A few months ago, my friend John alerted me to a MeTV article from 2020 about a man in Indiana who had… a “Whoseum”. It seemed Allen Machielson had a Doctor Who collection 40 years in the making. After hearing about the Whoseum itself and seeing the selection of photos taken for the article, I decided that I had to go there. 

Seriously.  I. Had. To. Go. There.

The location in Northern Indiana was a three hour drive from me, so I determined a day trip was feasible. I looked Allen up and contacted him, asking if it would be possible to schedule a tour of the exhibit. He was very gracious and agreed, so we set plans to meet. My wife Linda (she with the patience of a saint, but also a Who fan) agreed to be my photographer and off we went.

Having arrived at his lovely home, set amongst peaceful surroundings of farm land, we noticed the large barn at the back of the property. Approaching the entrance to the barn, I heard music from within, and then out came Allen himself and his wife Chrissy to welcome us. Chrissy knew what was going to happen when two big Who fans got together, so she retired back to the house to let nature take its course, and then we stepped into the vortex…

Now, I’ll happily admit to being one of the biggest Doctor Who enthusiasts on the planet — any planet — and it takes a fair amount to impress me. But here, I felt as if I were stepping into Doctor Who Heaven. Once you step through the entrance, the seal of Rassilon proudly hanging above the doors, you take in the environment. The walls are filled with thousands of pieces of Who merchandise, from every conceivable type of police box, to sculptures, action figures, toys, and just about anything you can imagine. 

But first things first. You’re greeted by the original Hartnell TARDIS console from 1963. Yes, all the exact buttons, lights, and switches on this magnificently, faithfully, recreated piece of art do indeed work. And yes, the central motor turns around as it rises and falls. I’m in Heaven. As I circled the console, admiring all the loving detail, I’ll admit I even tested Allen’s Who knowledge on which controls were the psychic circuits. Oh, he knew, pointing them out quickly. You see, at that moment, I was still operating under the assumption that he hired some professional builder to recreate this miracle. Nope. All the life-sized marvels in this Whoseum? Alan built them himself. So of course he knew where the psychic circuits were! This man knows his Who.

People have told me all my life that they envy my ability and wished they too could draw. Well, being able to build things, especially things like the original Doctor’s console? I can only dream about having such skill. Allen has an incredible artistic ability in his builds, and this entire Whoseum is obviously one big labour of love.

After finally tearing myself away from the original TARDIS console, I ventured further in.

A whole wall was lined with full size police boxes, expert duplications of a variety of classic TARDIS police boxes, each accompanied by the life-sized incarnations of the Doctors in their outfits. He did hire out to have someone create the Doctor’s faces, but all the real size TARDISes? He built them himself. And as for the Doctors, he’s finished the majority of them. He’s got to find a new person to continue creating the faces and he still has to add Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi, Jodie Whittaker, David Tennant’s Fourteenth Doctor, and then Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor. And he will.

Allen and I fell into Who conversation so easily that I felt we’d already known each other for a while. Friendly and accommodating, his love for Doctor Who was evident. And we were standing in the middle of it. My poor wife had to pick and choose what to take pictures of, because there was just so much. There’ll be a photo gallery…

Allen’s a big fan of the Paul McGann console room, as are most people, so he decided that it would be the structural centrepiece of the Whoseum and it makes sense. The metal struts surrounding it help make the console and platform such a wonderful, centralised set piece. And the lighting is perfect for the desired atmosphere, reminiscent of The TV Movie itself.

At this point in the exhibit, you turn to face a Dalek, circa 2005’s Dalek. Full-sized, this Kaled survivor is, amazingly, also built by Allen.

Then of course there’s the TARDIS corner with shelves and cases of every police box imaginable, a Dalek figure section, followed by… well, just about every significant piece of merchandise you can imagine. There’s a miniature Bessie! The Doctor wrestling with Davros’ one good hand from Genesis, a Weeping Angel attacking the Tenth Doctor, an open Dalek case Kaled mutant. Cookie jars, light plinths, masks, heads, you name it.

Leading up to the 50th anniversary in 2013, Allen was doing a lot of last-minute prep on TARDIS building, because he had a 50th special group watch party in the Whoseum for the celebration. It was a family affair putting the finishing touches on the police boxes in time for the event.

At that point, after all that, I figured we were done… 

…but no. 

