The TARDIS (; "Time And Relative Dimension In Space") is a time machine and spacecraft that appears in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its various spin-offs.
The TV show Doctor Who mainly features a single TARDIS used by the central character the Doctor. However, in the series, other TARDISes are sometimes seen or used. TARDISes are built with a chameleon circuit, a type of technology that changes the exterior form of the ship to blend into the environment of whatever time or place it lands in. The Doctor's TARDIS always resembles a 1960s London police box (which were very common at the time), owing to a malfunction in the chameleon circuit after the events of An Unearthly Child, the pilot episode of the show (although it was temporally repaired in Attack of the Cybermen, which ends with it returning to the form of a police box). However, in the revived series (since 2005), it has been stated that despite the broken chameleon circuit, the TARDIS is able to generate a "perception filter", so that it is ignored by anyone not already aware of its presence. The Doctor had also stopped trying to repair the circuit around that time as he had become fond of its appearance. The other TARDISes that appear in the series have chameleon circuits that are fully functional. While the exterior is of limited size, the TARDIS is famously "bigger on the inside", with the interior being a whole separate dimension containing an infinite number of rooms, corridors and storage spaces, which can all change their appearances. Once the Doctor claimed that there was a swimming pool, and we sometimes see a changing room. The Doctor once claimed "the weight of the TARDIS would bring down the planet!" The TARDIS also has the ability to translate various languages to English. Whilst every TARDIS has a consciousness of sorts, the Doctor's TARDIS is notable in that it has a distinct personality. While it is unable to conventionally communicate with living beings, the Doctor is shown to have conversations with the ship on several occasions. It is also able to act independently of the Doctor, often taking him to places it deems he needs to be rather than he wants to be, and refusing to carry out his instructions if it considers them "wrong".
Doctor Who has become so much a part of British popular culture that the shape of the police box has become associated with the TARDIS rather than with its real-world inspiration. The name TARDIS is a registered trademark of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The police box design has also been registered as a trademark by the BBC, despite the design having been created by the Metropolitan Police.
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