SERIES 9: episode 12 HELL BENT 'Brachacki' TARDIS INTERIOR REFS

[tony farrell]

True, but the interior doors didn't have to conform to the roundel pattern. Maybe they should have made the exterior doors four roundels tall...

Ah but then they wouldn't be the Tardis' main doors that we love!

As an aside, in typical BBC fashion, the Brachacki-esque Tardis re-uses some parts already seen previously (though even I was surprised at just how quickly this was 'recycled' from "Heaven Sent"!




T

[Kingpin]

It could be argued that as both monitors were used in a bit of Timelord-designed tech, that the monitor design may be one of a multitude of things the confession dial could utilise.

[cobalt]

As an aside, in typical BBC fashion, the Brachacki-esque Tardis re-uses some parts already seen previously (though even I was surprised at just how quickly this was 'recycled' from "Heaven Sent"!

Good catch! That explains those slightly mis-matched panels on the sides of the monitor. They had to cover up the spots where the crossbars originally attached.

[tony farrell]

It could be argued that as both monitors were used in a bit of Timelord-designed tech, that the monitor design may be one of a multitude of things the confession dial could utilise.

Indeed  Kingpin - but I was referring to the real world, economic constraints that the BBC (especially now) faces, rather than any fictional aspect of the TV show. Sorry if I didn't make that clearer.

[darren79]

I know its been mentioned earlier but looking at the picture of Peter stood near the open main doors maks it appear as though he has to duck down to get through!

Also, are the slatted walls the same ones as in the Time Lord "capture room"?

I haven't checked but I believe they first appeared in Inside the Dalek.

[tony farrell]

I don't think the entire walls were re-used from "Inside the Dalek", but I'd certainly agree that the 'slotted panels' are the same.

It's quite fun to spot things being re-used - like The Controller's Chair from Day of the Daleks appearing in Linx's laboratory or the fact that much of that laboratory was The BOSS's computer banks from The Green Death or that these computer banks first appeared in Gerry Anderson's UFO.

As if to prove the point, I'll set a little quiz (answer tomorrow night)! What item links John Bennett, Waris Hussein, Robin of Sherwood and Henry VIII?  That should set people thinking! 

T

[galacticprobe]

I agree, Tony - looking for set pieces recycled from other shows. BOSS's control room from "The Green Death" was so 'UFO'-recycled that it was almost identical as to how it appeared when it was the Command Sphere for the SHADO Moonbase! And some of those set pieces, as well as some consoles from 'Space: 1999', were reused in both "Stones of Blood" and (mostly the '1999' consoles) in "Shada".

Dino.
P. S. The comment on the "standard door height" being six feet: Is that a UK standard door height? In the US it's roughly 84 inches, which is seven feet. Some doors are a little smaller at 82 inches, but that's still close to the seven-foot mark.

[tony farrell]

No Dino I said six foot six (78 inches) is a standard doorway height (I should have added for an interior door). Six foot refers to the height of the zig-zag Tardis doors as seen in "Hell Bent" i.e., too short (which is why I wondered why the production team didn't borrow the walls - as well as the Console - from the AIS&T exhibition set - which is housed quite literally three hundred yards down the quayside from the Dr Who studio in Cardiff Bay)!

T

[galacticprobe]

Ah... I see my error. I read the measurement you estimated for the TARDIS' Main Doors (six feet), and also the measurement for the Interior Door (six-foot-six - or 78 inches). My brain just kept the Main Door measure in it, rather than both measurements. Thanks for clearing up my clouded brain once again, Tony.

Dino.

[meantimebob]

I don't think the entire walls were re-used from "Inside the Dalek", but I'd certainly agree that the 'slotted panels' are the same.

It's quite fun to spot things being re-used - like The Controller's Chair from Day of the Daleks appearing in Linx's laboratory or the fact that much of that laboratory was The BOSS's computer banks from The Green Death or that these computer banks first appeared in Gerry Anderson's UFO.

As if to prove the point, I'll set a little quiz (answer tomorrow night)! What item links John Bennett, Waris Hussein, Robin of Sherwood and Henry VIII?  That should set people thinking! 

T

Umm... would that be Weng Chiang's striped robe, seen here in the Waris Hussein directed movie, Six Wives of Henry VIII?



The same movie also features Garron's outfit from Ribos.

[superrichi1a]

The doors are now pretty much integral to the Experience as you enter through them into Hartnell's console room, too much trouble I imagine! That, and, they were able to (badly) cover up the missing Hartnell console with a tarpaulin, the doors vanishing would have raised more heads!

I do feel the reduced budget of the show is becoming more and more apparent these days, and not just in the reduced episode count! Mainly it's the CGI that is stung, the TARDIS model in Hell Bent looked like it was made if clay, compare that to the HD-ready artwork flying through the revamped Tennant titles!
If I'm not wrong we also saw a lot of the Gallifreyan houses from "Day of the Doctor" double as the town of Christmas in "Time of the Doctor" off the top of my head, but that's all I've got! Apart from the Dalek neck rings in the TARDIS (and now this TARDIS too). If we were being pedantic we could mention the Torchwood set - destroyed, reused as a Cyber base and then partially cleared to bolt Smith's TARDIS into the existing framework. From what I understand elements of that set were effectively preserved until 2013 when they finally tore Smith's set down and were able to regain access to parts of the Hub that had accommodated the TARDIS.

