The Doctor Who Episodes Exclusive To Phones...

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]And before this video begins, I would just like to give an extra special thank you to my Asbantium level patron Fowl and Cortez. Thank you for your support.

[00:00:12]We're currently in the middle of Doctor Who series 2's 20th anniversary. Yes, it's been 20 whole years since the 10th Doctor and Rose became the definitive ship for a whole generation. Of course, series 2 is very much a beloved and widely appreciated series. There are so many stellar episodes, locations, characters, and moments. Hell, I recently made a whole video looking at the legacy and impact of the series.

[00:00:38]Something I didn't touch upon in that video is something completely unique to series 2. An idea that was very much ahead of its time and something a lot of people don't even know about because of how it was released. I'm talking about Tardis. The minis prequels released to tie into every single episode of series 2, yet now only live as potato quality oddities you might stumble across online. Despite some of them actually filling in crucial gaps within narratives. So, 20 years after their short-lived lifespan, let's take a look at these Tardis, why they were created, what they brought to the table, their lasting legacy, and of course, question whether they'll ever even see the light of day in a quality better than a deep fried reposted gift.

[00:01:22]>> For adventures you won't see on TV, text TARDIS to 810 for your weekly Tardis.

[00:01:29]>> Doctor Who series 1 was a runaway success, as we all very well know. The show almost instantly recaptured the success it had enjoyed in the 20th century, but this time around the world was more digital and connected with a lot of new opportunities. This landscape was dubbed new media by many people, referring to ondemand interactive and digital content available online and through devices like mobile phones and TV features like BBC Red Button. Given all of these opportunities, producer Julie Gardner was eager to see how Doctor Who could use new media to further appeal to children and teenagers. The show had already capitalized on its website capabilities with a lot of fictional tie-in sites for episodes like Aliens of London and Dalek. So, the next step was obviously to further explore things with more exclusive content akin to episodes themselves. The first such foray into such content was the interactive specially filmed episode Attack of the Gras. Available immediately after the Christmas invasion through the red button and allowing the audience to help the Tempth Doctor catch the titular monster by solving basic puzzles. It was fun and exciting, something very new and suitably immersive for the young viewers. It even had a good and bad ending, helping the immersion all the more by making your choices matter.

[00:02:47]Well, at least in the same way as Telltale Games pretend they do.

[00:02:53]Attack of the Gras may be one thing, but it was commissioned alongside another contribution towards the BBC's push into new media, that being vortex, or as they would be dubbed later, Tardis. According to producer Joe Pierce, they were designed as a treat for the audience and as a testing ground for mobile television. For each episode of series 2, there was an accompanying short clip released for mobile phones and online.

[00:03:19]All you had to do was text or visit the website. These took all sorts of forms like in universe adverts, prequels with unique information or exclusive scenes set during the middle of said episodes.

[00:03:30]For example, New Earth's Tardis advertised the hospital and its services. School reunions had Mickey doing his research before calling the doctor and Rose to the school. Fear Hers was a crime watch style show investigating the disappearing children.

[00:03:43]Impossible Planet saw the initial mission briefing and the Idiots Lantern saw old granny over here getting her face sucked. Each short contributed this little extra flourish to the episode it was tied to. And in a neat little touch, the opening time vortex was tailored for the setting being blue if it was the past or red if it was the future or the present. Maybe, you know, that's what caused the whole misinformation about David Tenants Converses or Mattsmith's bow tie. Despite being only a minute long, the Tardis were a brilliant idea.

[00:04:12]Such a rich and immersive format. There really is so much variety there.

[00:04:16]Something the lead writer talked about in Gary Russell's Doctor Who the Inside Story, saying, "We wanted a lot of variety." So, you'd never be able to predict what you'd be getting on your phone. And the tone could be quite different to that of the actual episode just to spice things up and not be formulaic. And this is absolutely true.

[00:04:32]Each Tardis episode is completely different. like the very strict traditional prequel of Girl in the Fireplace, showing how the ship's crew died and how the clock cracked, which you know is very different to Doomsday's state of emergency news broadcast in the middle of the crisis. Episodes like the latter really help flesh out the world of Doctor Who, giving us these glimpses at how the adventures affect the general public, using the extra time and standalone nature to contribute something very new. It very much feels like a neat bonus extra, a little treat for extra committed fans. Juicer Judy Gardner had actually been inspired by Pixar films and how they came with short films at the beginning like the award-winning Jerry's Game and Fuller of Birds. As she's quoted in the inside story, you feel like you're part of this world and that they really care about you. And I think doing the Tardis, doing the websites, doing all the things that tie in with the show, you can really immerse yourself in additional Doctor Who, but it's being done in a coherent way that benefits the actual episodes.

