5 Notable TARDIS Malfunctions (And 1 Time It Wasn't Accidental)
a/n: I own nothing. This is all for fun.
1) Translation
The Doctor was fiddling under the TARDIS console again. His humming was muffled to Ian, who was observing his progress with a healthy dose of both curiosity and skepticism.
"Doctor, face it, you're never going to get the navigation fixed" said Ian, as he heard a loud thud, which couldn't mean anything good.
"Nonsense, my dear boy, nonsense!" came the Doctor's voice from deep within the circuitry. "I've almost got it, all I must do is connect these circuits and it's ready to go."
Apparently finished, the Doctor emerged from his work, white hair seriously mussed up.
"See, Chatterton, it's all right. I know what I'm doing! Hmm!" said the Doctor, as pushed a button on the console.
The TARDIS suddenly swerved and there was a brief pain in the backs of their heads. Barbara and Vicki entered the console room, obviously wondering what was going on. Barbara was doing the talking. Except the Doctor was looking very, very confused and Vicki only seemed to understand half of what was being said. Then the Doctor started speaking unintelligibly to them, and it was obvious he had no idea what was going on. His lips were moving oddly, and the sound that was coming out sounded like a language, but it was strangely musical and oddly precise, perhaps mathematical, like nothing ever heard on Earth.
"Ian, what's going on?" asked Barbara
"Barbara, didn't you notice that we understand everybody on every alien planet and time period we visit? Well they obviously don't speak English. Presumably, the Doctor has some sort of translation device in his ship, like on that one science fiction show from America we saw in that film room." said Ian. "Although what I don't understand is why Vicki doesn't really understand us."
Barbara replied "Oh, it's obvious, isn't it? She's from five hundred years in our future. Do you think we would fully understand the English spoken in the fifteenth century? They were still speaking Middle English!"
The two of them decided to take this opportunity to try and find out how people spoke English in the twenty-fifth century, which turned out to sound vaguely American. Meanwhile, the Doctor watched his babbling companions. He didn't understand what they were saying, but it was clear they were curious about the time differences in their language. So he waited a half-hour before turning the translation circuits on, and explicitly denied doing so when they asked. They didn't need to know.
2) Polarity
Absolutely no warning was given when Ben, Polly, and Jamie were suddenly dumped from their beds to find that they were now on the ceiling. Or rather, the ceiling became the floor. Oddly enough, all the other contents of their rooms continued to stay where they were, even those not fastened to the floor. It was a surreal sight for all three of them.
It took some effort, due to the large distance between the floor/ceiling and the bottom/tops of the doorframes but the three of them managed to make it to the console room, albeit half-dressed. There they found the Doctor, glaring at the now out of reach console, with absolutely nothing to give his small frame a boost.
"What did you do this time?" accused Polly.
"This time it wasn't my fault!" replied the Doctor defensively. "It would appear that the Old Girl's caught a virus, and the gravity flow accidentally reversed polarity. Except only for biological organisms. How curious."
"Since when do machines catch viruses?" asked Ben, thoroughly confused at the concept.
"Since 1986, actually. A computer virus is a self-replicating progr-"
"Forget I asked."
"So how will ye fix us?" asked Jamie, who had no idea what a virus even was, and thus was still focused on the original problem.
"Polly, you need to first press the green button, and then flick the switch immediately to your left!" shouted the Doctor, from the bottom of their human tower.
3) Flipped
"Well this is a new one", said the Doctor, in a much higher voice than he expected. He pulled a mirror out of the pockets on his velvet jacket, and was relieved to see he hadn't accidentally regenerated. No, his facial features remained similar, except he now looked like a middle aged woman rather than a middle aged man, with long curly white hair spilling over his (her?) shoulders. She immediately ran to the wardrobe to find more suitable clothes, as her shoes and trousers had fallen off her much smaller frame.
The Doctor had found a lovely emerald-green velvet dress which fit her perfectly, and emphasized her new figure, complete with matching heels and ruffled knee-socks. She noticed that she made a rather attractive woman, well-built and strong. She was interrupted from her self-admiration by an insistent pounding on the TARDIS doors by an angry sounding woman, who was shouting at him.
"This isn't funny Doctor, what did you do!" came the shout, in a familiar tone of long-suffering impatience. "The power flickered and suddenly all of my men were women, and women were men!"
