Treasured Possessions: TARDIS Video Cabinet

Above is my TARDIS video cabinet which was purchased way back in the mid nineties.  There had been an advert on the back of the Doctor Who Magazine and I had suggested to my Mother that it would make a good Christmas present for yours truly.  Mind you it did take a while to convince her!

The cabinet came flat packed and had to be assembled, but it was a doddle to put up.  It resides in pride of place in my bedroom, at the side of the room in the corner.  The top of an old style deoderant canister acts as the siren light.

The cabinet was made from a company called Harvard Associates based in Borehamwood in Herts., and has probably long since been discontinued.  It has to be one of my most treasured pieces of Doctor Who memorabilia.  Unlike the current TARDIS on the telly my version has the correct wording on the panel: Officers and Cars respond to Urgents Calls. It doesn't have the St. John sticker on the other door panel as this cabinet is based on the version of the TARDIS seen during the Sylvester McCoy era of the original run of Doctor Who.  Nevertheless it is a lovely cabinet, unfortunately it can't dematerlialise, but it does hold quite a few of my Doctor Who videos, so it must be bigger on the inside than the outside!

I wouldn't part with it!

The New Staff

Hello people of the Doctor Who Bar. This is just a quick post. I am a new member of the #DWBar staff. Please call me by the name of Josh.

The Doctor's Faithful Time Machine

The TARDIS! TARDIS is an acronym, it stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space.  The picture above is of the current BBC version, which resembles very much the William Hartnell original with it's white window frames and St. John ambulance sign on the right door, not shown!

The Doctor's Time & Space Machine apart from the Doctor himself is the only other constant throughout the series history!

It first appeared way back in the very first episode of the show, An Unearthly Child, where it was first disguised as a Police Box.  And it stayed a Police Box right through the series, until Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor seemingly repaired the Chameleon Circuit in Season Twenty Two's Attack of the Cybermen!  But by the close of that adventure the TARDIS had reverted back to the familiar shape we all know and love!  The Sixth Doctor showed his approval of the return of the Police Box by lovingly patting the ship's exterior!

The picture above is the William Hartnell original from a still from the very first Doctor Who story.

As a concept the idea of a Time Machine is a fascinating one.  In the context of Doctor Who the TARDIS provides endless opportunities for adventure.  Many would argue that it's the enduring appeal of the Doctor himself and his ability to regenerate which has given the programme it's enduring success.  This is not strictly true!  The TARDIS itself plays a significant factor in Doctor Who's success, it is the instrument of adventure.  It is the TARDIS which provides the Doctor with a means of journeying to anywhere in the cosmos and to land him right in the middle of an adventure, just like the 1996 Doctor Who TV Movie below!

Without the TARDIS we would never have landed on the dead world of Skaro and met the creatures destined to become the Doctor's deadliest enemies.  The TARDIS is the Doctor's most faithful time machine, and the one the Doctor possesses is a Type 40 TT Capsule.  This particular model was long since decommissioned on Gallifrey many centuries ago.  Gallifrey the Doctor's home planet, long since destroyed during the Time War is home to many different types of TARDIS.  Alas it is not known if there was any survivors of the Time War who escaped Gallifrey's destruction in their TARDIS's!  Perhaps we will find this out in the New Series currently airing on BBC1!

Article by @Via_The_Void