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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 over
00:05the 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.
00:15But there's so much more to this almighty gizmo than you might have realised.
00:19I'm Ellie with 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,
00:32that it can get the Doctor and their crew out of any spot, no matter how implausible.
00:36Stuck in a room? Screwdriver. Being attacked by a robot? Screwdriver.
00:40Need to whip up a three-course meal in 10 minutes before your in-laws arrive?
00:43Well, not that this has ever been confirmed in the show, but the answer is still probably
00:47screwdriver. It's not the all-powerful device that many people think it is, though. There have been
00:52plenty of moments that have cut the metallic legs out from under this seemingly faultless gadget.
00:57In Bad Wolf, it's mentioned that the sonic can't open the deadlock seal attached to the door of
01:02the Big Brother house. Deadlock seals would return in School Reunion, The Time of Angels,
01:06and others, and have proved to be the sonic screwdriver's greatest enemy over the years.
01:10Well, those and something else as well, but we'll get to that later.
01:13The sonic can't open the TARDIS doors from the outside if they've been manually locked,
01:17as demonstrated when the Master did so in Utopia. And most bizarrely of all,
01:21the 10th Doctor once revealed that his trusty screwdriver doesn't work in the presence of
01:25some hair dryers. If only the Daleks had hair to dry, they'd have stopped the Doctor centuries ago.
01:30Number 9. They weren't all original builds.
01:33Though it's undergone several rebrands over the years, the sonic has always maintained the same
01:38basic design. A pocket-sized metallic cylinder with a button on the side and some sort of glowy
01:43thing at the end. Sounds about right? Yeah.
01:45So, 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.
01:53Take the third Doctor screwdriver from the 1970s. A longer-looking shaft,
01:58stop it, with a yellow bit in the middle and a thin circular shape sitting on top,
02:02is quite a unique look for the sonic. And that might be because it was cobbled together from
02:06two props from an entirely different outlet. The BBC had bought a load of stuff from the
02:11recently defunct Century 21, the company behind Gerry Anderson shows like Thunderbirds and Joe 90.
02:17The third Doctor Sonic was made from two items. The main bit was a recycled prop from the 1966 film
02:24Thunderbirds Are Go. Thunderbirds Are Go!
02:28Do do do do do do do do do do do do do. Sorry.
02:31While the transmitter on top was another recycled prop from an episode of Captain Scarlet.
02:36I mean, that's pretty cool, huh?
02:38Also, I know that they're completely different films and they're decades apart, but in researching this,
02:43I 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.
02:51Number 8. It works via psychic interface.
02:54The sonic screwdriver is basically magic.
02:56It can do pretty much anything you want it to with the press of a single button.
03:00How does one little device do so many different things? Seriously.
03:03While the answer to this has never been expressly stated outright,
03:06it was sort of revealed in a throwaway line in the series 6 episode Let's Kill Hitler.
03:11With the 11th Doctor Amy and Rory in Nazi Germany pursuing a recently regenerated River Song,
03:16the best character ever, the sonic ends up in the hands of Mrs. Pond,
03:19who is sucked into the Tesselector along with Rory soon after.
03:23While attempting to use the sonic against the Tesselector's antibodies,
03:26Rory tells her that it has a psychic interface,
03:29and that you should simply point and think to ward off their attackers.
03:32In other words, the sonic reads the mind of its user and does exactly what they're thinking.
03:36Fry some bacon? Tune a guitar? Turn regular glasses into sunglasses? Ugh.
03:40The possibilities are ridiculous.
03:42Now let's be honest, this is clearly a massive cop-out to get around the sonic's endless uses,
03:46but at least it's a cop-out that makes a certain amount of sense in-universe.
03:50Number 7. The 14th Doctor's is The Ultimate Sonic.
03:54The Ultimate Sonic.
03:56There's plenty to be excited about whenever a new doctor comes around,
04:00and the chance to gawk at a new version of the sonic screwdriver is one of the most tantalising.
04:04Before Shooty Gatwa gets his fabulous hands on a version of his own,
04:08though, David Tennant will have another stint as the screwdriver's owner.
