Obviously they can take many forms due to disguise, but what is the true form of a Tardis?

A Police Box.

Obviously it's not lol but I can't imagine the TARDIS exterior as anything other than a blue phone box.

Inside or outside?

I believe it is just a grey box with a door that slides open. you can see one at the end of War Games when Jamie and Zoe are returned to their timezone!

At least grey for all we know.

I imagine the outside wouldn't look like anything more than a door, after all it's just a dimensional aperture.

Although the Master's looks like a white dome in The Claws of Axos. Then again, his is a more advanced model.

I'm pretty sure I read that they are grown from a crystalline source - so presumably it would be a crystal.

I'll try to find a source for that, though.

I reckon the true form is nothing like what we see on screen, such as a box or a dome, instead I reckon it's something a lot more organic. In a deleted scene from Journey's End The Doctor gives 10.5 a chunk of the coral looking stuff from the interior of the Tardis so he can grow his own new Tardis (which incidentally would prove an interesting option for a multi-doctor story). I think the true form of a Tardis is more along these lines.

Wasn't that a 'Sidrat' rather than a Tardis?
Long time since I watched it but I thought the War Chief could only build limited function/lifespan Sidrats...

I wish the Doctor would get the chameleon circuit working again. The 6th Doctor did it in Attack of the Cybermen and it was hilarious waiting to see the disguises the Tardis came up with. It turned into a pipe organ and a Welsh dresser among other things.
It provided effortless humour.

I think we saw it once. Original series.

It was an oval kind of thing. Smooth on the outside.

Yes?

I think you may be thinking about the Transmat Booth in Mawldryn Undead!?!

See tingramretro's previous post. Off the top of my head, I don't recall witnessing a Tardis (I still want to type TARDIS!) in its natural state at any other time.

I think - in the non-canonical novels - they might have been nondescript white boxes but I'm not certain of that.

Correct-but we did see a genuine TARDIS in its natural state in the last episode, when the Doctor was returned to Gallifrey. It was identical to the SIDRATs (funny, that...).

I'm not aware of any 'non canonical novels', only the perfectly legitimate ones. But yes, they were described that way (although the natural form of one TARDIS turned out to be a rather grumpy young lady named Compassion).

I believe Frazer Hines said on the War games commentary that the boxes was Green.

My apologies.


Marie from "Alien Bodies" was a Type 103, stuck in the form of a 1960s police woman.

I'd forgotten her. There don't appear to be any male TARDISes, do there? I wonder why not.

I don't have any facts to hand but wasn't there one in "The Taking of Planet 5" or something?

I think you're right but I'm sure someone (novel or audio) metioned it. Maybe it was just a passing mention???

Which sex is Iris's bus?

Ah well, all snooker balls are also grey on a black and white telly

Would never know. Never had a black and white TV

I'm clearly showing my age

Frightened to ask this, but how does one enter Marie?

I'd have to check but it's not ringing any bells. As for Iris's bus, I was never convinced it was a genuine TARDIS. Its inside was the same size as its outside...