The BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who is known for the madcap adventures of its unnamed title character, a humanoid extraterrestrial Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. With the ability to travel within both time and space, the Doctor and his every-changing assortment of human companions explore the past, present, and future of not only Earth but other planets, as well as the universe in general and the end of time itself.
Although each episode of Doctor Who can shift from serious drama to screwball comedy, alternative history to factual, philosophical musings to warnings about the future, one element has remained the same since the series premiered over sixty years ago – the use of science as the driving force of each narrative.
In March 2025, the traveling exhibit Doctor Who Worlds of Wonder: Where Science Meets Fiction made its North American premier at the Comic-Con Museum in San Diego after appearances in Liverpool, Edinburgh, and New Zealand. Although originally scheduled to end its California stay in March 2026, its run was extended until January 2027, allowing even more fans to get a better understanding of the science behind the science fiction of the popular British series.
“Science has been part of Doctor Who’s DNA since the first episode aired in 1963,” Steven Swaby, curator of the exhibit, explained on Spectrum News. “Connecting the threads that inspired Doctor Who’s inception in the 1960s with new advances in modern-day science and technology, such as space exploration and global warming, the exhibit reflects how scientific research and understanding have changed throughout time, and how this continues to inspire the show today.”
The entrance to Doctor Who Worlds of Wonder features costumes worn by fifteen different Doctors who have appeared in the series – as well as the “War Doctor” and the “Fugitive Doctor” – and a replica of the TARDIS control console. TARDIS stands for “Time and Relative Dimension in Space” and is used by the main character to make their interdimensional travels. The device has the appearance of an old 1960s British police box but contains a broken “chameleon circuit” that at one time allowed the TARDIS to appear in different forms and enabled it to blend in undetected with its surrounding.
Although shapeshifting an object into a different form is technologically impossible at this time, various species have the ability to blend into their environment based on their existing shapes and colors. Humans have likewise developed cloaking technology that enables aircraft and other objects to appear “invisible” to both radar and the human eye by using a polymer skin to change their reflectiveness.
As for the TARDIS’ ability to dematerialize in one place and time, then reappear in an entirely different one, Doctor Who Worlds of Wonder offers two possibilities. The first is teleportation, which is likewise currently impossible, especially for the human body. The second, however, is partially feasible, at least when it comes to information – quantum teleportation. Scientists, for instance, are already able to use photon wave-particles to send data from one computer chip to another without the two chips being physically linked.
The TARDIS is also famously “bigger on the inside than it is on the outside,” and the exhibit speculates that it uses tesseracts – also known as hypercubes – to add a fourth dimension to the standard three dimensions of length, width, and height to give it the larger internal appearance.
Another theory suggests that the TARDIS is actually a series of wormhole portals – tunnels that connect two different points of spacetime. “The TARDIS’ doorway is one portal, but each interior doorway could also have its own wormhole,” the exhibit explains. “That’s why it’s able to contain all those rooms: they’re actually somewhere else.”
In addition to the TARDIS, the Doctor also regularly relies on a sonic screwdriver to do everything from scan an object to hack a computer. It can even be used as a weapon, sending out sonic blasts to keep an enemy at bay. The ability to use soundwaves is already technologically feasible and regularly used in the industrial and manufacturing industries to alter materials and even cut holes in metal, as well as within the medical field to assist with diagnosis and the treatment of diseases.
After exploring the TARDIS and the various sonic screwdrivers that the Doctor has used through the years, Doctor Who Worlds of Wonder is divided into sections that offer further insight into the connections between the BBC series and science, including “Cosmic Curiosities” – which examines what it takes to survive in outer space – and “Bioscience Frontiers,” which shines the spotlight on the biodiversity of Earth.
After exploring life on our home world, visitors enter “The Monster Vault” and come face-to-face with lifeforms from other planets, including Weeping Angels, Cybermen, Martian Ice Warriors, and Daleks.
In “Welcome to the Lab,” meanwhile, the Face of Boa and the thinly stretched Lady Cassandra – the last pure human – are on display and connect with real-world research into extending life. Cloning, DNA, cybernetic medicine, and the biological makeup of the Doctor (who has two hearts) are examined as well.
The TARDIS. Sonic screwdrivers. Cyborgs. The Sisters of Plenitude. The Silence. K9, the robotic dog. Sontarans. Even a spacesuit from the fifty-first century. Suffice it to say that there are very few elements of Doctor Who that are not explored within the confines of Worlds of Wonder. More importantly, the exhibit not only highlights the science of the series but offers a better understanding and appreciation of the show itself.
“If you’re into science, it’s awesome,” Rita Vandergaw, former executive director of the Comic-Con Museum, told Spectrum News in July 2025 regarding Doctor Who Worlds of Wonder. “If you’re into monsters, it’s awesome. If you’re into science/sci-fi and traveling through space, you can’t beat it. So you really have to look at it as an adventure.”
The same could be said of the BBC series itself.
Anthony Letizia