Doctor Who has a brand new TARDIS to play with in the upcoming holiday special and season 13, but how might the orphaned ship be utilized? The finale of season 12, “The Timeless Children,” proved to be a monumental episode of Doctor Who, with several massive reveals about The Doctor’s history, Gallifrey’s formation and the process of regeneration, but one plot point that might’ve flown under the radar is the introduction of a brand new TARDIS.
With most of the action set on Gallifrey and a bomb rigged to destroy The Master’s new Time Lord Cybermen, Graham, Ryan and Yaz find themselves in dire need of an escape route and make their way to safety by commandeering a nearby TARDIS, still functioning, despite The Master already laying waste to the planet. The ship takes The Doctor’s companions back to 21st century Earth, landing in a suburban housing estate. Because this machine’s chameleon circuit isn’t busted, the new TARDIS takes the form of a house, blending in to its surroundings, and this means that a working TARDIS is currently sitting in an English town unattended. Surely this attractive 4 bedroom detached property won’t stay off the market for long.
Since The Doctor probably wouldn’t allow such a loose end, this feels like a plot point Doctor Who needs to tie up when the show returns, and the easiest time to do so would be in the upcoming festive episode “Revolution of the Daleks.” Whittaker’s Doctor is currently stuck in jail, imprisoned by an unknown captor, and her companions are on Earth none the wiser. After not hearing from their double-hearted friend, Graham and the gang will surely get suspicious before long and head out looking for The Doctor. Fortunately, they parked a TARDIS just down the street. The trio might be able to somehow track The Doctor down using their new TARDIS and materialize right in her cell, setting up the Christmas Dalek adventure.
Since The Doctor is currently without her own police box TARDIS, she might be forced to use this new hijacked time machine for the time being. It would certainly be interesting to see Doctor Who‘s title character forced into using a TARDIS she wasn’t familiar with and that actually changed its appearance upon landing. This would be a temporary measure, of course, but the house TARDIS could be a fun replacement until Whittaker is once again reunited with her usual mode of transport.
Looking further head into the start of Doctor Who season 13 proper, the second TARDIS could become a more permanent fixture on the series, especially since The Doctor can’t exactly just take it back to Gallifrey. One intriguing possibility would be using the house TARDIS as a stationary base of operations for The Doctor’s allies on Earth, and this would tie neatly into the Chris Chibnall era. Torchwood ended a long time ago and it was confirmed in 2019’s “Resolution” that UNIT had also folded. For one of the few times in Doctor Who history, Earth is entirely defenseless whenever the Doc herself isn’t in town. Furthermore, John Barrowman’s Captain Jack Harkness is also slated to return next season, while Ryan and Graham are reported to be leaving the show. This trio could help form a brand new “home guard” for Earth against alien threats, leaving the door ajar for any of the trio to return further down the line. The TARDIS introduced in “The Timeless Children” would be an ideal HQ for this new group – they’d be unable to pilot it, but the ship would offer limitless space and be (almost) completely impenetrable.
Doctor Who returns with “Revolution of the Daleks” this holiday season on BBC and BBC America.
