The David Tennant Era
Series Two, Series Three, Series Four, The 2008–2010 Specials (2005–2010)
Series Two
The second series of the revived Doctor Who began filming in the final week of July 2005. The TARDIS was brought onto location in London for the first ‘proper’ day of filming on Monday 25th, featuring first in a photoshoot arranged to unveil David Tennant’s costume as the Tenth Doctor. Curiously, it’s TARDIS B-3–4 that’s used for this purpose, in its original configuration for the first time since production on Rose almost exactly a year earlier. The prop appears to have had a new coat of paint since the end of production in March — the paint job almost completely obscuring the lock. This paint would be scraped away from the lock within a week.
The same prop configuration was used for filming that afternoon, when the scenes of the Doctor confronting Harriet Jones over her decision to shoot down the Sycorax ship were recorded. In the episode itself the TARDIS is sat in the back of shot, making it impossible to tell which version it is, but luckily, the first episode of Totally Doctor Who from 2006 shows the prop being constructed in this location, and gives us a clear view that it retains the B-3–4 set up. This is the second and last time that the B-3–4 prop was ever used in its entirety — after this the frame was retired from production, but the doors will be cropping up a lot more over the next few years.
For example, when a prop was constructed on location at the Brandon Estate the next day, it returned to the hybrid set up that had featured twice during Series One — the frame of prop A, but paired with Doors 3 and 4. At this stage, the lock on Door 4 is still covered with paint. The prop remains largely the same as it did for its use in The Parting of the Ways four months earlier. The biggest change is the addition of a
new base, which will remain with this prop over the next
three seasons, and a replacement light, with smaller panes of glass than the previous version.
Also present on set for the afternoon of Tuesday 26th was a new TARDIS prop — a fibreglass ‘half TARDIS’, which was swung in on a crane to simulate the TARDIS crash landing onto the estate. Several other fibreglass TARDISes were cast at the same time for use in promotional activities. All these castings seem to have been made from one of the promotional TARDISes, featuring square door panels, rather than from one of the production-used ‘hero’ props. The fibreglass TARDIS props would be used in promotional events throughout the remainder of the David Tennant era of Doctor Who, and at least two were later repainted to bring them closer to the style used for the early Matt Smith boxes.
TARDIS A-3–4 appeared again later in the story, on location at Clearwell Caves for scenes aboard the Sycorax spaceship, recorded between Wednesday 10th — Monday 15th August. For the scene in which the Doctor emerges from the TARDIS, the prop was fitted with a green screen instead of its usual translight, and was marked up with several guides to help visual effects company The Mill with matting in the background of the TARDIS interior. By this stage, the blue paint had been scraped away almost entirely from the lock, though small flecks of paint would remain through the rest of the season.
TARDIS A-3–4 was next seen in New Earth, in both the cold open as Rose says goodbye to Jackie and Mickey on the Powell Estate, filmed in the first week of August, and for scenes shot on the clifftops of the Gower peninsula on September 25th. Two days later, on September 27th, the same prop configuration was on location for Tooth and Claw. It continued in use for the next two episodes; School Reunion, and The Girl in the Fireplace.
For Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel, we encounter a new hybrid variation. For scenes shot in London in the first week of November, prop A-3–4 is retained. However, when the TARDIS arrives back in Jackie’s flat, in
a scene filmed on Wednesday 18th January, we retain Frame A and Door 3, as has been common in every episode so far this season, but they are paired with Door 2, making its first appearance since The Parting of the Ways.
This same A-3–2 configuration remains in place for the rest of the stories recorded for this series, appearing as the sole prop in The Idiot’s Lantern, The Impossible Planet, Love & Monsters, Fear Her, and Army of Ghosts / Doomsday. It’s too dark to accurately identify which configuration is used for the Doctor’s discovery of the TARDIS in The Satan Pit. It seems logical, however, that it would retain the same set up which, by the time of filming for that episode, had been in use for several months.
The switch of Door 4 for Door 2 appears to have occurred sometime in late 2005, or very early 2006. Door 4’s final use in the second series was for the early November recording on the Embankment, for the Cybermen two-parter. After this, no TARDIS prop was required until the week of January 9th, when several scenes for the series finale, Army of Ghosts / Doomsday, were recorded. These included the Doctor’s arrival at Torchwood, and the scenes of him trapping a ‘ghost’ on the Powell Estate. These scenes appear to be the first use of the A-3–2 configuration.
The final use of a TARDIS, still the hybrid A-3–2, for production on the second series was on Tuesday 28th March, when a second unit recorded the
Doctor and Rose returning to the TARDIS for a scene in
Love & Monsters.
Door 2, in use since production began in July 2004, was retired after this point. It was reunited with Door 1 and put together with Frame B to create another hybrid — B-1–2. Although all the individual elements had appeared on screen during the first two seasons, this particular configuration had never been utilised by production.
It seems likely that it was this TARDIS which was purchased by future Doctor Who regular Matt Lucas. On an episode of BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, broadcast December 1st 2006, Lucas told host Kirsty Young;
“We’ve [Lucas and partner Kevin McGee] just bought a nice big house, and then for his birthday, I bought Kevin the TARDIS from Doctor Who! And so I’ve got this lovely house and we’ve got a bloody TARDIS in the middle of it!”
Several years later, this same B-1–2 configuration went up for sale at Bonhams in London, in an ‘Entertainment Memorabilia’ auction on June 23rd 2010. Estimated to reach between £8,000 — £12,000, it sold for £10,800, and now resides in the United States.
Series Three
Tracking the TARDIS prop through the third series of the revived Doctor Who is made far simpler by the fact that there was now only one prop in use at the production’s new home of Upper Boat, in Treforest, Wales.
