A Whofic Question

Been toeing my way into the Who fandom and reading some fics, just to get a barometer of what's out there. I have a question, though. A deep burning question. I get that the TARDIS is bigger on the inside, but...um, does it really have other rooms? I mean, I've never seen anyone in bedrooms or kitchens portrayed as part of the TARDIS in any episode I've seen (mind you, I've only watched the reboot series so if this is some ancient Who canon that I don't know about, please correct me!).

Feel free to move if this is not the right place.

It's got other rooms, they're just not often shown even in old episodes. There are probably whole ecosystems in there. Way back in the 60s there was a food delivery machine plonked next to a wall somewhere, but it's probably got a proper kitchen now even if the food still comes from a machine.

There was a guy on the DWF forum who came up with some spectacular interiors for the TARDIS. Lemmie see if I can hunt them up.

Found 'em. Okay, here are his ideas on TARDIS interiors.

Spoiler:

There are a couple old serials that show rooms besides the control room. "Masque of Mandragora" is one of those, I believe, and covers an auxiliary control room. Oh, and Five spends ages wandering around the corridors, shredding his scarf in "Castrovalva." Adric claims there are cloisters in the TARDIS at one point, which is really weird, because cloisters are outdoor walkways with roofs on them, which suggests that there are portions of the TARDIS that feel very outdoorsish. "The Christmas Invasion" also shows Ten in the Wardrobe Room, and Eleven mentions a swimming pool and a library in "The Eleventh Hour."

"The Invasion of Time" The Fourth Doctor and Leela spend what must have been an episode or so being chased through the Doctor's TARDIS by Sontarans. That was the first time I'd ever seen anything other than the control room, and it blew my mind ("Wow! It's even bigger on the inside than I thought!!!")

From the BBC site:
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Quote :

The TARDIS interior includes a swimming pool, an ancillary power station disguised as an art exhibition (the paintings include 'The Fighting Temarere', Van Eyck's 'Jan Arnolfini and His Wife' and Chagall's 'Snail' - the Doctor also has the Venus de Milo), a sick bay, and various brick walled storage areas.

The others have mentioned the stories that have really shown off the interior, so start with "Masque" and "Invasion of Time" and "Castrovalva," though you'll find other stories with a room or two. As Kel said, there's the Cloister Room, first seen in "Logopolis" and later reappearing (looking very different) in the 1996 TV movie. A few Fifth Doctor stories showed companions' rooms. Even as far back as the First Doctor's time, we got scenes in the room with the food dispenser.

If you go past the television episodes and into the novels, comics, short stories, and audios, you'll find a lot more, with vast libraries and storage rooms, rooms so big they give the illusion of being outdoors, and areas that change on the TARDIS's whims.

Alright, thank you. I just wanted to make sure that was it was a credible fact and not some fanon that caught on. Although thank you for reminding me of the scene from X-mas Invasion. I'm a little spotty on S.2. That is, I haven't seen all of it and have been kinda dragging my feet on it. Never was a big fan of Rose, sorry to admit.

(Mind you, I'm not some crazy anti-shipper or anything. I totally get that Rose is one of the great loves of The Doctor's very long existence, but I just never cared much for the character. I think the only reason I don't outright despise her is that Billie Piper is just so darned charismatic in the role.)

Anyway, thanks again for the info!

Shinracentric wrote:

I totally get that Rose is one of the great loves of The Doctor's very long existence

That's just what RTD wants you to believe (and believes himself, I guess). Going by the TV episodes alone there are other ways of interpreting his fixation on this particular companion.

Sutremaine wrote:

Shinracentric wrote:

I totally get that Rose is one of the great loves of The Doctor's very long existence

That's just what RTD wants you to believe (and believes himself, I guess). Going by the TV episodes alone there are other ways of interpreting his fixation on this particular companion.

*arches eyebrows*

Eh?

