They were a clanny bunch who favored each other for jobs[…]

, I.iii.3: cold in those inner parts, cold belly, and hot liver, causeth crudity, and intention proceeds from perturbations […].

The Tardis required neither expensive special effects nor a complex plot to imagine a British space programme. The Tardis looked like a police box, the audience eventually learned, because it had a 'chameleon circuit' allowing its shape to change to blend in with each new environment, and this circuit had broken when the Doctor first arrived in London.

to beat a retreat; to beat to quarters