If there is one object in the world synonymous with time travel, it is the Doctor’s TARDIS. It stands for time and relative dimension in space; it’s a blue police box from 20th century Britain and it is, obviously, a time machine. It is the source of transportation that allows the Doctor and his companions to go off on their various missions in time and space.
However, it doesn’t always make a lot of sense. There are a fair few issues with the TARDIS that are normally glossed over on the show- we’re going to take a look at ten of them.
Why Don’t Normal People Question Its Presence More?
There are a few very specific situations in which a big blue police box on a street corner makes sense: 20th century Britain; a Doctor Who convention. That’s it.
If the TARDIS’ chameleon circuit is broken, this means that every single person who walks past it sees it in that form. We never really see anyone question why a police box has emerged out of nowhere and sat in a place that there wasn’t a police box before.
And Do They Never See It Leave?
Not only is there a police box cropping up in strange corners of the universe, but that police box is also capable of disappearing into thin air. It isn’t as though it does it with any subtly either, sometimes it’s just sitting in the middle of Cardiff Bay, open to all.
For some reason, no one seems to see this happen or question it when it does.
Or Even Hear It?
So no one has questioned its presence and no one has seen it disappear into thin air. Fine. We believe you. But the TARDIS makes an incredibly unique, and very loud, sound.
You can’t say that no one can hear it as it whooshes and wheezes before taking off? Surely someone will hear that and come around the corner looking confused?
How Much Bigger Is It On The Inside?
One of the TARDIS’s biggest selling points is the idea that it is bigger on the inside. It’s the thing that confuses every single companion and seems to take their interest way more than the actual time travel.
However, the Doctor must sleep in there, right? And in one early episode, we saw him dive into a huge walk-in wardrobe. So there must be an entire palace back there which we’ve never seen, but how big it is never seems to be exactly the same.
And How Does It Change Appearance Inside So Often?
The outside of the TARDIS is stuck in its permanent police box form, we know that. However, this obviously doesn’t apply to the inside.
With no reasonable explanation, the design of the inside completely changed as soon as season five began, and it has changed multiple times since then.
Does The Doctor Live In There?
As mentioned above, the Doctor must sleep there. We’ve seen his wardrobe, but that’s about it. Does he have a kitchen? In fact, on that subject, does he eat at all?
It’s also interesting to consider where the companions sleep. We never see them returning to bed after a hard day fighting off aliens. Do they share a room? A bed? Do they watch Netflix and drink hot chocolate? How can the Doctor live in there without necessary conveniences?
How Does It Break Through So Many ‘Impossible’ Things?
One of the most non-literal words in Doctor Who is the word ‘impossible.’ If the Doctor ever says something is impossible, it’s pretty much a set up to render that thing very much possible.
For example, we can’t jump between parallel universes. Okay, but what about all the times we jumped through parallel universes? We also can’t interact with certain fixed points in history? Okay, but what about all of those fixed points in time we interacted with? The TARDIS seems to constantly be able to do things it couldn’t at one point.
Why Does It Require Such Manual, Mechanical Fixing?
For something of such advanced, complex technology, the TARDIS is very mechanical. When things go wrong, the Doctor doesn’t run a complex computer program, he just sort of… kicks things or uses an actual screwdriver.
How can something so complex be so easily fixed?
How Does It ‘Die’?
There have been a couple of times when the Doctor has suggested that the TARDIS is dying. He often talks about it as if it’s a living being, so this would make sense.
However, if the TARDIS was truly dying during these times, how is it able to return to full health so quickly with no period of recovery from this ‘death’?
Why Is The Time Vortex Behind A Panel That Can Be Pulled Off By A Reversing Truck?
The most confusing thing about the TARDIS is how easy it is to mess things up on a grand scale. When the Ninth Doctor sent her back to Earth, Rose needed to get back to him.
Somehow, Mickey is able to (using a reversing truck) pull off a panel that has all of time and space and the universe behind it, that seems unwise.
