TARDIS

TARDIS
The Doctor's TARDIS as it looked between 2005 and 2010 on display at BBC Television Centre
Plot element from the Doctor Who television series
Publisher	BBC
First appearance	An Unearthly Child (23 November 1963)
Created by	(Series) Sydney Newman C. E. Webber Donald Wilson (Story) Anthony Coburn
Genre	Science fiction
In-story information
Type	Time machine/spacecraft
Function	Travel through time and space
Specific traits and abilities	Can change its outer dimensions and inner layout, impregnable, telepathic
Affiliation	Time Lords The Doctor

The TARDIS (UK /ˈtɑːdɪs/; US /ˈtɑːrdɪs/; Time And Relative Dimension In Space) is a fictional time machine and spacecraft that appears in the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who and its various spin-offs.

A TARDIS is a product of the advanced technology of the Time Lords, an extraterrestrial civilisation to which the programme's central character, the Doctor, belongs. A properly maintained and piloted TARDIS can transport its occupants to any point in time and space. The interior of a TARDIS is much larger than its exterior. It can blend in with its surroundings using the ship's "chameleon circuit". TARDISes also possess a degree of sapience and provide their users with additional tools and abilities including a universal translation system based on telepathy.

In the series, the Doctor pilots an apparently unreliable, obsolete TARDIS; in the episode "Let's Kill Hitler" (2011), it is designated "TT Type 40, Mark 3". Its chameleon circuit is broken, leaving it stuck in the shape of a 1960s-style London police box after a visit to London in 1963. The Doctor's TARDIS was for most of the series' history said to have been stolen from the Time Lords' home planet, Gallifrey, where it was old, decommissioned and derelict.