Allen was standing in front of one of the TARDISes, arms folded, a big smile on his face. There were keys hanging in the TARDIS door lock. 

Allen asked “Would you like to go in?” 

Oh dear. 

I stepped up, turned the key, opened the doors, and entered the TARDIS. Remember when I said I was in Heaven before? Yes well, It turns out, that was the lead up to this. At this point, I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

In this fully functional console room, Allen had hooked up music cues and audio sound bites from the Fourth Doctor to correspond with pushing any/all the buttons and controls on the console. It also has a built-in TV screen on one of the sections and a fully operational scanner window that opens and closes. He’s even got an alcove on the side so you can stand back in there and take pics of the whole console room just like the angle you’d see on the show. 

But then there was more. The back door of the console room led to… The Cyber Corridor. A section of curved corridor when you can see most of the different iterations of the natives from Telos and Mondas. From there, we saw some potential space for more things to come in future.

Retiring back into the TARDIS console room, I asked Allen a few questions. I was curious how he entered the world of Who…

“We lived in Chicago in the ’80’s. We had we had decent television, there were only five stations, but we had WTTW, the PBS station. We really wanted the PBS station because that’s where you got educational programming. This Old House, cooking shows, all that stuff. So we also saw British television and every afternoon was Doctor Who. 

“We were already a sci-fi family, my mom liked Star Trek, so we started watching Doctor Who and that was it. I was probably around eight or nine years old when I first started watching, so this was probably about 1980. TV watching back then was a family event, so we watched it as a family every week after they moved the show to Sunday nights.”

Who was his first Doctor?

“Tom Baker, and I remember being very confused when the  first Jon Pertwee episode came on. I didn’t know the character regenerated, all I knew was Baker, so when Pertwee falls out of the TARDIS (early in episode one of Spearhead from Space), I was like… ‘what? What show is this?’”

And his favorite?

“Baker, followed by Pertwee, probably because they were my firsts.”

Any stories that really made an impression on you?

“I’m a very visual person, and I always liked the stories that had the TARDIS (interior) in it. Things like that in my mind became iconic. When they were inside the TARDIS, when a new console room debuted, such as the wooden one in Season 14, or when anything inside changed around, that was amazing to me that the TARDIS could change.

“I was a big fan of the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane. So all of those stories, especially the ones that were an homage to the horror films — Morbius, Frankenstein, The Mummy, etc. We all grew up on those horror movies.”

Do you have a favorite piece from the Whoseum collection?

“I have a couple one-of-a-kind pieces. One is a prototype McGann TARDIS that was a Polly Pocket type thing, so it opens up into his console room. They also made a Dalek one with a little Tom Baker inside, so that was awesome. I started corresponding with someone who made the toys in the ’90s when the internet was just starting to come alive. I asked if they were going to be selling them in America. He said he had some prototypes and asked if I would be interested in taking those, and I said ‘YES I WOULD!’ Ha ha!”

As far as future additions or expansion goes…

“This side’s got the classic series consoles, so I think I want to do some from the new era. I can’t do every variation though, I don’t have room for that.”

Knowing Allen’s appreciation for consoles and console room design in general,  we also touched briefly on the current version in the Disney era, the huge white space for Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor, with its many ramps and paths…

“Yeah, they didn’t really use it to any extent. That’s why I think I like the McGann console rooms much because it was as big or bigger than that, but they used the space. It was a lived in place, where the Doctor could go and do things. I don’t know what you would do all day in the empty, giant, white space.”

We also agreed that it’s that warm, lived-in feel that was very much present in the Capaldi console room as well.

So, after 90 minutes being bathed in the glory of Doctor Who, it was time to go home. The three-hour drive one way might be for the best though. If I lived much closer, the temptation of repeated invites and just play with the consoles all day would be quite overwhelming… Also, I’m older than Allen, so it’s unlikely he could or would adopt me so I could spend weekends there. 

But seriously, this was quite the dream come true for me. I’d pretty much accomplished any life goals I had, but I always thought it would be cool to man the TARDIS console in the console room. But these types of things, even if they existed, would probably only be in the UK. and out of my reach. Until now.

What Allen’s done is nothing short of amazing. His Whoseum experience is just as impressive, perhaps more so than anything I’ve seen displayed across the pond. 

Thank you, Allen.