Story 237 - Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

In which the Doctor decides that Clara and the TARDIS should get on a little better. He sets the ship to Basic Mode, then starts to show her to operate the controls. Unfortunately this coincides with the arrival nearby of a salvage spaceship, operated by the Van Baalen brothers - Bram, Gregor and Tricky, who is an android. They have spotted the TARDIS as potential salvage and activate a magnetic grab which pulls it on board their vessel. As the TARDIS is rocked by explosions, a strange metal object appears from nowhere. Clara goes to pick it up, only for it to burn her hand.

The Van Baalens believe the TARDIS to be an empty escape pod. They are surprised when Tricky spots the Doctor lying beside his ship, having been thrown free. He decides to enlist their help to rescue Clara from inside - promising them valuable salvage if they help. Once in the console room, they find Clara is not there. To force them to continue their search, the Doctor activates the self-destruct mechanism.

Clara, meanwhile, has found herself in the maze of TARDIS corridors. As she attempts to find her way back to the console room she comes across a variety of rooms, including the swimming pool, an observatory, a storeroom containing the Doctor's old cot, and the library, which is a vast gothic space. Among the books she finds a volume about the Time War, and discovers mention of the Doctor's name. She then finds herself hunted by a strange misshapen creature with glowing red eyes. This pursues her through the ship.

The Doctor and the Van Baalens come upon a chamber n which their is a huge tree-like structure, with glowing pods at the end of its branches. Gregor ignores the Doctor's warnings and decides to remove one of these pods. The structure is part of the TARDIS architectural reconfiguration system. Tampering with it triggers the ship's automated defences. It begins to attack the Doctor and the salvagers, and they find themselves going round in circles. The Doctor is reunited with Clara. He discovers that he cannot reset the self-destruct mechanism due to damage when they were seized by the salvage ship. The Doctor must go to the heart of the ship to reboot the engines to stop them exploding. More of the misshapen figures appear, including a pair who seem to be fused together. Gregor is apparently killed by them.

The Doctor, Clara and the remaining Van Baalens head for the heart of the ship. When he becomes injured Tricky is shocked to find that he is bleeding. The Doctor forces Bram to confess the truth to his brother. he is not an android after all. He was badly hurt and had to have some bionic implants to survive, but also lost his memory. Bram and Gregor decided to convince him he was an android as a joke, which was prolonged and got out of hand. IN a chamber containing the Eye of Harmony, the Doctor discovers that one of the creatures stalking them shares the same DNA as Clara. He realises that these beings are versions of themselves. Bram and Tricky bump into each other as the dual creature grabs them, as this is a version of them. The Doctor and Clara finally arrive at the engine room to find it already being torn apart by an explosion. The ship is holding it together. The Doctor finally confronts Clara about who she really is, and tells her about his meetings with other versions of her. The Doctor notices the burn mark on Clara's hand and sees it is writing. They must return to the console room and activate a button on the metal object which she had picked up. Temporal distortions allow the Doctor to pass this through time to his earlier self, just before the salvagers operated their grab.

Time is reset, and Clara no longer remembers anything she saw or heard in the last few hours. The TARDIS leaves this region of space before the Van Baalens can seize it. 

A slightly different timeline has been created, however, as Tricky now knows his true identity.

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS was written by Steve Thompson, and was first broadcast on 27th April, 2013.

Fans had been clamouring for a story which showed more of the TARDIS interior since the show returned in 2005. Older fans, with longer memories, could recall long sequences of identical grey corridors (with roundel walls), or images of the TARDIS interior looking somewhat like the insides of a derelict mental hospital. Basically, it was always a bit of a let down. This story, sadly, proved the same.

If you are going to do a story which features other parts of the TARDIS then you really need to present something really interesting. Hexagonal corridors were a Sci-fi cliche within months of Star Wars opening. The only new space we see which looks impressive is the library, although some have noted that it looks a bit Hogwarts, so not terribly original. The engine room is just a blank white void. The chamber with the Eye of Harmony is just what looks like a sun in a black space. Regular visitors to the Doctor Who Experience in its last few years will know that the adventure section began with a visit to a room containing the tree-like architectural reconfiguration structure. The problem is that none of the spaces look as if they should go with any of the other spaces. At least Christopher H Bidmead's TARDIS scenes were set in an architecturally consistent space.

Things aren't helped by the framing story. The sub-plot about Tricky (Jahvel Hall) being duped into thinking he's an android is just plain stupid. At least he's the most interesting of the Van Baalens, who are not very well played. Ashley Walters (playing Gregor) is usually very good, but just seems to be going through the motions here. Mark Oliver (Bram) gets least screen time.

These are the only guest artists for this story.

There is a prequel of sorts to this, though it was presented as a DVD extra on the Complete Series 7 box set, and not released on-line in advance of the episode. This was Clara and the TARDIS, in which Clara has discovered that her bedroom has gone missing. She goes to the console room to argue with the ship, only to see other versions of herself turn up from other nights - all looking for their bedrooms.

The TARDIS' apparent dislike for Clara has been a recurring theme since the second episode of this series. Clara learns the Doctor's name, and he finally speaks to her about his suspicions about her - but these are all forgotten as time gets reset.

Overall - a great disappointment. We were promised much and they failed to deliver. As mentioned, the actual storyline is terribly weak. Ironically, this story was intended to redress the disappointment of seeing the TARDIS interior in The Invasion of Time... 201st position (of 241) in the DWM 50th Anniversary poll, so I'm not the only one who didn't like it very much.

Things you might like to know:

• The title is obviously inspired by Journey to the Centre of the Earth, the 1871 novel by Jules Verne. This is the only Doctor Who story to have "TARDIS" in its title.
• As well as the book about the Time War, we have the Encyclopaedia Gallifreya, which is liquid rather than paper. When opened we hear voices. This includes Timothy Dalton, as Rassilon, from The End of Time.
• As the TARDIS systems break down and time becomes distorted we also hear some voices from previous stories. These include Susan and Ian from An Unearthly Child; the Third Doctor from Colony in Space;  the Fourth Doctor from The Robots of Death; the Fifth Doctor from Time Crash; the Ninth Doctor from Rose; the Eleventh Doctor from The Doctor's Wife; Martha from Smith and Jones; and Amy from The Beast Below. All the phrases relate to the TARDIS itself.
• The TARDIS observatory features the telescope from Tooth and Claw, which was really a light collector / focussing device.
• The ship is described as being infinite in size, yet in Castrovalva the Doctor jettisoned 25% of it - meaning it had to be of finite size.
• The lettering on the metal button which Clara picks up does not match the burn marks on her hand. The correct words, but on the button they are middle aligned, and on her hand they are left aligned. Also, as it rolls across the floor we can see that it doesn't have any writing on it at all.
• An initial story idea was that the TARDIS would collide with a school trip party, and the ship would be overrun by teenagers.