"Coming, Brigadier!" replied the Doctor, (for who else could it be?) opening the TARDIS doors. She stepped out to see an annoyed looking woman with her arms folded over a much-too-big uniform, a tall blond man stifling giggles while wearing what was unmistakably one of Jo's "groovy" outfits (much too small for him, of course), and a young brunette in sergeant stripes.
"Curious, the malfunction affected far more than just the inside of the TARDIS." said the Doctor.
"Obviously." Replied the Brigadier dryly.
"Well now, should I start calling you Alice?" said the Doctor, obviously highly amused, and unfazed by her own change. "And you Jane, or Joan?" referring to Benton, who blushed, "and Joe with an e, of course" he pointed to the man who was Jo.
"I must say, the three of you make lovely ladies," came a voice from the doorway, as the now-feminized Captain Yates strolled in, obviously finding the whole situation hilarious, rather than embarrassing. Then again, Yates was always a little more liberal than most of the other soldiers.
"Why Doctor, what a lovely dress you're wearing. It suits you well" she said, smirking. At this, Jo was no longer able to contain himself and began rolling on the floor with laughter at their predicament.
"What's so funny, Miss Grant, or is it Mr. Grant?" demanded the Brigadier
Jo quickly composed himself and replied "Oh, it's just that I never imagined the Brigadier trying to figure out bra sizes or putting on makeup, or wearing the latest ladies fashions."
This caused everybody else to break out in laughter at the expense of the now fuming Brigadier.
It took two months, but the Doctor eventually managed to reverse the malfunction, and everybody was their correct gender again. It stopped being awkward for everybody after the first few days, and many of them were starting to get used to their predicament by the time it was fixed. The only one who didn't seem to mind too much was the Doctor, but then again, Time Lords didn't really have any purpose for gender, not for millions of years. To be honest, he sort of liked the feeling of lingerie.
4) Locked
"PERI!" came a shout from down the hall. What could the Doctor be upset about this time? She rounded the corner, but couldn't see him. However, the problem soon became clear when she heard the Doctor's shouts and some loud thumps from inside a closed door.
"Doctor?" asked Peri. "Why are you in there?"
"I'm stuck! The door's locked." he huffed.
"Don't you have a lock pick or something in your coat pockets? I've seen you pull all sorts of stuff from there."
"I tried, but nothing's responding. The TARDIS has special locks which cannot be opened by conventional means. Shame my sonic screwdriver broke. I really ought to make a new one, if I can ever get out." he said. "But if this door suddenly closed and locked, it means all the others did so as well."
Peri thought for a bit. "Well, Doctor, I can help. Remember that you broke the door to the console room last week by accident? So it's no longer there and I can get to the control room!"
"Brilliant, Peri! Why didn't I think of that?
"Alright, Peri, I need you to go to the console room, and do a full system reboot, alright? That's the least complicated method that will get me out of here, and I really don't feel like explaining the complexities of the secondary TARDIS controls. Just turn the blue dial 90 degrees clockwise and pull the lever immediately below that. Go on!" he instructed.
And in no time at all, the Doctor was out of the closet. Although now he had to deal with the problems that accompanied a system reboot.
5) Compressed
This time, nobody noticed but the Doctor, who sensed the TARDIS's telepathic cries for help. She was being forced to be the same size inside as outside, but the constant would be the outside. Meaning that everyone inside would be squished. Frantically, the Doctor ran around the console, madly pushing buttons to prevent this, completely ignoring the questions from his two companions. He couldn't stop it completely, and everybody felt it when they began to shrink.
"Doctor, what's goin' on?" asked Rose. She felt like she was getting lighter and smaller, except the room wasn't getting larger.
"Dimensional collapse." replied the Doctor "Except the outside is fixed."
Jack supplied "Meaning that the inside has to shrink to fit the outside, right?"
"Exactly. The Old Girl hasn't had a malfunction this bad since that one time at UNIT. Don't worry, I'll fix it- eventually." Replied the Doctor, removing his leather jacket and diving underneath the console. "Do me a favor and get me my toolbox from the room with the charred door."
And One Time It Was The TARDIS' Fault
"I don't understand, I thought you said you could fly this thing!"
"I can. The TARDIS just simply won't go there!"
"No wonder we can't get to Heathrow."