04:12And what a screwdriver it is.
04:14As explained in Doctor Who magazine, the 14th Doctor's new bling pays homage to just about
04:19every single previous version of the beloved prop, with a few other surprises to boot.
04:23The cracked texture in the middle is a nod to the 9th and 10th Doctor's Sonic,
04:26the four prongs that prop out of the casing are a callback to Matt Smith,
04:30and the master's laser screwdriver even gets a shout-out too, with the silver-slash-gold bit at the bottom.
04:35And the easter eggs do not stop there.
04:37Oh, no, no, no.
04:38The top part was designed to resemble a Dalek cannon,
04:42while the small circles next to the prongs are a nod to the roundels inside the TARDIS.
04:46Now, considering that 14 is going to be around for the 60th anniversary specials,
04:50it makes sense that his weapon of choice should celebrate his most iconic enemies,
04:54as well as his previous forms.
04:56Is it a weapon? Hmm.
04:57There's a question for you.
04:58In the comments, let us know.
05:00Can the sonic screwdriver be considered as a weapon or not?
05:03Number 6. Ace's sonic screwdriver
05:05Plenty of characters have wielded a sonic screwdriver,
05:09or a variation thereupon, over the years.
05:11There's the aforementioned laser screwdriver,
05:14Miss Foster's sonic pen from Partners in Crime,
05:16and who could forget good old Sarah Jane and her sonic lipstick.
05:19These are fine and all, but what about some examples from classic Who?
05:23Any non-Doctor Sonics out there?
05:25Well, yes, there very nearly were.
05:26In the 1989 serial Battlefield, companion Ace was supposed to be given her own newly constructed sonic.
05:33This may have acted as a precursor to her becoming a Time Lord in training,
05:37a 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 to be given one of her own?
05:50With her bash-first, ask-questions-later attitude, it would be fun to see her wielding a weapon like the sonic.
05:56Again, is the sonic a weapon?
05:57But considering she's now a player in the new Who-niverse after the power of the Doctor,
06:02maybe now is the time to do what Battlefield didn't.
06:06Number 5. The Sonic Variations
06:09Speaking of alternate Sonics, the three we just mentioned are merely the tip of the iceberg,
06:13when it comes to the insanely wide array of sonic devices that have appeared in the show over the decades.
06:19The sixth Doctor once wielded a sonic lance, which he used as a weapon against the Cybermen.
06:24There's the eleventh Doctor, Sonic Kane, from Let's Kill Hitler.
06:27And then perhaps the most divisive one of all, the twelfth Doctor's sonic sunglasses.
06:31Ugh.
06:32Some people love him, some people hate him.
06:33You decide for yourself, I think you can tell how I feel about them.
06:36And all this is without even mentioning the sonic modulator built by Tosh in Torchwood,
06:41or Missy's Sonic Umbrella, and who could forget old Amy Pond's Sonic Screw-
06:45no, Sonic Probe in The Girl Who Waited,
06:47or River Song's Sonic Trowel in The Husbands of River Song.
06:50There's also a sonic suitcase in the expanded universe, which just begs so many questions.
06:55They might get a bit silly at times, but there's still something so joyous about seeing a variant crop up.
07:00Let's just hope no writer ever decides to invent the sonic underpants,
07:04because that might just cross a line.
07:06Number 4. It originally didn't exist
07:08Imagine a world where the sonic screwdriver never became a thing.
07:12Think about how many classic moments wouldn't have happened,
07:15how many scrapes the Doctor would have got stuck in,
07:17and how many toys wouldn't have been sold.
07:19Oh, the horror!
07:20As it turns out, though, you don't need to imagine too hard, as this was very nearly the case.
07:24The script for 1968's Fury From The Deep initially called for Patrick Troughton's second Doctor
07:30to 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,
07:39he decided that it was too boring.
07:41Bryant pitched the idea of a special tool that operated using sound waves,
07:45and so visual effects designer Peter Day created a new bit of hardware to add to the Doctor's arsenal.
07:51Thanks to one crew member and their great suggestion,
07:53one of 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 new prop for the episode.
