Editing TARDIS (section)

==Description==
[[File:Tardis BBC Television Center (cropped).jpg|thumb|Prop for the Doctor's TARDIS used between 2010 and 2017]]
[[File:TARDIS1.jpg|thumb|The Doctor's TARDIS as it appeared between 2005 and 2010, on display at [[BBC Television Centre]]]]
In the [[fictional universe]] of the ''Doctor Who'' television show, TARDISes<!-- Do not change plural - see talk page! --> are space- and time-travel vehicles of the [[Time Lord]]s, an [[Extraterrestrial life|alien]] species from the planet [[Gallifrey]]. Although many TARDISes exist and are sometimes seen on-screen, the television show mainly features a single TARDIS used by the show's [[protagonist]], a Time Lord who goes by the name of [[the Doctor]].{{sfn|Muir|2015|pp=3–4}}

TARDISes are built with a "chameleon circuit", a type of [[camouflage]] technology that changes the exterior form of the ship to blend into the environment of whatever time or place it lands in. The Doctor's TARDIS always resembles a 1960s London [[police box]], an object that was very common in Britain at the time of the show's first broadcast,{{sfn|Haining|1995|p=114}} owing to a malfunction in the chameleon circuit before the events of the first episode of the show, ''[[An Unearthly Child]]''.{{sfn|Muir|2015|pp=3–4}}{{sfn|Burk|Smith|2012|p=542}} The Doctor has attempted to repair the chameleon circuit, unsuccessfully in ''[[Logopolis]]'' (1981) and with only temporary success in ''[[Attack of the Cybermen]]'' (1985). In "[[Boom Town (Doctor Who)|Boom Town]]", the Doctor reveals that he has stopped trying to repair the circuit as he has become fond of its appearance. The other TARDISes that appear in the series have chameleon circuits that are fully functional.<ref>{{cite book |last=Phillips |first=Ivan |title=Once Upon a Time Lord: The Myths and Stories of Doctor Who |date=20 February 2020 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-78831-646-0 |page=157 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yrnIDwAAQBAJ&dq=doctor%20who%20chameleon%20circuit%20Attack%20of%20the%20Cybermen&pg=PA157 |access-date=30 June 2022}}</ref>

The TARDIS is famously "bigger on the inside". A much larger control room lies inside the police box, at the centre of which is a console for operating the TARDIS. In the middle of the console is a moving tubular device called a time rotor. The presence of a physically larger space contained within the police box is explained as "dimensionally transcendental", with the interior being a whole separate dimension containing an infinite number of rooms, corridors and storage spaces, all of which can change their appearance and configuration.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lewis |first1=Courtland |last2=Smithka |first2=Paula |title=Doctor Who and Philosophy: Bigger on the Inside |date=22 October 2010 |publisher=Open Court |isbn=978-0-8126-9725-4 |pages=328–9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ShPnLHcKqUwC&pg=PA328 |access-date=30 June 2022}}</ref><ref name="beginnersguide">{{cite web |publisher=[[BBC]] |title=A Beginner's Guide to the TARDIS|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/tardiscam/intro.shtml|access-date=3 November 2009}}</ref>{{sfn|Burk|Smith|2012|p=542}}

The TARDIS also allows the Doctor and others to communicate with people who speak languages other than their own, as well as turn all written languages to English. The translation circuit has been explored in comparison with real-world machine translation, with researchers Mark Halley and [[Lynne Bowker]] concluding that "when it comes to the science of translation technology, ''Doctor Who'' gets it wrong more often than it gets it right. However, perhaps we can forgive the artistic license if we recognise that, as in other science fiction works, the presentation of some type of ubiquitous translation tool is necessary to explain to the audience how people from other countries, time periods, and even other worlds, can understand each other and indeed appear to speak (mostly) flawless English."<ref>Halley, M., & Bowker, L. (2021). "Translation by TARDIS: The science of multilingual communication in Doctor Who". In L. Orthia & M. Harmes (eds.), ''Doctor Who and Science: Essays on Ideas, Identities and Ideology in the Series''. McFarland. pp. 62–77</ref> The TARDIS is also able to generate a "perception filter" that causes people to ignore it, thinking that it is normal.<ref>{{cite book |last=Colgan |first=Jenny T |title=Dark Horizons |date=5 July 2012 |publisher=[[BBC Books]] |isbn=9781849904568}}</ref>