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Randomiser/door control

fardelsbear

fardelsbear

Member
A query about the lever with the big red ball on the Tom Baker console!

I was watching The Armageddon Factor again last night, and noticed that right at the end when the Doctor adds the randomiser to the console, it looks as though the thing to switch it on is the huge lever with red ball on the end which eventually becomes door control.  Have I got that right?
 
You are correct!  It actually wasn't the door control until Castrovalva.  Ironically the lever was removed with the old black one reinstated, I think in Destiny of the Daleks, then put back in later on in Season 17.  Or was that the flashy light box associated with it?
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff
 
Didn't that lever briefly have a grey knob on it? The knob was about the same size as the red one, but a light grey.

Dino.
 
Nope.  It was either the black rectangle ones or the red sphere.  Got a reference on what you were thinking?
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff
 
DoctorWho8 said:
Nope.  It was either the black rectangle ones or the red sphere.  Got a reference on what you were thinking?
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff
Click to expand...

I think my reference is a slightly malfunctioning brain cell (or two - billion :P). After looking back through all of the reference photos, and a few I grabbed years ago from Google Images (before I found this great storehouse of knowledge), I think I may have been confusing it with this lever/knob (lower left corner of the photo):
Early80s15.JPG

I thought I saw the grey knob on the other lever in an episode, but I was probably wrong. (Too many levers with big rounds knobs on them, not enough brain cells!). My wife and I are always watching the Classic Series stories we have on DVD (as well as New Series ones), so as we go through the Tom Baker stories, if I just happen to catch that specific lever with a grey knob I'll get a screen grab and the title of the story and which episode it's in.

Until then I'll just write this one off as a confusion of levers on my part. (Hmm... maybe that's why my TARDIS never got me where I wanted to go! ;D)

Dino.
 
Interesting to note, the panel in the front is one of the two that had a hole for the key to time tracer.  It now has a knob to fill in the hole.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff
 


The Armageddon Factor : Randomiser



The Leisure Hive : Randomiser
 

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DoctorWho8 said:
Interesting to note, the panel in the front is one of the two that had a hole for the key to time tracer.  It now has a knob to fill in the hole.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff
Click to expand...

They did a similar thing with the Pertwee console and the extendable cubby for the Demat Circuit. After "The Three Doctors", when the Doctor got his new Demat Circuit and didn't need to fiddle with it anymore, that cubby became a large, empty hole that was eventually used for inserting the Time Tracker/Tracer in "The Time Monster".

TARDIS console philosophy: if there is a hole that's no longer needed for plugging something into, cover it with a knob; if there's a knob or something else that's no longer needed, turn it into a hole. ;D

Dino.
 
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