So I'm not a completely unromantic ninny for having this reaction to the Doctor/Rose pairing---> [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] Because I really don't get it, but then again I'm really not a big shipper in the fandom. The closest thing I've ever felt was a vague sense of disappointment that he'd never reciprocated Martha's fondness for him. I just recently fell for the dynamic between The Doctor and Donna. Nice to see a great friendship portrayal and all....

Nope, you're far from the only one left cold by it. Check out some old episodes on Youtube or something if you want to know what the Doctor / companion relationship was like for much of the show's life. Four had a thing with Romana II (never dealt with directly in the script, I believe), but other than that it's much more like Ten / Donna than Ten / Rose or Martha. Nine / Rose was also much more friendship than romance, even if Rose might have fancied him. But Eleven seems to be much more sensible about this kind of thing, which is nice. Imagine if Ten were with Amy. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

*blushes*

I'm actually currently living without TV or an internet connection so I haven't seen any of S.5. So I wouldn't know...aside from isn't Amy rather young?

Aren't they all, given the Doctor's age and life experience?

Hmm. Romana was about 150, but the Doctor was about 750 at the time. If you count his appearance in "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End," Captain Jack was in the thousands, but when he was a current companion, he was a fair bit younger. Kamelion might be pretty darn old; I don't remember if there was any indication how long he'd been on Xeriphas before the Master found him. Let's see... oh, in "Scream of the Shalka," the Doctor traveled with a robotic Master, if you want to count that story. I'm also not sure if it was said how old Kroton was when the Doctor met him in the comics. There might be a couple others I'm forgetting right now.

I've never watched old Who, but Dr Who wiki is my TVTropes. It's like crack to me.

WHY WONT IT LINK UGH

Jesus. wrote:

I've never watched old Who, but Dr Who wiki is my TVTropes. It's like crack to me.

WHY WONT IT LINK UGH

Oh of course! Duh...why didn't I think of that before?

Although I really should give the old school stuff a shot. The public library has a lot of old Who episodes and movies(?!) on DVD. Hell, the one right near me has more old hat than new.

Be careful of the movies. Unless someone at the library's been doing something hinky, they're not going to have the 1996 TV movie, which has never been made available on VHS or DVD legitimately in the US. [It was a co-production between the BBC and Universal, for airing on Fox. Rights issues are confused.]

Otherwise, there are two theatrical releases, starring Peter Cushing as Dr. Who -- and yes, I mean a human scientist whose last name is Who -- adapted from the first two Dalek stories. They're interesting and worth seeing; the second one also stars Bernard Cribbins. But if you're trying to get into the television series, they're a tangent. Wait until you've at least seen the television stories on which they're based.

*scratches head*

I honestly don't know what all they are, though they seem to be legal copies. There is of course the possibility that, since most DVDs are donated to the library many of these DVDs aren't from America.

Pulling up the online catalogue we've got, in addition to all the new hat stuff: Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., The Web Planet, The Key to Time, The Black Guardian Trilogy, The E-Space Trilogy, and I know quite a few others but the search breaks down into craziness after a few pages. Anyway, looking at the distribution dates, it seems a lot of old Who episodes were recently released onto DVD, no doubt due to the reboot's immense popularity.

That first one is the second Cushing movie. "Web Planet" is First Doctor (an interesting experiment, but not something to try first). The "Key to Time" season and E-Space trilogy are Fourth, and the Black Guardian trilogy is Fifth. Coincidentally enough, the Guardians were introduced in Key to Time. The DVDs are being put out sporadically, a few a year, but that's not because of the new series. This was actually the same pattern used for the VHS releases through the 90s. On the downside, it means that they tend to be more expensive to buy (but have loads of extras) and, well, are sporadic in their availability. It's not so bad now, though, as more and more of the holes get filled in.

Shinracentric wrote:

*scratches head*

I honestly don't know what all they are, though they seem to be legal copies. There is of course the possibility that, since most DVDs are donated to the library many of these DVDs aren't from America.

