TARDIS Travels No.19

Season 19 sees Peter Davison take over the TARDIS controls. Like Christopher Bidmead before him, script editor Eric Saward also loves to make great use of the ship. This is the season of the overcrowded TARDIS, and the Fifth Doctor operates an open-house policy from this point onwards.

Journey 187: Pharos Project, Sussex, 1981, to Castrovalva, date unknown.
An eventful journey this one. Before the ship gets to Castrovalva, it is sent hurtling back through time to be destroyed in the Big Bang at the start of the Universe - courtesy of the Master and a fake Adric. The only way the Doctor can escape this is to jettison 25% of the ship's mass. So the TARDIS is not of infinite size within. We get to see a new part of the ship - the Zero Room. This is a negative space where the Doctor can recover from his regeneration. We won't see it again - as it is part of the ship that gets jettisoned. Tegan lands the ship at its eventual destination, leaving it leaning over in a ditch. It transpires this is also the Master's doing.
Castrovalva is often taken to refer to the whole planet, but this may not be the case.

Journey 188: Castrovalva, date unknown, to Urbankan spaceship, 1981.
The TARDIS materialises on the massive spaceship which is four days away from Earth. The vessel draws the TARDIS off course, as the Doctor is supposed to be taking Tegan to Heathrow Airport so she can take up her Air Australia stewardessing job.

Journey 189: Urbankan spaceship to near orbit, 1981.
Tegan gets into a panic and dematerialises the ship on her own. It doesn't go far - rematerialising a few hundred metres away in space. To get it back, the Doctor has to make a space walk - with a little help from a cricket ball.

Journey 190: Near orbit back to Urbankan spaceship.
The Doctor returns the ship to the Urbankan craft, materialising this time in the Recreation Hall - just in time to put paid to Monarch's mad schemes.

Journey 191: Urbankan spaceship, 1981, to Deva Loka, date unknown.
Whilst Nyssa recuperates in the ship the Doctor, Tegan and Adric explore this seemingly paradisical planet.

Journey 192: Deva Loka, date unknown, to Heathrow area, England, 1666.
The Doctor finally gets Tegan to where she wants to go - except that they have arrived three centuries too early. The ship arrives in woodland, where the locals are suspicious of strangers due to the plague being prevalent in the area. We get to see Nyssa's bedroom, where she builds a device to destroy the Terileptil android. (Insert vibrator jokes here).

Journey 193: Woodland to Manorhouse, Heathrow area, 1666.
Adric is able to pilot the ship directly to the manor where the Doctor, Tegan and Richard Mace are trapped.

Journey 194: Heathrow area to Pudding Lane, London, 1666.
That address / date should give you a clue as to what is going to happen next. The Doctor must track down the Terileptil lair. He uses an unreliable period map to do so - homing in on alien tech. The Terileptils have set up their base in a bakery. Surprise, surprise, a fire breaks out. We only get to see the street name when the ship dematerialises.

Journey 195: Pudding Lane, London, 1666, to Cranleigh Halt, England, 1925.
The TARDIS materialises on the railway station platform. It is June 11th, 1925, to be exact. The local constabulary find the ship and transfer it to their police station. They seem to recognise it - even though Police Boxes have yet to be invented.

Journey 196: Cranleigh Halt police station to Cranleigh Hall, 1925.
To prove he is not a murderer the Doctor allows Sir Robert, Sergeant Markham and Constable Cummings to see the TARDIS interior. This seems to do the trick. He then transports everyone to the Hall to unmask the true killer.

Journey 197: Cranleigh Hall, England, 1925, to cave system, Earth, 2526.
Judging by everyone's accent, this cave system is somewhere in England. The Doctor explains the extinction of the dinosaurs to his companions after they notice a preponderance of fossils in the rocks. The Cybermen have planted a bomb here, intended to wipe out a forthcoming conference which aims to forge an alliance against them.

Journey 198: Cave system, to space freighter in Earth orbit, 2526.
In order to find out who planted the bomb, the Doctor traces the detonation signal to a freighter which is approaching the planet. The TARDIS materialises in the freighter's hold. Commander Scott and his troopers, plus Prof. Kyle, all come along for the ride.

Journey 199: Freighter to near orbit, 2526.
The Cyber-Leader takes over the ship - forcing the Doctor to put it close to the freighter so that he can witness the destruction of Earth as the vessel crashes into the planet. The freighter starts to slip back through time, due to Adric's attempts to unlock the navigation controls. They arrive in Earth orbit some 65 million years in the past. It is the freighter that wipes out the dinosaurs. Adric is also wiped out. Prof. Kyle and the Cybermen are killed within the TARDIS whilst in flight, so the "state of grace" mentioned in The Hand of Fear was either a fib, or it is not working. There is an unseen journey, where the Doctor returns the freighter crew and Commander Scott to 2526.

Journey 200: Earth, 2526, to Heathrow Airport, 1981.
Guess what? Tegan has decided that she would actually like to travel for a bit - so the TARDIS materialises in mid-air above Heathrow Airport in the present day.

Journey 201: Heathrow Airport - mid-air to terminal building, 1981.
The Doctor moves the ship to land on an upper level of the terminal. Lucky that skylight was there. The TARDIS is loaded aboard a Concorde so that the Doctor can try to find out what happened to a previous aircraft which disappeared. They copy the earlier plane's flight plan, and appear to land back at the airport, but in reality they have arrived in the Jurassic era. It's all the Master's doing. He has a bunch of hypnotised passengers take the TARDIS and carry it into the Xeraphin pyramid where he has set up his base of operations. He removes some of the components to repair his own crippled ship. We learnt that no matter what way up the Police Box shell is, the interior can be righted to be horizontal.

Journey 202: Xeraphin pyramid to Xeraphin vault, Jurassic era.
The Master sends Captain Stapley and First Officer Bilton off into the unknown, but fortunately the nice Xeraphin, in the guise of Prof. Hayter, is also aboard. He directs the ship to materialise in the sealed vault where the Doctor and his companions are trapped.

Journey 203: Xeraphin vault to outer area of same.
The Doctor moves the ship out of the vault, then has it loaded back aboard the Concorde, and they prepare to return to 1981.

Journey 204: Concorde to Heathrow Airport, 1981.
With the Concorde back in its proper time, the Doctor leaves in the TARDIS and lands on the roof of the terminal.

Journey 205: Heathrow - terminal roof to same, 1981.
In order to send the Master's TARDIS spinning away to Xeriphas, the Doctor briefly dematerialises then rematerialises his ship. The Master cannot land at the same location.

And so Season 19 ends. Non-regulars we have seen in the TARDIS this year have been Richard Mace and an android in 1666; Sir Robert and two policemen in 1925; Scott, Kyle, and an army of troopers, plus Cybermen, in 2526 (with Captain Briggs and Officer Berger unseen); and Captain Stapley's Concorde crew and the Master (and the Xeraphin / Hayter). The ship's crew has been quite drastically thinned out (by one) - though it will briefly fill up again next season...