New series TARDIS overview

Parallax · Post by **Parallax** » 2007-08-01 06:17am

Some time back, I came here and linked to an overview I did of the TARDIS from the classic Doctor Who series (seeing if anyone here could find anything I missed and so on): http://mattcbr.wordpress.com/2007/06/18 ... -overview/

Now I got bored one day recently and put together an overview of the TARDIS from the new series. I'd appreciate it if folk here could give it a look over, to see if I've missed anything, got anything wrong, etc:
http://mattcbr.wordpress.com/2007/07/31 ... st-tardis/

Cheers!

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2007-08-01 06:25am

The phone attached to the inside the door does not work

Missed an "of" there.

This field does function if the operator is incapacitated/near death

Missed a "not" there.

There care no errors that I can see, though I've only seen each episode once. Perhaps a word on it being rebuilt as a paradox machine and repaired in short order?

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-08-01 07:32am

You might want to add a note that the modern TARDIS has been seen flying through space (with no apparent difficultly) and through the earth's atmosphere near ground level (which did seem to be a major stress on its systems).

Parallax · Post by **Parallax** » 2007-08-01 07:36am

The classic TARDIS was seen going through 'real' space on many occasions so I didn't really think it was worth putting in, still it can't hurt. Cheers.

Low level flying ... hm. Indeed. It did indicate a sophisticated automatic flying function - seemingly dodging cars, adjusting flight path, etc without input from the Doctor.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-08-01 07:45am

You have a lot of very dubious novel continuity in your classic Tardis description, e.g. 'the Tardis can fully regenerate all interior and exterior dimensions without main power in one century, if even a tiny fragment (one atom?) of the outer shell survives destruction'. That's even sillier than Wolverine regenerating from a single cell.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-08-01 08:05am

The novels ARE incredibly stupid. Sure, that's stupid, but there is *way* more stupid shit than that in the novels.

The problems the Doctor had flying his TARDIS and being at the door at the same time seemed like crew problems to me, if he'd had someone to fly while he yelled at passing cars I'm not sure they'd have any problems.

Parallax · Post by **Parallax** » 2007-08-01 08:26am

For the most part, I do like the novels - especially ones like 'Lungbarrow', 'The Gallifrey Chronicles', and the 'Cats Cradle' mini series thing. Yes, there are some incredibly bad ones but there were also some incredibly bad episodes of the TV series.
As such, I tend to count novels unless they're contradicted by the TV Series.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-08-01 08:32am

Parallax wrote:For the most part, I do like the novels - especially ones like 'Lungbarrow', 'The Gallifrey Chronicles', and the 'Cats Cradle' mini series thing. Yes, there are some incredibly bad ones but there were also some incredibly bad episodes of the TV series.

While I enjoyed Lungbarrow, either I was drunk at the time or it was *very strange*.

The Virgin period seemed to have more success than the newer stuff: everything under BBC I've tried to read has been utter garbage. War of the Daleks, anyone? Ironically, I've read a few of the new series novels and they're reasonable - it gives me a lot of pleasure that everything featuring the Wistful Eighth Doctor appears to suck.

Parallax wrote:As such, I tend to count novels unless they're contradicted by the TV Series.

Picking and choosing sucks, and nothing will ever convince me to accept the abysmally poor novels as part of canon. The show can suck and I'll stop watching it, but Apocalypse Element can fuck off and die. My tolerance for suck is far too low.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2007-08-01 09:01am

Stark wrote:Picking and choosing sucks, and nothing will ever convince me to accept the abysmally poor novels as part of canon. The show can suck and I'll stop watching it, but Apocalypse Element can fuck off and die. My tolerance for suck is far too low.

The events of Apocalypse Element retroactively removed themselves from existance to an unknown time into the past. So ultimately who care what happened since it was completly unmade.

Which makes for a rather stupid story

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-08-01 09:09am

Xon wrote:The events of Apocalypse Element retroactively removed themselves from existance to an unknown time into the past. So ultimately who care what happened since it was completly unmade.

Which makes for a rather stupid story

It's not about the events in the novels: it's about their absolutely appalling quality. If greater people than I are prepared to read them and extract anything interesting, then great. Stretching canon to include them seems motivated purely by the same completism that keeps writers of such awful branded fiction in business.

And Apocalypse Element just sticks in my mind as being on the one hand rubbish and also having a catchy, awful name. War of the Daleks was FAR more offensive, basically being an open letter about how idiot-boy sees Doctor Who.

The hit/miss ratio for the audios seems better than the novels. Even if they're based on a stupid idea, at least the execution is good. Thankfully it's all DW:EU so I have the fan-luxury of simply ignoring it.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2007-08-01 11:50am

Regarding this:

If an attempted Time Ram misses temporally but hits spatially, it can result in the outer shells of both craft appearing in the interior dimensions of the other in an endless loop

That was not a Time Ram. The Doctor in that instance meant simply to park his TARDIS inside the Master's and something went slightly wrong, which resulted in that spatial interface loop of the two ships.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2007-08-03 12:12pm

Xon wrote:The events of Apocalypse Element retroactively removed themselves from existance to an unknown time into the past.

Err. Sorta somewhat not really. As RTD mentions it as part of the Time War, it would probably be, after a long and circuitous fashion, in the time line. Are you're sure both of you're not thinking of the far worse Ancestor Cell? The Apocalypse Element is the one where the Daleks are on Gallifrey. The Ancestor Cell is much more vomit-inducing...

The Apocalypse Element has some stupid ideas in it - 'blow up the universe' and 'time lords tricked yet again,' but both of those are supported to some degree by the canon. Yes, there's blowing up the universe in the TV show - or rather, it's said to be happening in The Two Doctors, and the Doctor doesn't fall out of his chair laughing and roll around on the space station's floor crying with laughter and pounding the metal with his fists in the sheer hilarity of it. It was much less 'wanked,' there - in that it was going to happen over 'a few centuries' but still, it's there, as a possibility - and a possibility to arise accidentally from proscribed experiments, too. And while the Time Lords getting tricked yet again is irritating, it's also canon - they get invaded twice in the same day in The Invasion of Time and outwitted by the fearsome intellect of the Sontarans. In fact, Apocalypse Element is a considerable improvement in how the Time Lords react to invasion. In The Invasion of Time they're practically rushing to obey both armies. At least in The Apocalypse Element the Chancellrey Guard shoot at the Daleks, and pretty successfully, too, instead of rounding up the older Time Lords who show signs of so much as speaking out against armed invasion.

The Ancestor Cell is the book where they take centuries to open a door, and have riots of starving people on the streets of the Capitol, and other assorted stupidity.

Apocalypse Element is background for Dalek Empire and involves Lalla Ward, after all, which are fine, nay, excellent reasons it should exist in itself.