Pulling up the online catalogue we've got, in addition to all the new hat stuff: Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., The Web Planet, The Key to Time, The Black Guardian Trilogy, The E-Space Trilogy, and I know quite a few others but the search breaks down into craziness after a few pages. Anyway, looking at the distribution dates, it seems a lot of old Who episodes were recently released onto DVD, no doubt due to the reboot's immense popularity.

The Key to Time Box set might be the original U.S Version 1 DVD Boxset rather than the current Version 2, which is basically a portover of the later British Region 2 version of the above with far more extras...
As to locations within the Tardis, the following locations were shown/mentioned in various t.v stories...
The Edge Of Destruction - First glimpse of sleeping accomodation, in the form of leather & chrome couches...
Masque of Mandagora - Secondary Control Room
Invasion of Time - Tardis Swimming Pool, "Art Gallery/Power Station", Hospital, & Conservatory (complete with Sontaran eating plant)
E- Space Trilogy - Romana's Bedroom & Adric's bedroom
(Note: Adric's bedroom is allocated to Turlough at the beginning of Terminus, & may become Peri's bedroom, post-Planet of Fire...).
Logopolis - Closter Room/Garden
Castrovalva - Zero Room
The Visitation - Nyssa & Tegan's bedroom (They share the same room, leading to quite a lot of femslash fanfic concerning their exact relationship with each other...).
The unfinished story Shada, mentions a Stasis Preserver (basically a Gallifreyian version of a fridge/freezer...), while the story Vengence on Varos, also mentions a Kitchen/Food preparation area of some sort, as Peri makes a cutting/sarcastic remark about the 6th Doctors ineptness at cooking, as well as his jettisioning of the swimming pool, during the beginning of said story...

Eh, why not, its an old thread that I can basically use to the same purpose.

I'm reading up on TARDISes and apparently, there are TARDISes that look like people, but are perfectly usable. How the HELL does that work out? how would you use a TARDIS that looks like a person? And apparently, they mate?

That was from the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventure novels. The original one was a companion of the Doctor's who evolved into a TARDIS. Basically, she could just open herself up -- not quite like unzipping down the front, but it might help to imagine her unzipping, and there's a glowing white portal. People go into the portal, and they're inside a TARDIS.

There were always implications that the TARDIS you know was sentient, but this is one who can actually talk back.

Well, thats just badass. Lolita though, the Type 101, was she basically the same thing? I know she didnt come from Compassion (I read up on what the TARDISes were I just didnt know how they worked), but was she grown to be humanoid?

It's going to be hard to say. I have several of the Faction Paradox books but haven't read them. They're in something of a side-continuity (appropriate, really), anyway, so the connection to Who-proper is negligible.


For those who're curious, Lawrence Miles, one of the more, uh, outspoken Doctor Who novelists, created a group called Faction Paradox that took its power from temporal paradoxes. [Its leader was even called Grandfather Paradox, and its base of operations was the Eleven-Day Empire, created by England's switch from the Julian to Gregorian calendars.] In another book, he started laying the foundation for a future war between the Time Lords and a mysterious enemy that was most definitely not the Daleks. These became more and more prominent in the Eighth Doctor novels until they decided to go a different way and averted that entire storyline with the destruction of Gallifrey. [It would later turn out that the Doctor had taken them all into his mind.] Miles later took all the elements he'd created, including some from his one Doctor Who book after this, and started the Faction Paradox line of books, audios, and comics, continuing the story as he'd intended it. Of course, the parts he didn't own had to be left behind, so the Time Lords were replaced with the "Great Houses," and so on.

Back in the Doctor Who novel line, the Eighth Doctor books ended shortly before the new series began, and they never got to restore Gallifrey. Still, we have to figure the Doctor got them out of his head at some point, after which they threw themselves into another Time War, now with the Daleks. I tell ya, to lose your homeworld once might be considered a misfortune, but...