Stories featuring the TARDIS interior are exceptionally rare, from The Edge of Destruction right through to The Doctor’s Wife, there are no more than five stories which stay ‘indoors’ as it were (the others being The Invasion of Time, Logopolis, Castrovalva off the top of our heads. In fact there were more seasons where we never, or hardly never, saw the inside of the TARDIS at all. Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS therefore should feel relatively new, and yet somehow it doesn’t. Perhaps it’s because Amy and Rory already had their run of phantasms in The Doctor’s Wife not so long ago, or that our friendly neighborhood salvage team (as an aside, wouldn’t it have been a hoot if their family name had been some variation on I.M. Foreman?) largely lacked personality, so much so that a casual viewer wouldn’t care about their fates.
And while The Christmas Invasion had a big, threatening red button which should never, ever be pressed, Journey had a small, friendly red button, literally a reset switch which would inevitably get pressed. And for this story it makes all the sense in the world.
This is not so say Journey is not without a host of visual treats and fan service. The Library was fantastic, look over there and we get the swimming pool last referenced in Day of the Moon, down the hallway is the telescope from Tooth and Claw, or the crib from A Good Man Goes to War. The Eye of Harmony hasn’t been seen, let alone referenced, since The Enemy Within. The TARDIS whispers of lives past are also all there to be dissected.
I suspect JN-T would’ve approved of this story very much, and as a matter of fact, so do we here at THT Worldwide.
Images and caps for Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS are now online.
