Is it Control Room or Console Room?

[SiHart]

This is a particularly geeky question, so if no-one wants to reply I quite understand...

So... is the room with the control console in it the Control Room or the Console room? You see I was trying to work this out the other day (I'm writing TARDIS stuff at the moment for my next PS script). I've always thought of the main room as the Control Room, but I realise it's also been called the console room.

So which do you think it is? When did it change between the two?

Si xx

[Dino]

I'd say control room?
Is there evidence to the contrary?

[Andrew Curnow]

I think it's generally referred to as 'the control room' in the Target books, but then from "Castrovalva" on it's referred to on TV as 'the console room' as though that's its official title. Up to that point, I don't really recall ever referring to it by a name.

[Dino]

Was it called anything in "The Masque of Mandragora"?

[Dirk Gently]

I think it is referred to by both names but I personally prefer Console Room.
Any old spaceship can have a control room but the TARDIS has a Console Room.

[Si Hunt]

Was it called anything in "The Masque of Mandragora"?

Well the wooden version was introduced as "The secondary control room" so by inference, that makes the original the first control room.

There was a discussion about this on the RT not long ago. It was only the JNT era that quietly snuck into lore the name "console room", just like it never had a "time rota" before then (it's actually an extremely fanwanky reference to something that was mentioned years before - in "The Web Planet" or something - and as usual they got it wrong, as on that occasion it didn't even refer to the central column). Those of us that grew up in the eighties just assumed it had always been that way.

But, they, the eighties were a third of the history of the show and it was rarely explicitly referred to by another name before then, so that makes it the "console room" in my eyes.

Si.

[Andrew Curnow]

But, they, the eighties were a third of the history of the show

Very true, Si. Sometimes people seem to sort of dismiss anything new brought in during the JN-T era, as if somehow they had less right to make stuff up in the 80s.

[shada pavlova]

(it's actually an extremely fanwanky reference to something that was mentioned years before - in "The Web Planet" or something

I thought it was "The Chase"?

[Philipnet]

Well, I call it the console room.

That might have been an eighties 'invention', but then I am a child of the eighties

[Dave Tudor]

I'm a child of the eighties, also, and I did think of it as the console room for a long time, but now I prefer the control room - it may sound rather antiquated, but it suggests that that's what the room is for, to control the whole ship, rather than just hosuing that funny six-sided flight desk.

[SiHart]

I like control room best. I think it's the Target Book factor at work.

I think Console Room is a Bidmeadism- I'm sure you don't hear it before Season 18.

Si xx

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

it's console room because.................err...........because that's what I've always called it!!!

[Si Hunt]

I thought it was "The Chase"?

You're probably right!

Si.

[Rob McCow]

It seems appropriate that a time machine should have a Secondary Control Room. That's where they control all the seconds from, right?

OK. The main room in the TARDIS typically has four things in it - the scanner, the console, the doors and a hat stand. The controls for the TARDIS are built into the console.

It's not 'The Scanner Room' because the scanner is part of the main control set.
It's not 'The Doors Room' because Jim Morrison has never been there (ho ho ho).
Therefore, I can conclusively say that it's called 'The Hat Stand Room'.

[Lord President]

It's both!

[Pip Madeley]

The console room for me. Control room doesn't quite sound right, but then I never read the Targets much.

[Larry]

well i've always assumed it has been called the consol room so that's what it is for me.