Disney fans and Doctor Who fans are both well aware that the longest running science fiction television show of all time has jumped the watery divide between the U.K. and the U.S. to arrive at its new home on the Disney+ streaming service. To celebrate, Disney has built a TARDIS, placing it first at Anaheim’s Disney Walk, and now it has arrived at Disney Springs. For a limited time, through June 3, guests who stop by the famous shopping, dining and entertainment area in Walt Disney World can capture a clever photo with the iconic Doctor Who time and space travelling ship with the stuck chameleon circuit.
Photo credits: Christian Basel, creator and host of Legend of the Traveling TARDIS, a popular Dr. Who podcast.
The current season of Doctor Who, starring Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson, has been curiously rebranded as “The First Season” by the Disney+ streaming service, indicating their intent that this latest series is a reboot. The current showrunner, Russel T. Davies, has decided to lean into the idea that the Doctor is not just a Timelord, but is the individual life form from whom the secret of regeneration was taken to give to the Timelords as a species, as recently established in the Jodie Whittaker led episode, Timeless Child.
This series is the fourteenth to air since the programme’s revival in 2005, and the fortieth season overall. The fourteenth series was announced with Davies’ return for its 60th anniversary in 2023 and beyond, with Bad Wolf becoming a co-producer.
A careful examination of the detail work on this TARDIS suggests that while it is a careful replica of the one used by both Ncuti Gatwa and Jodie Whittaker for filming purposes, it is not the same TARDIS. Each one has a unique pattern of wood grain in the paneling, rendering each uniquely identifiable in photographs.
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I remember when a roommate and I considered building a mock-up of the outside of the Tardis around a doorway to a game room. That’s including the Tardis traveling sound effects. It never happened, but it was a fun idea.