08:02He kept dropping the screwdriver due to some cold weather,
08:05so the whistle from Deborah Watling's life jacket was used instead.
08:08Oh, simpler times, eh?
08:10Number 3. Why it doesn't work on wood.
08:13There you go. You didn't think we'd miss this important fact, did you?
08:17In Series 4's Silence in the Library,
08:19Donna asked the Tenth Doctor to use his sonic screwdriver on a door.
08:22He replies that he can't because it's made of wood.
08:24Thus began the long-running gag that, for all its wondrous abilities,
08:28the trusty screwdriver simply doesn't do wood.
08:31This joke ran throughout the entirety of Stephen Moffat's time in charge,
08:35and has entered popular culture as one of the most well-known phrases in the show.
08:38The question is, though, why?
08:40Why doesn't it do wood?
08:41Series 8 pitted the Tenth Doctor and Clara against a giant forest that covered the Earth overnight.
08:47This naturally spells big trouble for the sonic.
08:49After scanning a nearby tree,
08:51the Doctor notes that they have no circuits and no mechanism,
08:54and that the sonic interacts with any form of communication you care to mention.
08:58Sadly, trees have no moving parts and don't communicate.
09:01In other words, the sonic only works on machines and not on anything organic.
09:05If there was a robot with wooden casing, then it would work fine.
09:09But pure wood on its own? No chance.
09:11Maybe the master should build an army of wooden monsters if they really want to come out on top.
09:16Why have none of the enemies ever thought of this?
09:18Seriously, you're missing a trick here.
09:20Number 2.
09:21It exists in real life.
09:22Sort of.
09:23Doctor Who has a weird habit of accidentally predicting our future.
09:27Things like NFTs, ice volcanoes, and Tenth Planets were all featured in the show before they became reality.
09:34And we might one day be able to add the sonic to that list too.
09:37In 2012, scientists working at the University of Dundee in Scotland
09:41developed an ultrasonic device capable of not just moving items, but rotating them accurately.
09:47This breakthrough was hoped to give surgeons more freedom to use ultrasound
09:50to 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 just spinning things around,
10:07said Dr. Mike McDonald of the Institute for Medical Science and Technology at Dundee.
10:12Doctor Who has been around for so long that its effects on everyday life are clear to see.
10:16Fingers crossed that the next Who-related invention is somebody figuring out how to make a fridge
10:21bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
10:24Unlimited snacks?
10:25Yes, please.
10:26Number 1.
10:27It's the TARDIS' Sibling
10:28The first time the Tenth Doctor met Martha Jones,
10:32he spent more time worrying about his broken screwdriver than he did about the well-being of her patients,
10:37which, to be honest, sums up their relationship quite nicely.
10:40Ten fried his favourite toy after leaving it in an X-ray machine,
10:43resulting in an actually quite cool variation of the sonic,
10:47complete with some gnarly-looking burn damage.
10:50Concept artist Peter McKinstry, who also helped design the revamped Davros for the Series 4 finale,
10:56was tasked with bringing the burnt screwdriver to life.
10:58In doing so, he 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,
11:08specifically those green crystals in the dome,
11:10as a nod to the Tenth Doctor's green time rotor at the centre of his TARDIS' console.
11:15He refers to the sonic as the TARDIS' little brother,
11:17because they come from the same technology.
11:20Now, we've seen numerous times that the TARDIS can make a new sonic screwdriver,
11:24but the idea of them having this almost symbiotic relationship
11:27is something that's yet to be explored, but sounds really cool.
11:31Imagine if the sonic also comes to life one day,
11:33and then the Doctor fancies that too.
11:35I mean, that's got Moffat written all over it.
11:38And that's everything for this list,
11:40but since we've been talking about the TARDIS,
11:41which, let's be honest, is the Doctor's other favourite gadget,
11:44why not check out every TARDIS interior ranked,
11:47and you can let us know in the comments of that video
11:49whether you agree with our ranking or not.
11:51In the meantime, I've been Ellie with WhoCulture,
11:53and in the words of Riversong herself,
11:55goodbye, sweeties.
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