[00:05:29]And this is the perfect way to approach the Tardisos. add so much to the episodes, but they're not ultra necessary. It's not like an ARG where you absolutely need to see them to complete the puzzle. In fact, some, like the Satan Pit Stardode, don't actually make much sense because it was based on an ultimately scrapped line about crew members dying in the command center with the Tardis showing crew member Curts becoming possessed and according to the time travelers Almanac killing his colleague Chenner. So, even though it's a cool Tardisode, it's basically none canon. So, yes, the Tardis were never essential viewing, but if you do see them, they're just a really fun bonus to watch and enjoy. The extra tie-ins just for the love of the game and to embrace the eagerness of the community to watch more Doctor Who. And we could really do with more stuff like that, even 20 years later. Despite the inventive nature and appeal of the Tardis episodes, how easily they tie in and hype up the episodes they're associated with, they only exist as part of series 2. Despite the industry-wide push towards multimedia projects and bonus features, they were cancelled and eventually forgotten about by the majority of fans.

[00:06:34]Again, according to Joe Pierce, although we are overjoyed by the success of the Tardis, mobile television is still very much in its infancy. Indeed, fans appreciated the bonus material, but the format in general was very niche. After all, not only did you have to already be a Doctor Who fan, but you had to have a mobile phone, which, you know, a lot of children back then weren't allowed, and for it to even be capable of playing video, which again wasn't always possible. So, in a landscape so primitive compared to our modern luxuries, there just wasn't enough of an audience yet for the Tardis, regardless of their quality and potential. Cuz even if they were only a minute long, they were still fully mounted productions that would still have a budget. Even if it was a small one, like, you know, that Impossible Planet one being filmed in the BBC canteen, there just wasn't enough of an audience or a financial upside, I guess. So, naturally, they were cancelled. I definitely think they were massively ahead of their time, though. With how significantly online the world has become, there is a huge market for exclusive material for a ravenous community to dig into. Doctor Who now has a very significant social media presence, having released exclusive shows like the Fan Show or the Huniverse Show. Something like the Tardis would have a big appeal as online tie-ins promoting episodes, especially since it would be a lot more accessible and easily preserved than the ones from 2006.

[00:07:55]A big problem with the Tardis is how they were released because they were almost so ahead of their time that they could have easily have become lost media if they weren't preserved in all their pixelated, blurry, and borderline unwatchable fashion. Cuz when I say they were made for mobile phones, I don't mean smartphones like iPhones or Google Pixels. No, they were released on phones like this. Yeah, people actually used to use these. They weren't just something for breaking bad characters to snap in half after every phone call scene. The mid200s were a fascinating frontier of possibilities for phones. This was long before apps, elaborate games, or front cameras. Hell, you didn't even get individual letters on the keyboard, which is why everything was shortened so much. You know, like BRB, TBH, U, the letter U. If you still do that nowadays, you shouldn't. We had to suffer that kind of typing so that you could have your digital keyboards and your spell check and your predictive texting. You know, we had to fight that fight and you come along and you wear like the U as it just the slightest thing. No, type properly. You have the means now. You have no excuse. Anyway, as I was saying, mass market consumerfriendly mobile phones were so exciting and full of new possibilities. You too could customize your ringtone with Crazy Frog or Bluetooth transfer endobs playing with fire to your friend at school. But even though Doctor Who was eager to exploit this new landscape, they were almost limited by the constraints of the time.

[00:09:28]Phones and online video at the time was super low quality. So the Tardis were optimized to be able to be downloaded quickly and thus all these Tardis look abysmally bad. And even if they were filmed in the standard 480p quality like the regular episodes, the only publicly available copies of the Tarles are 144p because of the technology at the time.

[00:09:47]The BBC has actually never released the Talis on any Doctor Who box sets. And due to multiple revisions and overhauls of the Doctor Who website, they're not even officially available at all anymore. They're not lost media, of course, because they are out there and they're no doubt also retained within BBC archives, but thanks to the time they were released, all we get to see is a fuzzy mess.

[00:10:10]Sorry, hold on a second.

[00:10:14]Yo, what's up, boy? Subscribe to the Harbo W's YouTube channel. You use YouTube, it will never go anywhere, mate. Google video is where it's at, bro. Wicked. Anyway, yeah. Yeah, we'll hop on Runescape later. Yeah. Yeah, bro.

