The original Console Room as seen in An Unearthly Child, the first serial of the program. William Hartnell (unseen) was the Doctor in 1963. Notice the roundels upon the walls, a mainstay of the TARDIS interior design. Also of note is the strange, ceiling-placed hexagon, whose purpose remains uncertain, and would soon disappear from view (although various later Doctor novels mention its presence).
- The original Console Room as seen in An Unearthly Child, the first serial of the program. William Hartnell (unseen) was the Doctor in 1963. Notice the roundels upon the walls, a mainstay of the TARDIS interior design. Also of note is the strange, ceiling-placed hexagon, whose purpose remains uncertain, and would soon disappear from view (although various later Doctor novels mention its presence).
- The Console Room in 1966's The Power of the Daleks, which debuted Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor. The console remains the same since 1963 and would continue in use until the 1970 adventure, Inferno, with Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor. This color photo, as opposed to the (sadly missing) B&W footage, shows the architectural eccentricity of the room: one wall is white with dark roundels and the other is blue-grey with white roundels.
- From 1971's Colony in Space, Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor and Jo Grant travel in the TARDIS together for the first time. As noticed before, the Console itself has changed style, although the mismatched wall and roundel color remains. Note the strange silver cylinder with the Dalek-like bumps. Its purpose is unknown but its presence is intriguing.
- The story The Time Monster in 1972 featured a much maligned new Console Room style with large, concave roundels. This version never re-appeared in later stories. The bright blue circle is that era's scanner. Eagle-eyed viewers may see the large and appropriately 70s-sized computer along one wall. It's actually the Master's TARDIS. For more information, watch the story; it's quite mad, but fun.
- Later in 1972's The Three Doctors (the program's tenth anniversary event - note the return of Troughton and the presence of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart plus Sgt. Benton) was a new Console Room design. The room's roundels returned to a slightly in-set flat format with a pinkish-gray/periwinkle glow.
- By 1975 more than the Console Room had changed. Here we see Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor with then- full-time companion Sarah Jane Smith in the story Planet of Evil. Note the re-designed console and the change in roundel pattern and color along one wall.
- The program's fourteenth season in 1976 debuted a radically different gothic-themed Console Room, with dark wood paneled walls, a smaller, column-less console, and, and an exit with no directly visible door. This room first appeared in the adventure The Masque of Madragora and was in use throughout that season. The set, largely well-regarded by fans, was damaged between recording blocks and eventually discarded.
- 1977's The Invisible Enemy featured the return of the white-walled Console Room style, albeit, once more, with a new Console Room. The yellow-lit roundels and the console seen here became one of the longest lasting interior layouts of the entire series, remaining virtually unchanged until well into the early 1980s and the next Doctor's era.
- The Fifth Doctor, played by Peter Davison, cleans his new console in 1983's The Five Doctors, the series' twentieth anniversary program. The Console Room itself remains very similar to the later Tom Baker style, save some wall flourishes around the scanner. This interior design would remain much the same for the remainder of the series's original run.
- An odd console: 1985's The Two Doctors, which featured a guest (and final) appearance of the Second Doctor, showed him operating an earlier console, but one much later then his proper era (the design matches the later Tom Baker/early Peter Davison design). The 'improper' Console Room has since prompted the 'Season 6b' theory, which posits the Second Doctor acted as a Time Lord agent after his official regeneration in 1969's The War Games
- Also from The Two Doctors is the 'correct' Doctor, the Sixth Doctor played by Colin Baker, and Console Room. As referenced earlier, little has changed, if anything at all, in the interior TARDIS since 1983. Also in shot is then companion Peri Brown.
- The Seventh Doctor, played by Sylvester McCoy. In the background is the 1996 telefilm's Console Room, which will be shown in full later. The lack of a good interior shot is symbolic of McCoy's onscreen era of the late 1980s, in which the decision was made to cease featuring scenes set in the Console Room. What follows are three images of the TARDIS interior during the years the series was off the air.
- An image of a model of the proposed 'Season 27' Console Room, which would have appeared in the program's ultimately canceled 1990 season. This and the following image serve as partial approximations of the changing interior, explored through sound and dialogue in the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who audio adventures.
- A drawing depicts the Console Room from the mid-1990s New Adventure novel, Human Nature, the basis for the Tenth Doctor two-part television story in 2007. As mentioned in the previous slide, this rendition serves not only as a good representation of the radically changing Console Room style of the later Seventh Doctor era (first brought to sound life in Simon Guerrier's audio, The Settling), but also shows foreshadows the 1996 design.
- Another artist rendition shows an additional Console Room to debut in the Seventh Doctor's New Adventure novel range: the Tertiary Room. This control room is described as more organic in form with a stone-style console. Some fans have argued that whereas the wooden room from the 1976 season gave rise to the 1996 Console Rom style, this tertiary concept foreshadows the RTD era console of the New Series.
- Finally, the 1996 Console Room from the Doctor Who telefilm, featuring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, with companion Grace Holloway. The room has morphed into a completely different format, echoing the 1976 gothic themed Console Room. The main room is quite cluttered and cultured, and the console itself has been heavily re-vamped and casts the room in a cool, blue-white glow. Although a fan-favorite style, this version was replaced in 2005
- Once again, the Console Room underwent a complete overhaul prior to the events of the 2005 adventure, Rose, featuring the Ninth Doctor as played by Christopher Eccleston. Apart from the console's column being connected to the ceiling and the rods within the column's casing, the coral and bronze pattern is completely different from the room's previous iteration.
- From 2008's The Sontaran Stratagem are David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor with tragic-fated companion Donna Noble. The Console Room is still the same coral 'desktop theme' as the Ninth Doctor's era. Of note are the wall roundels, which in this era were circles encased in concave hexagons.
- After a final adventure against the Master alongside companion Wilfred Mott in 2009/2010's The End of Time Part One and Two, the Tenth Doctor's regeneration literally sparks the Console Room's explosive deconstruction.
- Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor and Karen Gillan's Amy Pond are set to debut along with a new TARDIS Console Room in the April 3rd, 2010 story, The Eleventh Hour. Here's to the future...
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