TALES OF THE TARDIS
SFX GOES ON SET FOR THE FILMING OF A BRAND NEW DOCTOR WHO SERIES
NOTHING QUITE prepares you for walking into the actual TARDIS – but that’s taken to a whole new level when “your” Doctor and companion are there, in costume, creating brand new canonical adventures.
It’s a surreal, giddy moment for SFX in Studio 1 at Bad Wolf in Cardiff on Thursday 28 September – now you know why Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred were at the Radio 2 concert, fact fans – as we step aboard the Remembered TARDIS…
“It’s a mash-up of loads of different TARDIS sets,” writer Pete McTighe explains. “There’s bits of the Davison console, bits of the Eccleston/Tennant console, bits of the Jodie TARDIS. There’s even bits of Ncuti’s TARDIS in there. That’s incredible, the way that they’ve collided all these tiny pieces into one set.
“The set decoration is astonishing, there’s loads and loads of little Easter eggs of props from the show that are relevant to the stories that we’re seeing, but also plenty of other stories as well.”
This new six-part miniseries is, producer Scott Handcock explains, “designed to help new fans access the whole archive of Doctor Who,” as 800 episodes from the Whoniverse arrive on BBC iPlayer this month. “It’s a format where we get to reunite beloved cast members and characters in a very special version of the TARDIS that celebrates every era of the show.”
FULL CIRCLE
Fans of the expansive Who box sets will already be familiar with the concept. “Russell told me it was inspired by the short films for the Blu-rays, which is amazing,” McTighe says. But while these six dramas will accompany new omnibus editions of Classic Series stories, they’re far more than just introductions.
“It’s not just a simple intro and outro,” McTighe explains. “It’s actually a story that moves the characters on. Russell’s written this amazing piece for ‘Earthshock’, which is dealing with Adric’s death, which never happened in the show. So you get 10 minutes of Peter Davison and Janet Fielding really immersed in that event and what it meant to them and how it changed them. It’s great. We’ve never had this stuff before. It is 100% canon.”
The focal point of the new Tales Of The TARDIS series is a smaller set than your regular Time Lord fare – built as a circular/ domed construct raised slightly above the floor. It has the now-traditional Police Box doors as an entrance; everything else around the entrance shell is painted green to allow for VFX later. The actual doors themselves rest up against a nearby wall, removed to allow for filming. A large camera track runs almost the length of the studio, directly to the famous tim