[00:10:28]Just Just message me on MySpace. Yeah.

[00:10:31]Save. See you later. And you can tell me about that proper penting you met the other night. Yeah. Yeah. See you, bro.

[00:10:38]God, I love being in 2006. Can't wait to invest in Northern Rock.

[00:10:44]The Tardis lived and died a long time ago, but that doesn't mean they didn't have a legacy. In fact, they actually paved the way for a lot of Doctor Multimedia success. They were obviously experimental and a bold release strategy, but they were far from the last digital exclusive Doctor Who stories. 2008 saw Music of the Spheres created for BBC Proms and then released online ahead of its debut on BBC 1. Then much more like the Tardis, series 6 and 7, no, had multiple prequels and minos released online very much in the same vein as I suggested a minute ago. A way to hype up the episodes and tease them ahead of broadcast. Stories like The Impossible Astronaut, Curse of the Black Spot, Close in Time, Asylum of the Daleks, A Town Called Mercy, Name of the Doctor, and even as late as series 9, The Magicians Apprentice, all had prequels released online ahead of their respective episodes. And you know, Day of the Doctor had multiple. And thankfully, these are all in high quality and were released on Home Media, too, in box sets. But wait, there's more. These box sets sometimes had their own minis and episode tie-ins, providing a solid feeling of exclusive value added material. Despite the apparent failure of Tardis, Gardener's vision of fun, exclusive bonus content was still eventually realized. And you know, actually years ago, I made a whole video about the benefits and appeal of these kinds of minis in general. So, I recommend going and watching that for a deeper dive. But this kind of content is clearly thanks to Tardis being attempted to begin with. And then, you know, of course, there was all the lockdown content made and released online during the COVID pandemic, bringing the community together with all sorts of exclusive material tying into existing stories. Some actually incredibly similar to Tardis, showing just how ahead of time they truly were.

[00:12:29]On the 30th of March 2006, exactly 20 years to the day I'm writing this video, which is kind of crazy, the BBC announced Tardis as a way to offer the audience an exclusive insight into what's going on in the Doctor Who universe that week. And as BBC director of television Janna Bennett claimed, what better way of traveling with the time lord than to have a TARDIS come to you on your phone or PC? Considering the landscape of new media at the time, this is honestly surprisingly forward thinking from the BBC, which you know is often criticized for being behind the times or late to embrace innovation and industry trends. But all those years ago, the BBC and Doctor Who production team saw just how much potential there was in making exclusive digital material to make the show a truly multimedia franchise spanning multiple different platforms with a unique and exclusive material. Nowadays, that's almost standard practice for staying relevant between episodes or between seasons of a show. You know that the boys does it all the time with the the VA stuff, even if you know the boy sucks now. Minos can achieve so much. Look no further than Breaking Bad and Better Call Susive online material or for a very more recent example, smiling friends's shorts. These are all chances to escape the usual traditions or conventions of the television format, playing with different techniques and run times and allowing you to play more within the universe of the show itself. Some of the titles act like traditional mini Doctor episodes, but some of them showcase novel and fun ways of making the show's world feel more lived in and realistic.

[00:13:59]Unfortunately, for once, the BBC was just too early to try experimenting with such things. Even just a couple of years after the Tardisos were cancelled, video sharing and mobile phones drastically snowboard in quality and new media began to take shape as we know it now. 2006 was simply too soon. And now we can't even enjoy these titans on any kind of official or highquality capacity. And thus they faded into obscurity. Now nothing more than a brief piece of trivia basically rather than being celebrated as a pioneering effort to broaden the appeal and platform of Doctor Who, forming the foundation of its online content that would finally thrive many years later.

[00:14:38]So 20 years later, let's pour out a bottle of Wicked and say a big thank you to Tardis. One day may you return to us shrouded in glory, but until then, Godspeed. And on that note, I hope you enjoyed this video. Did you ever download the Tardis back in the day?

[00:14:55]What Tardisesque tie-ins would you make for other more recent Yuhoo episodes?

[00:14:59]Let me know in the comments. Thank you all very much for watching. And as always, I'll see you in the next one.

[00:15:05]Bye-bye.

[00:15:07]And I'd just like to give a big thank you to my Asbanim level patron, Valon Cortez, my diamond level patron, Valar, and my gold level patrons, Daniel Shiller and Tom H. Thank you all so much for your support.