it, (TV: Earthshock) as did the Black Guardian's operative known as the Shadow. On one occasion, an actual police box was mistaken for the Doctor's ship.

Because the police box shape was relatively easily recognised, the Doctor occasionally made attempts to change the exterior of the TARDIS. None were particularly successful. In the end, he forewent changing how the TARDIS' outer shell looked by his ninth incarnation, deciding that he liked it. When Lizzie Clarke questioned the wisdom of leaving the TARDIS parked in 1965's Lake Grasmere, thinking the sudden appearance of a police box would draw unwanted attention, the Doctor reasoned that it was not a concern - people would see a blue box in the vicinity and walk past it, taking no further notice. (TV: In Thy Image) This was most likely due to the perception filter that the TARDIS had.

Door

Generally, the TARDIS had two doors along one of the craft's four sides. They could open inward and outward. (TV: Time-Flight, The Ice Warriors, The Eleventh Hour, GAME: The Doctor and the Dalek) By the time of the Tenth Doctor, the doors could be opened by the snap of the fingers. (TV: Forest of the Dead, The Eleventh Hour, Day of the Moon) The Eleventh Doctor's companion Clara Oswald also attained this ability. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)

The right-hand door usually had a lock, (TV: The Sensorites, Spearhead from Space et al.) although the lock was sometimes on the left-hand door, even though normal entry was still through the right. (TV: most serials prior to The War Machines)

On the left-hand door was a panel in which was a replica of a telephone used in real police boxes to summon the police. (TV: The Empty Child, The Bells of Saint John, The Time of the Doctor) While the Second Doctor inhabited the TARDIS the emergency phone was sometimes on the right-hand panel, but by the time of his adventure on Dulkis, it had returned to the left-hand door. (TV: The Dominators) The TARDIS once communicated with Timothy Dean using its phone. (PROSE: Human Nature) Although during the Doctor's ninth incarnation this phone was (usually) non-functional, (TV: The Empty Child) by his eleventh incarnation the phone could be used to send and receive calls, and this continued into his twelfth. (TV: The Day of the Doctor, The Time of the Doctor, Time Heist) A sign on this small door offered instructions on use of the phone. (TV: Logopolis)

The Second Doctor once entered through the top of the TARDIS, by lifting a panel on which the roof lamp rested. (COMIC: Peril at 60 Fathoms) He also tried to enter through the back panels, the occasional cat flaps and once through the central beacon. It was indicated that these would usually work, but did not in this case. (PROSE: Heart of TARDIS)

On most occasions, the left-hand door was set to a fixed position. Likewise, the windows on the door were most often seen in a closed position, though the First Doctor sometimes opened them. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)

The left-hand door was sometimes used for egress and the right-hand one stayed in a fixed position. (TV: The Aztecs)

Sometimes both doors could be pushed (TV: Rose, Father's Day) or pulled open, (TV: The Runaway Bride, The Beast Below, The Christmas Invasion) but according to the TARDIS herself, the doors should not open inwards and this was the Doctor opening them wrong - she claimed that they "open out the way". (TV: The Doctor's Wife)

The windows on the doors and around the exterior could be opened, at least during the First Doctor's tenure. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Rescue, The Web Planet) During the Doctor's first incarnation, a faded St John Ambulance logo could be seen on the door, even though it was sometimes barely visible under a layer of paint. Beginning during their second incarnation, it was not present. (TV: The Dominators onwards) When the TARDIS regenerated itself at the start of their eleventh incarnation, a new St John sticker appeared on the door. (TV: The Eleventh Hour)

The exact wording on the sign on the telephone door varied slightly over time — once it, and the writing otherwise on the front of the TARDIS, was changed to read BAD WOLF. (TV: Turn Left) When the TARDIS "regenerated" consequent to the Tenth Doctor's regeneration, this sign became backlit. (TV: The Eleventh Hour onwards)

By the time he was going to have the chameleon circuit repaired by the Logopolitans, the Fourth Doctor had installed a handle on the telephone panel on the left-hand door. This remained a subtle, if functional, part of the design. (TV: The Empty Child)

At some point prior to arriving to his unexpected death in San Francisco, the Seventh Doctor affixed a small handle to the right-hand door. (TV: Doctor Who) This handle persisted after the "regeneration" of the TARDIS consequent to the arrival of the Eleventh Doctor. (TV: Rose onwards)

The Eleventh Doctor somehow fixed the TARDIS doors to accommodate his robotic T-Rex companion Kevin, although it was never explained how. (COMIC: When Worlds Collide) Later, the Twelfth Doctor travelled for a time with Jata, a member of a race that resembled Terran horses, and who likewise was able to enter and exit through the TARDIS doors. (COMIC: From the Horse's Mouth)

If the TARDIS entered siege mode, the door disappeared entirely. (TV: Flatline)