SUMMARY
- A new episode of Tales of the TARDIS has been announced and is set to air in between the final two episodes of Doctor Who, Season 1.
- The new episode will feature Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor in the Memory TARDIS, something that’s been teased on Doctor Who itself.
- Rather than being another anthology piece, the new Tales of the TARDIS episode may bridge the gap between “The Legend of Ruby Sunday” and “Empire of Death.”
The Doctor Who spinoff series Tales of the TARDIS is making a surprise return, potentially hinting at a major twist in the Doctor Who Season 1 finale. Following Russell T Davies’ return as Doctor Who showrunner, the franchise has been growing in ambition. Not only has a partnership with Disney+ seen Doctor Who‘s budget reach impressive new heights, but plans have been made to expand the newly-dubbed Whoniverse. While rumors are swirling around a supposed upcoming UNIT spinoff, the series’ first new spinoff arrived on BBC iPlayer in November 2023, in the form of Tales of the TARDIS.
Tales of the TARDIS reintroduced classic Doctor Who stories to new fans. The anthology series featured old Doctors and companions reuniting in a Memory TARDIS, a place where they were invited to share stories of their adventures together. Each episode featured brand-new scenes with stars of classic Doctor Who, acting as bookends to classic episodes. Davies claimed the series was canon, though it did not seem to bear a direct connection to current Doctor Who continuity. That could be about to change, with a new episode of Tales of the TARDIS starring Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson having been announced for release on June 20th, in between the final two episodes of Doctor Who, Season 1.
The Fifteenth Doctor Enters the Memory TARDIS
The upcoming new episode of Tales of the TARDIS is noteworthy for being the first episode of the spinoff series to feature Doctor Who‘s current Doctor and companion. When Tales of the TARDIS launched in 2023, as part of Doctor Who‘s 60th anniversary celebrations, it served exclusively as a portal into the classic series. With the entirety of Doctor Who‘s available classic catalog being released on iPlayer, Tales of the TARDIS gave fans a few helpful starting points in finding stories to explore amid the vast wealth of newly available content. The inclusion of new scenes featuring returning Doctors and companions helped provide additional context and tied Tales of the TARDIS to current Doctor Who continuity.
The new scenes featured in Tales of the TARDIS took place in the so-called Memory TARDIS, or Remembered TARDIS. Here, Doctors and companions were summoned forth to recount their stories with one another. In Tales of the TARDIS‘ revisitation of “Earthshock,” the Fifth Doctor told Tegan Jovanka that the Memory TARDIS was the memory of a time machine and that it fed on stories, as memories thrive on stories. He also suggested that the Memory TARDIS had remembered them, reaching out across time and space to summon them into its strange new console room.
The sixth and final episode of the initial run of Tales of the TARDIS revisited “The Curse of Fenric,” with the Seventh Doctor and Ace. As in some of the other episodes, it was pointed out that this incarnation of the Doctor had aged since his last appearance. The Seventh Doctor put his advanced years down to alternate time streams, telling Ace “in some, I regenerate. In others, I don’t.” Further light seemed to be shed on this statement by the last of the 60th anniversary specials, “The Giggle,” which saw the Doctor bigenerate for the first time. Russell T Davies suggested in the episode’s video commentary that the Doctor’s bigeneration echoed back through his timeline, resulting in every past incarnation separating from their successor to live on and grow old.
While Tales of the TARDIS was said to be a canonical part of the Whoniverse, it didn’t initially seem to have much impact on the world of Doctor Who beyond being a fun new way to watch classic episodes. However, a Disney+ trailer for Doctor Who Season 1 may have changed that. The trailer featured an incredibly brief glimpse of the Fifteenth Doctor in the open doorway of the Memory TARDIS, its unique interior visible behind him as he screamed out into space. Interestingly, the same shot featured in an earlier trailer, but with the standard TARDIS console room behind the Doctor, suggesting this was changed to keep the Memory TARDIS’ appearance on Doctor Who a secret.
What is a Memory TARDIS on Doctor Who?