[Rassilons Rod]

Guys.  Can we keep this on the topic of the Hell Bent console room please?

[tony farrell]

With respect Marc, I think you're missing the point of the last couple of posts: The production of Dr Who (in this specific case - the production and use of the Hell Bent Brachacki-esque Tardis set) cannot be taken in isolation from the 'world around it'.

Superrichie1a makes the excellent point that Dr Who has been subjected to budget cuts (I made the point earlier that the BBC in general has been the subject of corporation-wide cuts due in large part to the success of its I-Player service which doesn't require the viewer to pay for a TV licence) and this - in his opinion - is starting to show.

We've also learnt from Darren 79 that - as well as appearing elsewhere in "Hell Bent", the slotted wall sections of this version of the Tardis set first appeared in "Inside The Dalek". So we have a good example of where the production team is creatively re-using already available set-pieces as an economy measure. (This is no different from the original Totter's Lane and Junkyard sets being made up from stock items.) Another example we can see from the last few posts in this thread is the re-use of the Dalek 'neck rings' as part of the computer banks behind the monitor/screen and the fact that the screen itself had been re-used from "Heaven Sent"!

Such economy measures are nothing new:

- as evidenced by the re-use of large parts of Gerry Anderson's UFO Moon base control room in the B.O.S.S. set from Green Death. (Green Death - by the way - was also made at a time when the BBC's revenues were under pressure. Those interested should look up the causes of the 'Three Day Week' and the beginnings of the hyper-inflation the UK suffered in the 1970s.)

- as evidenced by the re-use of costumes from other productions (and Meantimebob is correct: John Bennett - Li H'sen Chang in The Talons of Weng Chiang - appeared as the Duke of Norfolk in Waris Hussein's "Henry VIII and His Six Wives" which featured the first appearance of the kimono and this kimono subsequently appeared in "Robin of Sherwood")!

So, if we are being good historians, it is important to set what we are discussing in its context i.e., what is happening around it and what is and what is not available to the production team at the time. This brings me to my final point - the height of the main doors in this version of the Tardis set:

These doors are obviously too short; thanks to Darren79, we know that Rachel Talalay disliked the set and that it had been built in very quick time due to a late schedule change. Given this context, I asked why the production team didn't think to re-use the existing walls from AAIS&T which are on display at the Dr Who Experience (a mere few hundred yards from the Dr Who studio).

Here Superrich1a has provided part of the answer - that the exhibition has been altered so that these walls and doors now form an integral part of the exhibition through which visitors enter.

The second part of the answer is the actual episode's filming schedule i.e., 10th to 28th August 2015. This is slap bang in the middle of the school holidays - precisely the time at which the exhibition would be at its busiest. So, removing the existing Tardis walls would have been incredibly disruptive (with the associated potential loss of revenues).

To sum up, we have a set which was built very quickly in response to a late schedule change. Due to the logistics of the filming schedule and the August Bank Holiday/school holidays, the production team were only able to borrow the Console from the Dr Who Experience next door and so were forced to a make a new set (made up partly from pre-existing set elements and hastily constructed doors/new roundel sections). The budgetary pressures the production team are facing are nothing new and Dr Who - like many other TV programmes - continues its long tradition of cannibalising/re-using existing stock items.  

As the old saying goes: Necessity is the mother of invention!

T

[superrichi1a]

^ Ditto what he said!

Because we have this mentality going in it makes it especially easy to identify elements that have gone in to making the set - for example the console, the slatted wall and the Dalel neck rings are thusly all readily apparent and the reference we have for the room thereby increases exponentially.
Because we know how integral the AiSaT roundels are to the Experience we can therefore discount their use, instead focussing on the differences between the two (such as the doors).
What makes me laugh, though, is the power Octagon on the celieng. Looks fantastic but when they did the docudrama they couldn't afford one, so it's ironic that it's cropped up now!
Of course now pictures have emerged of the console being painted fully white, and some sources say it's green again now - personally I hope it's stayed white but I'm sure that will be confirmed either way soon enough. It did occur to me how like Celation's it looks in white, though! In green it's weird to see how different the same console can look...

[Kingpin]

Also on note of reused bits from past Doctor Who productions, the TARDIS corridors from The Doctor's Wife later showed up in Demon's Run, and the metal plates used for the Smith/Capaldi TARDIS door controls are very popular with the production for detail greeblies.

On the Brachacki-inspired TARDIS control room, I'm gonna be going through Hell Bent today or tomorrow to grab shots of the Doctor's TARDIS, would it be worth me grabbing shots of Clara's as well, or do we have enough reference material collected for that?