There is a distinct sound that often proceeds the arrival of Doctor Who's titular hero, the whirling, creaking, and groaning of the slowly appearing TARDIS. Although this small blue box holds many surprises fans now know one more: it has a troubling dark reflection.
The Time And Relative Dimensions In Space aka TARDIS is the preferred method of travel for the entity known as the Doctor, ever since their First Incarnation stole it from Gallifrey centuries before the modern era. These ships were the true secret power of the Time Lords, as they allowed them to travel to any point in time and space, but a TARDIS is more than just a mode of transportation. The Doctor's vessel has a chameleon circuit to allow it to blend in with its surroundings — though it's broken and stuck in the shape of a police box. It also has an extensive database of happenings across time and space, a seemingly independent personality and persona, and of course plenty of space as it is famously "bigger on the inside."
However, that last piece of technology — known as dimensional transcendentalism — could also work in reverse, as shown in the BBC's Doctor Who: Origins #4 by Jody Ho and Roberta Ingranata. In the issue, readers are shown a Gallifrey prison where the jail cells are smaller on the inside, a dark mirror of their spacious time ships. This reveals the true depths of cruelty that the Time Lords possess.
The Time Lords Created The Dark Opposite Of The TARDIS
The First Doctor explained how the TARDIS's interior actually worked. The TARDIS is not actually a box, but an entrance to a fourth-dimensional space. When someone enters they actually experience a reversal of time acceleration which moves them into this possibly infinite new space. The exterior of the box is irrelevant as it does not limit the dimensional space inside it. While that's a truly miraculous piece of Time Lord technology, it also means that creating a fourth dimension that's smaller than the outside exterior is also possible, though in this latter case it seems absolutely unnecessary.
If the Time Lords are capable of creating infinite spaces within smaller exteriors then there is no utility to making a space smaller than it appears. In the end, it's nothing more than a horrifying punishment inflicted upon the prisoners of Gallifrey. The Time Lords have often tried to portray themselves as wise and godlike guardians of time and space, but the existence of these jail cells put the lie to the Doctor's people. Using the technology of the TARDIS to torture their prisoners only proves that much like the prisons themselves, Doctor Who's Time Lords have hearts that are just as "smaller on the inside."
