Delving into the secrets of Doctor Who's greatest gadget.
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00:00The Tardis? Bessie? The machine that goes ding? The Doctor has utilised countless devices
00:05over the decades, and the sonic screwdriver has been a constant almost from the beginning.
00:10It can fire off laser beams, blow stuff up, and double as a marker pen? Okay then. But
00:15there's so much more to this almighty gizmo than you might have realised. I'm Ellie
00:20with WhoCulture, here with 10 Secrets of the Sonic Screwdriver You Need to Know.
00:2510. It's not as powerful as you think
00:28The most common criticism levelled at the Sonic is that it's too strong, that it can
00:32get the Doctor and their crew out of any spot no matter how implausible. Stuck in a room?
00:37Screwdriver. Being attacked by a robot? Screwdriver. Need to whip up a three-course meal in ten
00:41minutes before your in-laws arrive? Well, not that this has ever been confirmed in the
00:45show, but the answer is still, probably, screwdriver. It's not the all-powerful device that many
00:50people think it is, though. There have been plenty of moments that have cut the metallic
00:54legs out from under this seemingly faultless gadget. In Bad Wolf, it's mentioned that
00:59the Sonic can't open the deadlock seal attached to the door of the Big Brother house. Deadlock
01:03seals would return in School Reunion, The Time of Angels, and others, and have proved
01:07to be the Sonic Screwdriver's greatest enemy over the years. Well, those and something
01:11else as well, but we'll get to that later. The Sonic can't open the TARDIS doors from
01:15the outside if they've been manually locked, as demonstrated when the Master did so in
01:19Utopia. And most bizarrely of all, the Tenth Doctor once revealed that his trusty screwdriver
01:24doesn't work in the presence of some hair dryers. If only the Daleks had hair to dry,
01:28they'd have stopped the Doctor centuries ago.
01:309. They weren't all original builds Though it's undergone several rebrands over
01:36the years, the Sonic has always maintained the same basic design. A pocket-sized metallic
01:41cylinder with a button on the side and some sort of glowy thing at the end. Sounds about
01:45right? Yeah. So, you might be surprised to learn that despite having such a simple template,
01:49the Doctor Who team hasn't always brought it to life from scratch themselves.
01:54Take the Third Doctor's screwdriver from the 1970s. A longer-looking shaft, stop it,
01:59with a yellow bit in the middle and a thin circular shape sitting on top, is quite a
02:02unique look for the Sonic. And that might be because it was cobbled together from two
02:07props from an entirely different outlet. The BBC had bought a load of stuff from the recently
02:12defunct Century 21, the company behind Gerry Anderson shows like Thunderbirds and Joe 90.
02:18The Third Doctor's Sonic was made from two items. The main bit was a recycled prop from
02:23the 1966 film Thunderbirds Are Go, while the transmitter on top was another recycled
02:34prop from an episode of Captain Scarlet. I mean, that's pretty cool, huh? Also, I know
02:38that they're completely different films and they're decades apart, but in researching
02:43this, I now have the busted Thunderbirds Are Go song stuck in my head from the early 2000s.
02:48You're welcome, you can all have that stuck in your heads as well now.
02:518. It works via psychic interface The Sonic Screwdriver is basically magic.
02:56It can do pretty much anything you want it to with the press of a single button. How
03:00does one little device do so many different things? Seriously. While the answer to this
03:04has never been expressly stated outright, it was sort of revealed in a throwaway line
03:08in the Series 6 episode Let's Kill Hitler. With the 11th Doctor Amy and Rory in Nazi
03:13Germany pursuing a recently regenerated River Song, the best character ever, the Sonic ends
03:17up in the hands of Mrs. Pond, who is sucked into the Tessellecta along with Rory soon
03:22after. While attempting to use the Sonic against the Tessellecta's antibodies, Rory tells
03:27her that it has a psychic interface and that you should simply point and think to ward
03:31off their attackers. In other words, the Sonic reads the mind of its user and does exactly
03:35what they're thinking. Fry some bacon, tune a guitar, turn regular glasses into sunglasses...ugh.
03:40The possibilities are ridiculous. Now let's be honest, this is clearly a massive cop-out
03:44to get around the Sonic's endless uses, but at least it's a cop-out that makes a
03:48certain amount of sense in-universe.
