Sunday 31 May 2015

TARDIS Travels No.26


These are the final voyages of the TARDIS in what is now referred to as the Classic Series. (It's all classic if you ask me. If the New Series is the New Series, then shouldn't this just be the Old Series?). For the sake of tidiness, this will also cover the 1996 Movie (plus one other thing), so read on...

Journey 382: Segonax, date unknown, to Carbury district of England, date not known.
It's a UNIT story, so by my own rules this should be dated to the year of transmission - 1989. Things are complicated however by the inclusion of a King of Great Britain (presumably Charles III), £5 coins and so forth. We get the last glimpse of the traditional white-walled, roundelled, TARDIS console room. Just a glimpse, as it is very dark. This is to hide the fact that they filmed this sequence at an exhibition where the console was housed, and didn't want to have to erect a studio set just for this small scene. The ship picks up a message from a parallel universe, which leads it to materialise in the countryside near Lake Vortigern.


Journey 383: Carbury, England, date unknown, to Gabriel Chase, Perivale, 1883.
The Doctor aims for this specific house at this specific time as part of his scheme to help Ace. In her time, this house will be abandoned and she will set it on fire in a rage against an injustice done against one of her friends. It was thought to be haunted, and the Doctor wants to show her how it came to be so. The TARDIS materialises in an attic nursery,with the door rather inconveniently almost up against the wall.


Journey 384: Perivale, 1883, to Yorkshire, c.1945.
The specific date is not mentioned. It has to be after 1941, as the Russian soldiers are carrying rifles that weren't introduced until 1942. The Allied bombing of Dresden is not specified, but is implied. This took place in February 1945. The TARDIS lands on a Navy Base somewhere along the coast from Whitby in Yorkshire. Again, the Doctor is secretly scheming on helping Ace - this time to address issues she has with her mother. He has also worked out how she came to be at Iceworld - and who is behind it. Time to play the game with Fenric one last time.


Journey 385: Yorkshire, c.1945, to Perivale, 1989.
The Doctor takes Ace back to her home territory - the West London suburb of Perivale. The visit coincides with plans by the Master, trapped on the planet of the Cheetah people. Once the evil Time Lord has been defeated, Ace expresses no wish to stay here. It looks as though she doesn't even visit her mother. She and the Doctor head off on further adventures...

Quite what those adventures were, and how long they lasted, is up to you. There is a lot to choose from - some of it contradictory. All we can say for certain is that Ace ends up a successful business woman who does a lot for charity; that the Doctor gives the TARDIS decor a major overhaul - ditching the traditional look altogether - and that at some point he will be travelling on his own when he gets a summons to visit Skaro - to collect the remains of the executed Master and take them back to Gallifrey.


Journey 386: Skaro, date unknown, to San Francisco, California, 1999.
After the Master proves to be not quite as dead as he thought, the Doctor finds the ship malfunctioning due to his sabotage. It makes an emergency landing in the Chinatown district of San Francisco, on December 30th, 1999. TARDIS related things to note. Not only has the place been redecorated and the console room made much larger, the ship now has its very own Eye of Harmony (in the Cloister Room) to power it. May not be the Eye - perhaps all TARDISes have a fraction of it - or some sort of link to it. The Eye can only be opened by a human retina pattern. (Let's not go there...). The ship measures time with reference to Gallifreyan and Humanian eras (amongst others, presumably). It is still indestructible to bullets - shame the same can't be said for the pilot. The Doctor keeps a spare key in a cubby hole above the "P" in the sign over the doors. The clothing store has Gallifreyan robes in the Master's size.


Journey 387: San Francisco, 1999, to San Francisco, 2000.
An odd one this. The TARDIS basically goes back in time a few hours, resurrects the Doctor's new friends who have been murdered by the Master, then materialises back in the city as the clocks strike midnight - only at a different location. To delve into it much deeper than this would induce a migraine.

The Doctor goes off travelling alone - again for how long we do not know. And, again, there are a lot of his further adventures to pick from, though not quite as contradictory as the post Survival ones.
All we can say for certain is that at some point a great big war starts - or a series of wars - between the Time Lords and the Daleks.


Journey 388: Location and date unknown, to spaceship in region near Karn, date unknown.
Just to round off Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor this one. The TARDIS materialises on a crashing ship during the Time War. The Doctor has kept himself out of it so far. The ship's pilot refuses his help and the vessel crashes on Karn where, with the help of the Sisterhood, the Doctor regenerates and elects to finally go to war...

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