Doctor Who Teases "Impossible, Logic-defying" New TARDIS Set

Big changes are ahead for Doctor Who, and that includes a new look for the TARDIS. Doctor Who will come to Disney+ outside of the United Kingdom and Ireland beginning with November's 60th-anniversary specials, which see David Tennant returning to the series as the Fourteenth Doctor. While the Doctor may be returning to old faces, the TARDIS will have a new one. We don't know whether this new TARDIS interior will appear with Tennant or debut with Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor in Season 14, but executive producer Joel Collins hints that the set is pushing the limits of space of time to make it something special.

"We talked through various concepts with Russel [T. Davies, showrunner], and there was one rough idea that was just too ambitious, and too impossible – but which everybody loved," Collins says in the latest Doctor Who Magazine. "Once I'd put it in front of Russell, he's just too visually bright to unsee it. I'd go, 'Yes, yes, but it's completely mad, it's never going to happen.' Then we started to say, 'OK, how do we make this impossible space possible?'"

He continued, "Phil [Sims, production designer] brought in a brilliant engineer, who spent months trying to solve the engineering riddle of this impossible, logic-defying set, which no one in their right mind should ever have even drawn in the first place. But that kind of sums up the show..."

When will Doctor Who return?

Just days after Jodie Whittaker's farewell episode, the BBC and Disney announced a plan to "transform Doctor Who into a global franchise for UK audiences and the rest of the world." Rumor has it that Disney has some creative control over the franchise and wants to give Doctor Who a "Hollywood makeover," though returning showrunner Russell T. Davies has clarified what Disney's involvement means for the series.

"But now, it wasn't my idea, it was the BBC's notion to go for a streamer to invest in the show worldwide, which I completely agree with," Davies told GQ. "We're not on the budget level with Star Wars and the Marvel shows. It's better than it was, yes yes yes. I mean any piece of television costs millions. We're not allowed to talk about budget, and we're not on that Star Wars or Star Trek level, but it's more than I've ever had to work with... it's not 10 million an episode. It's absolutely not. I wish it was, it'd make my life easier. But we're very clever at spending money, I think Doctor Who has learnt more tricks over the years than other shows have, perhaps."

Doctor Who returns in 2023 for its 60th-anniversary specials ahead of 2024's Season 14.