TARDIS A-3–4, a configuration last used for the production of Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel in November 2005, was put back together when filming began on The Runaway Bride in July 2006, and remained in place as the only prop used throughout every episode of the season.
As such, this combination goes on to appear in Smith and Jones, The Shakespeare Code, Gridlock, Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks, The Lazarus Experiment, 42, Human Nature / The Family of Blood, Blink, and Utopia / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords.
That doesn’t mean that the prop remained completely static throughout the season, however. The first change was for The Shakespeare Code, for scenes filmed in Warwick on Tuesday 29th August 2006. When the Doctor and Martha arrive in Elizabethan London, they do so in TARDIS A-3–4. It’s this same prop they then hurry back into at the end of the episode, slamming the door closed at the last minute — just as an arrow embeds itself into one of the panels on the door.
For the effect of the arrow hitting the TARDIS, Door 4 was replaced with another door — likely a dummy created specifically for the effect. This, naturally, stops the regular prop from being damaged for a single shot. In the following episode, however, when the Doctor removes the arrow from the door, it’s back to the regular A-3–4 configuration, indicating that the arrow prop was stuck to the door for that shot, rather than embedded in it.
The other change made to the prop during production of the third series was a replacement of the ‘Pull to Open’ sign that had been in place since Door 3’s first use in July 2004. The original sign remains visible throughout the first half of the series, appearing through to The Lazarus Experiment. The last scenes to be filmed using the original sign appear to be the Doctor and Martha’s arrival at the base of the Statue of Liberty for Daleks in Manhattan, recorded on November 9th 2006. When the TARDIS prop was next used, for the cellar scenes of Blink, on December 2nd, the sign had been replaced with a new version which remains until the prop is retired.
Series Four
TARDIS A-3–4 remained the sole TARDIS prop in use at the start of production on Doctor Who’s fourth season. It appears in Voyage of the Damned, both for the Doctor’s arrival on the Titanic, and for the final scene on Earth. This same prop remains the only one used for production of Planet of the Ood, and The Unicorn and the Wasp, recorded throughout August and September 2007.
The prop was transported to Cinecittà Studios in Rome for production of The Fires of Pompeii, where it was filmed on Thursday 13th September for the Doctor and Donna’s arrival in Pompeii. The prop then returned to Cardiff, and was used on the set of the villa the following week. It’s this prop that Peter Capaldi’s character, Caecilius, shows off to his wife as ‘modern art’, and the same prop was used for the Doctor’s return to save the family. These scenes were filmed from Thursday 20th — Monday 24th September.
Around the same time, a new TARDIS prop — TARDIS C — was constructed. It was the
first complete new ‘hero’ prop to be built for production since 2004, and first appeared before cameras on the night of Monday 1st October, for the scene in which the Doctor, Donna, and Caecilius’
family watch the destruction
of Pompeii.
It’s this new prop that was used as the only TARDIS in the season opener, Partners in Crime, primarily for the scenes of Donna asking the Doctor to take her with him. The scene as transmitted was a remount filmed on Monday 19th November, but the original take is provided on the Series Four DVD release, and reveals that this same prop was used on Wednesday 17th October for the first attempt at this sequence.
The two-part The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky, largely filmed for five weeks from late October, utilises both TARDIS A-3–4, and the newly constructed TARDIS C. The earlier prop appears in scenes of the police box aboard the Sontaran Ship, while the newer version of the prop was used on location for the Doctor’s arrival at the Atmos factory.
Episode Six, The Doctor’s Daughter, again makes use of both props. TARDIS A-3–4 appears in scenes shot in the Barry Shooting Range of the ship arriving on the planet Messaline. These scenes, filmed across Thursday 10th and Friday 11th January 2008, mark the final time that TARDIS A-3–4 is used in regular production. When the scenes of the TARDIS dropping Martha back home were recorded a week later, it was with TARDIS C.
TARDIS A-3–4 was retired from regular use at this point, before being brought back into service for The Day of the Doctor in 2013 (see The Matt Smith Era). During its five year retirement, the prop remained mostly in storage, but went on display at the Doctor Who Experience when it moved to Cardiff in the summer of 2012.
It was utilised for a single day of filming, May 21st 2009, for BBC One’s Christmas idents, in which the Tenth Doctor digs the TARDIS out of deep snow.
TARDIS C would go on to be used throughout the rest of production on Series Four, appearing as the only TARDIS prop in Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead, Turn Left, and The Stolen Earth / Journey’s End.
It’s interesting to note that Midnight is the only episode of the Russell T Davies era to not feature the exterior TARDIS (or, for that matter, the interior) in any form.
2008–2010 Specials
For the production of the 2008–2010 specials, we’re in the same boat as we were for Series Three — with only a single TARDIS prop in use by the production team. This time, it’s TARDIS C, which appears through The Next Doctor (Filmed in April/May 2008, as the final production of Series Four), plus Planet of the Dead, The Waters of Mars, and The End of Time, Parts One and Two, which were in production between January and May 2009.
The same prop is even used for the effects shots during the Tenth Doctor’s regeneration, in which the windows are blown out, and the TARDIS is seen to ‘explode’ from the force of the regeneration.
TARDIS C was also utilised for David Tennant’s appearance in The Sarah Jane Adventures — used on the set of Sarah Jane’s attic for the final scenes of the story. The scenes of the TARDIS arriving in the attic were filmed on Monday 25th of May, with David Tennant having completed work on his final Doctor Who episodes the previous week. A sequence of the TARDIS trying — and failing — to materialise in the lobby of Court Coleman Manor in Bridgend was recorded on Friday 29th May, David Tennant’s final day.
