The Phone Box Exterior
If you look at the picture above, the exterior of the TARDIS shows several different looks. The thing to remember though is that the TARDIS is not exactly a Police Box. As a Doctor Who fan, most of us really only know one shape and that is the Blue Police box.
After watching “The Name of the Doctor”, we find that the Type 40 appears as a silver-grey cylinder.(1) Of course, this is something most fans really do not know and may even not even care. As a Whovian though, I want to know as much about the show as possible.
From what I gather, the Doctor and Susan land in the junkyard in London in 1963 and the TARDIS changes to conceal itself from the people in London. The shape it chooses is that of a Blue Police Box, which are very much a part of the time period. The Police Box does allow for those who see to say well that is not out of place. It appears like it just a box to call the police if need be. These Police Boxes were all around London during the 1950s and 1960s for sure. The time frame they are there I am not so sure, but they are a big part of London for sometime.
The exterior is suppose to have the ability to change to blend into its surroundings sort of like a chameleon. But this is not the words used to describe it in the beginning. The FIrst Doctor and Susan to mention it, but call it a “camouflage unit” in 1965 during The Time Meddler. Which according to them malfunctions and the TARDIS stays in the form of the Police Box.(2)
I remember the Doctor talking about it and trying to fix it during Tom Baker’s last episode, Logopolis. In that episode, the Doctor travels to Logopolis in hopes of their mathematicians can help him repair it. This adventure fails and the exterior remains a blue police box.
The Sixth Doctor has an episode kind of dedicated to repairing the circuit, but the Doctor fails. Even though it works somewhat some what it does not last. I get a real laugh out this one because the first thing it changes into is a pipe organ, after materializing in the same junk yard that the FIrst Doctor was discovered. How out of place is a pipe organ in a junkyard? I am not the only who find s this funny. Peri laughs at the pipe organ when she first sees it. In the same story, The Attack of the Cybermen, the TARDIS also becomes a Welsh Dresser. These of course infuriate the Doctor, but in the end the TARDIS returns to being a Police Box.(3)
There are changes made in the exterior from time to time, but nothing really major. Lettering may be different and some other minor details added or changed. Over all the Blue Police Box is iconic and every whovian always relates the Blue Police Box to the Doctor’s TARDIS. It has always been the one thing that most fans from the youngest to the oldest will remember about Doctor Who. The producers and writers of the show do not want to change it because it is a trademark of Doctor Who.
I personally don’t believe that a change in the exterior of the TARDIS will do any good for the program. It has always been a Blue Police Box and whovians everywhere would cry to change it back if it was to change.
