Author: Eric Fritzius
February 23, 2018
(An ongoing writing project in which I catalog and quantify my extensive TARDIS collection.)
The newest TARDIS in my collection is also one of (though not the) smallest. It’s one of three keychain TARDI that I now own and is one of my favorite among the three. (You can actually see all three, plus another, in the accompanying image, but we’ll get to the others later.)
These “shotglass” TARDI are so called by me because each of them could fit into a standard shot glass (though not any of the standard shot glasses that I happen to own, which are all either opaque or super tall and narrow–hence their inclusion atop a stack of CDs for scale).
The new TARDIS keychain is one made by Underground Toys. It’s of the Matt Smith/Peter Capaldi TARDIS model. It’s a hollow shell made from a very light weight plastic, but the sculpting on it is really nice. No woodgrain, but I’m not complaining because it just looks like a tiny replica of the TARDIS USB hub sculpt. Alternately, you could use it as the miniature TARDIS that appeared in the great episode “Flatline” from two seasons back, cause it’s about the correct scale when compared with one of the Flight Control TARDIS models. (Though you’d probably have to use it on the Matt Smith FC TARDIS, cause the blacked out windows won’t look right otherwise.) The keychain model is beautifully made, though.
As far as its ability to be used as an actual keychain, though, I don’t know that I could recommend it for use in that capacity. I am pretty sure the light and airy nature of this model would never be able to stand up to the kind of beating it would take in my pocket. (The wife uses a pewter Serenity keychain that has already started to lose its fine detail. And she only has, like, one key. This plastic TARDIS wouldn’t last a week with all my keys.) Since I’ll never use it as a keychain, I pulled the chain off it as soon as I got it out of the package, leaving a small metal ring located just behind the roof lamp which I’ll eventually snip off. I’d like to give it four full TARDi, or maybe even 4.5, cause it really does look nice. However, because I think it would truly suck when in use as its labeled function, I’m going to go 3.5.