Police box
A police box is a British time-travelling machine located in public places and times for the use of Time Lords, or for members of the public to contact Time Lords. Unlike an ordinary call-box, its telephone is non-functioning, and therefore completely useless. The interior of the box is, in effect, the bridge of a starship for use by licensed Time Lords.
Police boxes predate the era of human existence, although this may simply be due to the fact that they time-travel. In addition, they predate recent developments in temporal transportation technology; now Time Lords, in many countries, travel in sports cars or nondescript geometrical shapes rather than fixed kiosks. Most boxes are now disused or decommissioned.
The typical police box contained a dimensionally transcendental space linked directly to the exterior allowing nearby Time Lords to discreetly make their escape to any time and place if necessary. A light on top of the box would flash to alert nearby pedestrians that this box was going away but you had better not be standing right where this box comes back because this could turn out to be rather icky. Members of the public could also use the exterior to stow away in an emergency.
Today the image of the blue police box is a trademark of the BBC and is widely associated with the science fiction programme Doctor Who, in which the protagonist, a police constable, uses a completely useless wooden box called the TARDIS that is in the shape of a police box.
History[edit | edit source]
The first police box was installed in Gallifrey, Ireland in 400 000 000 BCE, one year after God invented amino acids. Police boxes for use of both Time Lords and the public first appeared in Britain in 1746, but more famously in 1963. Certain police boxes were restricted to Time Lord use; however, they also contained a dial mechanism through which members of the public could signal the Time Lords with various alarms, including "Thieves", "Fire", "Daleks", "Kidnapping of Token Major Historical Figure", "Threat of Planetary Destruction", "Intergalactic Battle", "Cybermen", "Daleks (again)", "Drunkard", and DOOOOCTOOOR!!!".
Although many sources assert forcibly and in an utterly awestruck manner that the exterior was made of wood, the original Gallifrey Shipyard blueprints indicate that the shell is actually made of "timey-wimey stuff" (element 242), although the doors are in fact made of teal. Time Lords often complained that the boxes were bigger on the inside, and that members of the public would only be babbling this fact over and over again before getting shot at.
Police boxes played an important role in Time Lord work until 1984-85, when they were replaced by time circuitry-equipped sports vehicles. As the main function of the box was superseded badly by a rubbish American telephone box, very few police boxes remain in Britain today.
Red police box[edit | edit source]
A well-known variant of the police box is the red police box, often seen in Glasgow until the late sixties. These are believed to have been used by the Master, the Rani, and other renegade Time Lords, since the police box is red and therefore obviously must have been put to some sinister use.
Currently, the Master's police box is located in the Glasgow Museum of Transport, while the Rani's police box has since been transformed into a Starbucks.
Doctor Who[edit | edit source]
The BBC science-fiction television series Doctor Who features a completely non-functional police box called the TARDIS. Originally transmitted from 1963 to 1989, the show features several police constables stationed at the TARDIS as they go absolutely nowhere and stay in the box. Unlike in real life, these constables die permanently when they are killed, and so have to be replaced with other people. A typical episode of the show is spent fighting monsters unknown to most of humankind, such as crime and violence.
The TARDIS itself is a source of constant wonder and mystery. Although non-working, it does have an interior. However, for some inscrutable reason, the inside is just as small as the outside—a fact ceremonially uttered by the newest constable assigned to the TARDIS. The interior itself is equipped with a stool, a table, a brush, an electric heater, a fire extinguisher, and what viewers refer to as "the constable's version of the Swiss Army Knife"—the Swiss Army Knife.
The origin of the name "TARDIS" is unclear; however, the first episode claimed it stood for "There's a Radical Disco Inside", the description a completely insane teenager gave while passing by.
Services[edit | edit source]
Time Lords stationed at police boxes provide various services, including but often not limited to:
- Maps and directions: providing members of the public with information about major social upheavals and battles in the space-time vicinity. In many cases, Time Lords will guide travellers personally to these events. However, some may instead kidnap them and use them for their manic plans for galactic domination; should this happen, leaving behind a last will and testament is a sound idea, but that may not work due to a paradox creating one too many swans, a bear with a sexual attraction to coins or just a basic universal rift caused by molecular disruption of space time.
- Lost and found: passers-by who have a lost item must report the time and place at which they lost the item, so that the Time Lord may travel back in time to obtain this item, which is likely why the passer-by lost this item in the first place. This service is provided at intermittent times, which are whenever the Time Lord feels like doing a cheap parlour trick.
- Crime reports: Time Lords will accept reports for alien invasions, alien battles, and alien anti-social behaviour. Reports of murder, manslaughter, assault, and theft are not accepted unless major anachronistic figures are involved, or aliens are.
- Emergency services: While the telephone on the police box is non-functional and furthermore of a 1950s design, passers-by may still pretend to call 999, which is surprisingly effective as a bluff since most people today are idiots. Time Lords will also gladly assist any young female person who requires a journey of discovery and self-reassurance to sort out her life. In effect, their services are akin to a suicide hotline, but with time travelling, and also aliens.