Introduction

Start your adventure in Time and Space (via the history of some police box props) here!

Ooh, this has been a proper obsession over the last 18 months. So many people have done fantastic research into the TARDIS props from the ‘classic’ series, working out when they were switched around, when new doors and signs came in, and where they’ve all ended up. But when it comes to the 21st century TARDIS props, all I could find online was a complete jumble of misinformation — many ‘facts’ that often contradicted each other, and didn’t stand up when you spend more than a couple of minutes looking at the evidence.

I’ve gone through the episodes themselves on blu-ray, sifted through hundreds of high-resolution images taken on location and in studio, checked through old episodes of Doctor Who Confidential, Doctor Who Extra, and Totally Doctor Who, and in several cases asked people involved with production, just to make sure that I’ve understood things.

The result is this blog — which aims to be a history of the TARDIS props used in the production of the modern version of Doctor Who, between Rose and The Power of the Doctor.

Hopefully, it provides a relatively complete history of the props used by the production team since work began in the summer of 2004. Naturally, it’s not quite as simple as moving from Prop A to Prop B and so on — there’s often a lot of chopping and changing, parts get swapped around, and in many cases props have been retired for some considerable time before being returned to use on the show.

The research is split into six main sections — an overview of the props themselves, and then pages for the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Doctors — and a final summing up.

I hope you find it interesting. I’ve certainly enjoyed putting it together. It often feels like there’s only really three modern TARDIS props — the kind used by the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, the kind used by the Eleventh and Twelfth, and the newest model in use by the Thirteenth. But when you start to look closely at them, you realise just how different all the props are from each other.

It should be noted here that I’ve concentrated on the TARDIS props used for production of the programme only. There have been several other TARDIS props built over the last thirteen years for use in promotion, or on stage for shows like Doctor Who Live. I’ve touched on these very briefly if and when relevant, but if I had to try and start tracking all of those props too… well, I’d go mad.

Before I begin, I need to thank several people who have been immensely helpful, kind, and patient with me during this research, when I’ve bombarded them with inane questions about TARDIS props over the last few months.

To that end, my immense thanks to the following people, without whom I’d have never been able to get all this worked out.

Matthew Clark, Tony Farrell, Darren Fereday, Jon Green and Gav Rymill from the brilliant Dalek 6388, Jonathan Helm(WhoSFX), Clayton Hickman, Simon Hodges, Douglas Mackinnon, Richard Marson, Nick Mellish, The team from The Model Unit, James Pardon, Matthew Savage, Darren Scott, Ian Siddall at Cardiff Theatrical Services, Lovell Southey in South Africa, Kenny Smith, Edward Thomas, and Richard Wells.

The Props >