The exact nature of the Memory TARDIS is still something of a mystery following the first six episodes of Tales of the TARDIS, though further light will surely be shed on this matter in its upcoming appearances. Although fans might not yet have a full understanding of what the Memory TARDIS is or how it came to be, its strange interior will have elicited some excited cries of recognition. The Memory TARDIS featured a console room made up of a hodgepodge mix of previous TARDIS interiors and various other Easter eggs from Doctor Who history, such as a Cyberman head, the Second Doctor’s recorder, the license plate of the Third Doctor’s car, Bessie, and a drawer full of sonic screwdrivers.
At the heart of the Memory TARDIS’ console room there would appear a crystalline “fire,” reminiscent of the Thirteenth Doctor’s TARDIS in design, along with two chairs. These features were not always present, appearing only for the Memory TARDIS’ occupants to recount the stories that fueled it. The Memory TARDIS would produce this stand-in fireside at will, suggesting that it had a mind of its own. Although the Memory TARDIS shared this trait with the Doctor’s regular TARDIS, it seemed far more pronounced in the former. The Memory TARDIS even appeared able to summon its occupants of its own accord.
Across all the episodes of Tales of the TARDIS, the Doctors and companions who featured seemed to be unaware of how or why they had arrived in the Memory TARDIS. They each spoke about how they suddenly found themselves there, snatched out of their lives without explanation. The Fifth Doctor’s suggestion that it “remembered” him and Tegan in order to call them there tied into the notion that the Memory TARDIS is a physical embodiment of the TARDIS’ own memory. One thing left unclear by Tales of the TARDIS, however, is whether the Memory TARDIS was truly summoning past Doctors and companions into its console room, or whether they too were simply memories given physical form.
The third episode of Tales of the TARDIS, “Vengeance on Varos,” ended with the Sixth Doctor and Peri piloting the Memory TARDIS onwards to new adventures. However, by the start of the next episode, they had vacated the Memory TARDIS to make way for Jo Jones and Clyde Langer. This suggested that they either enjoyed a new adventure together before returning to their proper places in time and space, or were just another part of the TARDIS’ memory that eventually faded away. Alternatively, it’s possible that each episode of Tales of the TARDIS featured a separate Memory TARDIS, conjured up specifically for whoever the TARDIS’ memory was summoning on that occasion.
Tales of the TARDIS Collides With Current Doctor Who Continuity for the First Time
The upcoming new episode of Tales of the TARDIS will mark the first time the current Doctor and companion have featured on the spinoff series. As Tales of the TARDIS seemed to be created as a way to revisit past stories and bring back past characters, the decision to produce an episode featuring the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday would seem a little strange, if not for the fact the Memory TARDIS has been spotted in a Doctor Who trailer. The shot of the Fifteenth Doctor screaming in the Memory TARDIS’ doorway, taken from the Doctor Who Season 1 finale, suggests that the new episode of Tales of the TARDIS will bridge the gap between the finale’s two episodes.
The finale to Doctor Who Season 1 begins in the season’s seventh episode, “The Legend of Ruby Sunday,” and concludes the following week in “Empire of Death.” The announcement that Gatwa’s Doctor and Gibson’s Ruby will feature in a new episode of Tales of the TARDIS between those last two Doctor Who episodes suggests their arrival in the Memory TARDIS happens at the end of Episode 7. Perhaps the Memory TARDIS is protecting the Doctor and Ruby, or perhaps it is imprisoning them. Or, if they only exist there as part of the memory, perhaps the upcoming Tales of the TARDIS installment indicates that the Doctor and Ruby will be erased from time, living on only as the memories of a time machine.
The Doctor Who Season 1 finale is set to finally reveal the truth behind Susan Twist’s various Doctor Who roles and will see Twist in her first major role on the seriesas Susan Triad. Little is known about Twist’s character in the finale, but fans have noticed that “S TRIAD” is an anagram of “TARDIS.” This could hint at a connection between Twist and the Memory TARDIS, possibly even suggesting that Twist is playing a human embodiment of the TARDIS. This would explain why she has been present in all the Doctor’s and Ruby’s adventures so far. What remains to be seen is whether Susan Triad will be an ally to the Doctor and Ruby, or whether the Doctor’s trusty time machine is about to be turned against him.