03:507. The 14th Doctor's is the Ultimate Sonic There's plenty to be excited about whenever
03:58a new Doctor comes around, and the chance to gawk at a new version of the Sonic screwdriver
04:02is one of the most tantalising. Before Shooty Gatwa gets his fabulous hands on a version
04:07of his own, though, David Tennant will have another stint as the screwdriver's owner.
04:12And what a screwdriver it is. As explained in Doctor Who Magazine, the 14th Doctor's
04:16new bling pays homage to just about every single previous version of the beloved prop,
04:21with a few other surprises to boot. The cracked texture in the middle is a nod to the 9th
04:25and 10th Doctor's Sonic, the four prongs that prop out of the casing are a callback
04:29to Matt Smith, and the Master's laser screwdriver even gets a shoutout too with the silver-slash-gold
04:34bit at the bottom. And the easter eggs do not stop there. Oh no no no. The top part
04:39was designed to resemble a Dalek cannon, while the small circles next to the prongs
04:44are a nod to the roundels inside the TARDIS. Considering that 14 is going to be around
04:48for the 60th anniversary specials, it makes sense that his weapon of choice should celebrate
04:53his most iconic enemies, as well as his previous forms. Is it a weapon? Hmm. There's a question
04:58for you. In the comments, let us know. Can the Sonic screwdriver be considered a weapon
05:02or not?
05:036. Ace's Sonic Screwdriver Plenty of characters have wielded a Sonic
05:08Screwdriver, or a variation thereupon, over the years. There's the aforementioned Laser
05:13Screwdriver, Miss Foster's Sonic Pen from Partners in Crime, and who could forget good
05:17old Sarah Jane and her Sonic Lipstick. These are fine and all, but what about some examples
05:22from Classic Who? Any non-Doctor Sonics out there? Well, yes. There very nearly were.
05:27In the 1989 serial Battlefield, Companion Ace was supposed to be given her own, newly
05:32constructed Sonic. This may have acted as a precursor to her becoming a Time Lord in
05:37Training, a plotline that would have materialised had the show not met its end later that year.
05:41For whatever reason, though, Ace's screwdriver was axed from the story's final plans.
05:45Though, out of all the Doctor's companions, doesn't Ace seem like the perfect choice
05:49to be given one of her own? With her bash-first-ask-questions-later attitude, it would be fun to see her wielding
05:54a weapon like the Sonic. Again, is the Sonic a weapon? But considering she's now a player
05:59in the new Hooniverse after the power of the Doctor, maybe now is the time to do what Battlefield
06:05didn't.
06:065. The Sonic Variations Speaking of alternate Sonics, the three we
06:11just mentioned are merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the insanely wide array of
06:16Sonic devices that have appeared in the show over the decades. The 6th Doctor once wielded
06:21a Sonic Lance, which he used as a weapon against the Cybermen, there's the 11th Doctor's
06:25Sonic Cane from Let's Kill Hitler, and then perhaps the most divisive one of all, the
06:2912th Doctor's Sonic Sunglasses. Some people love them, some people hate them. You decide
06:34for yourself, I think you can tell how I feel about them. And all this is without even
06:37mentioning the Sonic Modulator built by Tosh in Torchwood, or Missy's Sonic Umbrella,
06:42and who could forget old Amy Pond's Sonic Screw-Up-Notes Sonic Probe in The Girl Who
06:46Waited or River Song's Sonic Trowel in The Husbands of River Song. There's also a Sonic
06:51Suitcase in the expanded universe which just begs so many questions. They might get a bit
06:56silly at times, but there's still something so joyous about seeing a variant crop up.
07:00But let's just hope no writer ever decides to invent the Sonic Underpants, because that
07:04might just cross a line.
07:064. It Originally Didn't Exist Imagine a world where the Sonic Screwdriver
07:11never became a thing. Think about how many classic moments wouldn't have happened,
07:15how many scrapes the Doctor would have got stuck in, and how many toys wouldn't have
07:18been sold. Oh, the horror.
07:20As it turns out though, you don't need to imagine too hard, as this was very nearly
07:24the case. The script for 1968's Fury from the Deep initially called for Patrick Troughton's
07:30Doctor to use a regular old screwdriver to inspect the metal box attached to the pipeline.
07:35But when production assistant and later Doctor Who director Michael Bryant saw this, he decided
07:39that it was too boring. Bryant pitched the idea of a special tool that operated using
07:44sound waves, and so visual effects designer Peter Day created a new bit of hardware to
07:49add to the Doctor's arsenal. Thanks to one crew member and their great suggestion, one
07:54of the most recognisable pieces of Who mythology was born.
