Time - Space Visualiser A Time - Space Visualiser ( also known as a Space - Time Visualiser or Time Television ) was a device that allowed the operator to view any event in history . It was based on Venderman ' s Law . ( PROSE : " The Chase " ) History . The origins of the Visualisers were unknown to the Doctor . One ended up in the Space Museum of the Morok Empire and was given to the First Doctor by Tor as a souvenir after helping to defeat the Morok s . ( TV : " The Space Museum " ) After getting the Visualiser working , the Doctor and his companions used it to observe Queen Elizabeth I and Francis Bacon meeting with William Shakespeare , Abraham Lincoln delivering his Gettysburg Address and the Beatles performing " Ticket to Ride " . The Visualiser later showed them the Dalek s launching their time machine on a mission to exterminate them , which let them buy some time . ( TV : " The Chase " ) The Visualiser had an instruction manual . ( AUDIO : " The Doctor ' s Tale " ) The Third Doctor later used the Visualiser to trace the origin of an alien spaceship fragment to the island of Salutua in 1934 . He used the same experiment to try and create a time bridge to that year in an attempt to bypass his exile , but this was only possible due to the unique nature of the omicron radiation contaminating the fragment . The time bridge project was abandoned after his trip to Salutua nearly had disastrous consequences for history . ( PROSE : " The Eye of the Giant " ) With the Visualiser returned to its original purpose , the Doctor kept it as late as his eleventh incarnation where he used it to observe the timeline after he repaired the Dalek s ' alterations using the Eye of Time . ( GAME : " City of the Daleks " ) The Sixth Doctor watched the 2006 cricket Test Match between Australia and South Africa shortly after defeating Davros and the Daleks at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815 . Flip Jackson described it as a " manky old thing " and criticised it for being in black and white . ( AUDIO : " The Fourth Wall " ) Shortly before arriving on Olleril , Bernice Summerfield watched something funny on the Visualiser . ( PROSE : " Prelude Tragedy Day " ) While his granddaughter Susan Campbell and great - grandson Alex Campbell were celebrating Christmas in the TARDIS with him and Lucie Miller , the Eighth Doctor wanted to watch the Queen Elizabeth II ' s 1953 Christmas speech using the Visualiser as that was a " great year . " ( AUDIO : " Relative Dimensions " ) The Sixth Doctor once told Evelyn Smythe that the Time Lord s had Time - Space Visualisers which they used to spy on him . ( AUDIO : " The 100 Days of the Doctor " ) The Daleks used a similar device , the Visualiser , which Amy Pond called a " Librarian Dalek " . ( GAME : " City of the Daleks " ) Iris Wildthyme had a similar device , a time - space kinetograph . ( PROSE : " Beguine " ) Functions . The Visualiser could " tune in " to events all over the universe in many time eras . The First Doctor said that the Visualiser converted " neutron s of light energy into electrical impulses " and that it could only show events in the past . ( TV : " The Chase " ) However , Faction Paradox used a Time - Space Visualiser ( presumably a different model ) to forecast Fitz Kreiner ' s future , showing him an image of himself as Father Kreiner . ( PROSE : " The Ancestor Cell " ) Izzy Sinclair used the Time - Space Visualiser to play various video game s , such as " Happy Deathday " , which involved the Eighth Doctor and his past incarnations . ( COMIC : " Happy Deathday " )