An Ode To The TARDIS

“Oh that box. Amy, you'll dream about that box. It'll never leave you. Big and little at the same time. Brand new and ancient and the bluest blue ever.”

Ever since I was small, about seven years old in fact, I have been captivated by Doctor Who. 

He is a hero that runs around the universe in a space ship, averting apocalypse after apocalypse with nothing but his brain and a sonic screwdriver. He doesn't need guns or brawn to solve a problem, just logical thinking, a heap of genius and the help of a small but loyal gang of companions and allies. The Doctor put the A-Team, MacGyver and Air Wolf combined in the shade. Here was a hero that I could believe in. A hero that made me think that if I really put my mind to something, with a bit of hard work I could achieve anything.  Anything at all.

But most of all, out of all things that people associate with The Doctor, I love the TARDIS. From the moment I first laid eyes on her, I adored her. Who wouldn't? The TARDIS captured my imagination like nothing else ever had. What seven-year-old could resist a spaceship masquerading as a police call box that's bigger on the inside? This 33-year-old still can't.

Using the police box was an idea born from the mind of BBC staff writer Anthony Coburn, so it is him we should thank for giving us the iconic blue box. All TARDIS' have a chameleon circuit that enables them to change into whatever shape is most appropriate for it's surroundings. But of course the Doctor's us broken, which means that she's stuck in the form of the police box, a malfunction that happens in the very first episode 'An Unearthly Child'. 

You'd think that after all these years, the Doctor would have found a way to fix that by now, but I'm glad he hasn't. It means that for the last 50 years we've had possibly the most recognisable symbol of British sci-fi. It's the image that will spring to mind for most people when anyone mentions Doctor Who. Even those who have never watched the show will understand a TARDIS reference.  

Of course, I suspect that the main reason for using a police box as the design is down to the budget that Doctor Who had at the beginning. It's easy to design, construct and move from location to location - just four sides and a roof – simple! But it contains so much more than it's simplicity suggests. It's also so fantastically quirky and British. I can't think of any other show that has something as simple and iconic. Most space ships in TV shows are huge with sleek lines and futuristic tech. One of the most endearing things about the TARDIS is that the inside is usually made up of whatever the BBC props department has lying around at the time. The console has usually got some old car part wedged in it or bits of old computer and that's just part of the magic. 

Magic. Its not a word that a lot of people would associate with a science fiction programme, but there is more than a touch of magic to Doctor Who. One of my favourite things about the show is that there really is no limit to the storylines. In recent series we've even had the Doctor riding a triceratops in space. As much as most of the show has its grounding in science, its the magic part that has always appealed to me. Not magic in the sense of wizards and spells and the like, but in the fact that out of the foundations of science springs a grumpy old man and his magic blue box. I had no real grasp of science as a child, not really. The Doctor used big words that I didn't understand but I didn't care, I was just caught up in the magic of it all.

And here's where I get sickeningly sentimental - you have been warned. The TARDIS has always been there. (Well, apart from the odd episode where she left the Doctor stranded - yes, I refer to her as a she.) Through everything that the Doctor has been through over the last 50 years, its been the TARDIS that has got him there and got him out again. Without the TARDIS there would be no Doctor Who. Even his companions are entranced by the blue box that's bigger on the inside. Not only is she the vehicle for the Doctor to travel the universe in but she's also a little slice of Gallifrey - probably the only bit of his home world that he has left. For the Doctor the TARDIS is home, it's a part of him. A living, breathing (well, maybe not breathing) part of his home planet. In the two-part ending to series five of New Who, it's the TARDIS that brings back the Doctor after he's fixed the crack in the universe and been erased from time. It's the TARDIS that Amy remembers:

“I found you in words like you knew I would. That's why you told me the story. The brand new ancient blue box. Oh clever, very clever. Something old. Something new. Something borrowed. Something blue.”

The TARDIS was so burned into Amy's memory that not even time being rewritten could erase all memories of that wonderful, battered old police box. This is something that I have loved about Moffat's Who – he always makes time for the TARDIS. Since the beginning of his tenure it's nearly always in shot somewhere, there in the background being all blue and lovely and spacey-wacey.  Like a silent sentinel standing guard over the Doctor and his allies. 

'The Doctor's Wife' has to be my favourite episode of Doctor Who from the last 50 years.  Controversial I know, considering the vast history of the show to choose from, but it's my favourite episode because it's a TARDIS episode. Plus, it was written by the marvellous Neil Gaiman, another hero of mine. Aside from the occasional glimpse at what the Ponds were up to this was an entire episode devoted to the relationship between the Doctor and his TARDIS - Or should I say Sexy and her Thief. It was a glorious episode that will never fail to have me sobbing with tears most of the way through. It's a beautiful love letter to my favourite mad man and his magic blue box. Even after everyone else has either left of died it's always just been the two of them and this episode gave me everything I ever wanted. After nearly 700 years of being together the Doctor finally got to talk to his TARDIS. And what did they do? Bicker like an old married couple.  And why wouldn't they?  They've been together for so long that they know every one of each others peculiarities and can finish each other's sentences. Even in human form, the TARDIS was the steady, calm rock in the midst of the Doctor's whirlwind of thought and action.

There's a tiny part of me, the part that will forever be seven years old, that still believes that one day I'll hear the wonderfully familiar sound of the TARDIS materialising in my garden. The Doctor will knock on my door, reach out a hand and tell me that I can go wherever I want in all of time and space. And I'll go with him but it won't be forever, because as much as I would want it to be, it will always be about just the two of them in the end. 

“Look at you pair. It's always you and her isn't it? Long after the rest of us have gone. A boy and his box off to see the universe.”

“Well you say that as if it's a bad thing. But honestly it's the best thing there is.”

And isn't that just a little bit magic?

By Vickey Tree