07:57This story gets even weirder when you find out that Troughton didn't even use this
08:01new prop for the episode. He kept dropping the screwdriver due to some cold weather,
08:05so the whistle from Deborah Watling's life jacket was used instead. Simpler times, eh?
08:113. Why It Doesn't Work on Wood There you go. You didn't think we'd miss
08:15this important fact, did you? In Series 4's Silence in the Library, Donna
08:19asks the Tenth Doctor to use his Sonic Screwdriver on a door. He replies that he can't because
08:24it's made of wood. Thus began the long-running gag that, for all its wondrous abilities,
08:28the trusty screwdriver simply doesn't do wood. This joke ran throughout the entirety
08:33of Steven Moffat's time in charge, and has entered popular culture as one of the most
08:37well-known phrases in the show. The question is, though, why? Why doesn't it do wood?
08:41Series 8 pitted the Twelfth Doctor and Clara against a giant forest that covered the Earth
08:46overnight. This naturally spells big trouble for the Sonic. After scanning a nearby tree,
08:51the Doctor notes that they have no circuits and no mechanism, and that the Sonic interacts
08:56with any form of communication you care to mention. Sadly, trees have no moving parts
09:00and don't communicate. In other words, the Sonic only works on machines and not on anything
09:05organic. If there was a robot with wooden casing, then it would work fine, but pure
09:09wood on its own? No chance. Maybe the Master should build an army of
09:13wooden monsters if they really want to come out on top. Why have none of the enemies ever
09:17thought of this? Seriously, you're missing a trick here.
09:202. It exists in real life. Sort of. Doctor Who has a weird habit of accidentally
09:26predicting our future. Things like NFTs, ice volcanoes, and Tenth Planets were all featured
09:32in the show before they became reality, and we might one day be able to add the Sonic
09:36to that list too. In 2012, scientists working at the University
09:39of Dundee in Scotland developed an ultrasonic device capable of not just moving items, but
09:45rotating them accurately. This breakthrough was hoped to give surgeons more freedom to
09:49use ultrasound to treat a number of conditions without the need to cut open the patient.
09:53While this real sonic screwdriver can't run thousands of calculations at the same time,
09:58it was still a landmark achievement in medical science.
10:01Like Doctor Who's own device, our sonic screwdriver is capable of much more than
10:05just spinning things around, said Dr. Mike McDonald of the Institute for Medical Science
10:10and Technology at Dundee. Doctor Who has been around for so long that
10:14its effects on everyday life are clear to see. Fingers crossed that the next Who-related
10:18invention is somebody figuring out how to make a fridge bigger on the inside than it
10:23is on the outside. Unlimited snacks? Yes, please.
10:261. It's the TARDIS's sibling The first time the Tenth Doctor met
10:31Martha Jones, he spent more time worrying about his broken screwdriver than he did about the
10:35well-being of her patients, which, to be honest, sums up their relationship quite nicely.
10:40Ten fried his favourite toy after leaving it in an X-ray machine, resulting in an actually
10:45cool variation of the sonic, complete with some gnarly-looking burn damage.
10:50Concept artist Peter McKinstry, who also helped design the revamped Davros for the
10:54Series 4 finale, was tasked with bringing the burnt screwdriver to life. In doing so,
10:59he revealed an interesting detail of the device's backstory.
11:03Along with his concept art, McKinstry noted that he designed the innards of the sonic,
11:07specifically those green crystals in the dome, as a nod to the Tenth Doctor's green time rotor
11:13at the centre of his TARDIS's console. He refers to the sonic as the TARDIS's little brother,
11:17because they come from the same technology. We've seen numerous times that the TARDIS can
11:22make a new sonic screwdriver, but the idea of them having this almost symbiotic relationship
11:27is something that's yet to be explored, but sounds really cool. Imagine if the sonic also
11:32comes to life one day, and then the Doctor fancies that too. That's got Moffat written all over it.
11:38And that's everything for this list, but since we've been talking about the TARDIS,
11:41which, let's be honest, is the Doctor's other favourite gadget, why not check out
11:45every TARDIS interior ranked, and you can let us know in the comments of that video whether you
11:49agree with our ranking or not. In the meantime, I've been Ellie with WhoCulture, and in the words
11:54of Riversong herself, goodbye, sweeties.