20 Things Doctor Who Wants You To Forget

19. How To Open The TARDIS

Doctor Who Forget
BBC Studios

The Doctor’s TARDIS has had many facelifts even to her exterior, but St John’s ambulance badge or not, the doors have almost always been opened the wrong way – inwards. The TARDIS herself flags up the error in an in-house joke penned by Neil Gaiman. The Doctor responds indignantly: ‘I think I have earned the right to open my front door any way I like.’

That would be fine, a nice little nod to the Doctor’s non-conformity, were it not for the fact that occasionally he and his creators forget or ignore his preference.

The doors open outwards in The Eleventh Hour, in an infamous Piper and Eccleston publicity shot, and in Matt Smith’s title credits. The TARDIS once even had a back door that opened outwards (The Abominable Snowmen).

Coupled with the ever changing design of the TARDIS key and River Song's surprising suggestion that the wheezing groaning sound is down to the Doctor not properly applying the brake (a mistake which is therefore also repeated by the Master and the Rani among others), it's probably best not to take as gospel any fact about the Doctor's remarkable ship.

Contributor
Contributor

Paul Driscoll is a freelance writer and author across a range of subjects from Cult TV to religion and social policy. He is a passionate Doctor Who fan and January 2017 will see the publication of his first extended study of the series (based on Toby Whithouse's series six episode, The God Complex) in the critically acclaimed Black Archive range by Obverse Books. He is a regular writer for the fan site Doctor Who Worldwide and has contributed several essays to Watching Books' You and Who range. Recently he has branched out into fiction writing, with two short stories in the charity Doctor Who anthology Seasons of War (Chinbeard Books). Paul's work will also feature in the forthcoming Iris Wildthyme collection (A Clockwork Iris, Obverse Books) and Chinbeard Books' collection of drabbles, A Time Lord for Change.