Doctor Who Magazine has seemingly confirmed that the new TARDIS interior will debut in the upcoming Doctor Who 60th anniversary specials — and one of the directors has described the set as “enormous” and “absolutely beautiful”.
Chanya Button, Tom Kingsley, and returning director, Rachel Talalay are helming the three specials, which star David Tennant as the Fourteenth Doctor and Catherine Tate reprising her role as Tenth Doctor companion, Donna Noble.
When asked about the new TARDIS, Button enthuses:
“Oh my gosh, it’s enormous. I mean, it’s absolutely beautiful. It’s sort of church-like in scale, and yet it’s also this intimate space that takes you from one place to another – to even larger, wider worlds.”
And Tom Kingsley adds:
“So much detail and love and thought has gone into it. You can point the camera anywhere at it and it looks amazing.”
Talalay says it took four months to build, and that it was just completed in time for filming on the last few days of the shoot.
Some were unsure whether Tennant would keep the Thirteenth Doctor’s console room, and the new one would be introduced ready for Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor; that could still be the case, but the fact all three 60th anniversary directors have seen it implies otherwise.
And it’s pretty likely that, with filming taking place at the Bad Wolf Productions lots, showrunner Russell T Davies would want it in place ASAP.
We’ll see soon. The Doctor Who 60th anniversary stories are expected to screen in November 2023.