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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-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? Also, I know that they're completely different films and
02:40they're decades apart, but in researching this, I now have the busted Thunderbirds Are Go song
02:46stuck in my head from the early 2000s. You're welcome, you can all have that stuck in your
02:49heads as well now. 8. It works via psychic interface
02:54The sonic screwdriver is basically magic. It can do pretty much anything you want it
02:58to with the press of a single button. How does one little device do so many different
03:02things? Seriously. While 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
03:15song, the best character ever, the sonic ends up in the hands of Mrs. Pond, who is sucked into
03:20the Tesselector along with Rory soon after. While attempting to use the sonic against the
03:25Tesselector's antibodies, Rory tells her that it has a psychic interface and that you should
03:29simply point and think to ward off their attackers. In other words, the sonic reads the mind of its
03:34user and does exactly what they're thinking. Fry some bacon? Tune a guitar? Turn regular glasses
03:38into sunglasses? Ugh. The possibilities are ridiculous. Now let's be honest, this is clearly
03:43a massive cop-out to get around the sonic's endless uses, but at least it's a cop-out that
03:47makes a certain amount of sense in-universe. Number 7. The 14th Doctor's is The Ultimate Sonic.
03:54The Ultimate Sonic. There'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, though, David Tennant will have
04:09another stint as the screwdriver's owner. And what a screwdriver it is. As explained in Doctor Who
04:15magazine, the 14th Doctor's new bling pays homage to just about every single previous version of the
04:21beloved prop, with a few other surprises to boot. The cracked texture in the middle is a nod to the
04:259th and 10th Doctor's Sonic. The four prongs that prop out of the casing are a callback to Matt Smith's,
04:30and the master's laser screwdriver even gets a shout-out too, with the silver-slash-gold bit at the
04:35bottom. And the easter eggs do not stop there. Oh, no, no, no. The top part was designed to resemble
04:40a Dalek cannon, while the small circles next to the prongs are a nod to the roundels inside the
04:46TARDIS. Now, considering that 14 is going to be around for the 60th anniversary specials, it makes
04:50sense that his weapon of choice should celebrate his most iconic enemies, as well as his previous forms.
04:56Is it a weapon? Hmm. There's a question for you. In the comments, let us know. Can the Sonic
05:00screwdriver be considered as a weapon or not?
05:03Number 6. Ace's Sonic Screwdriver
05:05Plenty of characters have wielded a Sonic screwdriver, or a variation thereupon, over the years. There's
05:12the aforementioned laser screwdriver, Miss Foster's Sonic pen from Partners in Crime, and who could
05:16forget good old 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. In the 1989 serial
05:28battlefield, companion Ace was supposed to be given her own newly constructed Sonic. This may have acted
05:34as a precursor to her becoming a Time Lord in Training, a plotline that would have materialised
05:39had the show not met its end later that year. For whatever reason, though, Ace's screwdriver was
05:43axed from the story's final plans. Though, out of all the Doctor's companions, doesn't Ace seem like
05:48the perfect choice to be given one of her own? With her bash-first, ask-questions-later attitude,
05:53it would be fun to see her wielding a weapon like the Sonic. Again, is the Sonic a weapon? But
05:58considering she's now a player in the new Hooniverse after the power of the Doctor, maybe now
06:03is the time to do what Battlefield didn't. 5. The Sonic Variations
06:09Speaking of alternate Sonics, the three we just mentioned are merely the tip of the iceberg when
06:14it comes to the insanely wide array of Sonic devices that have appeared in the show over the
06:19decades. The Sixth Doctor once wielded a Sonic lance, which he used as a weapon against the
06:23Cybermen. There's the Eleventh Doctor, Sonic Kane, from Let's Kill Hitler, and then perhaps the most
06:28divisive one of all, the Twelfth Doctor's Sonic sunglasses. Ugh. Some people love him, some people
06:33hate him. You decide for yourself. I think you can tell how I feel about them. And all this is without
06:37even mentioning the Sonic modulator built by Tosh in Torchwood, or Missy's Sonic Umbrella, and who could
06:43forget old Amy Pond's Sonic Probe in The Girl Who Waited, or River Song's Sonic Trowel in
06:49The Husbands of River Song. There's also a Sonic suitcase in the expanded universe, which just begs
06:53so many questions. They might get a bit silly at times, but there's still something so joyous about
06:59seeing a variant crop up. Let's just hope no writer ever decides to invent the Sonic underpants,
07:04because that might just cross a line. 4. It Originally Didn't Exist
07:08Imagine a world where the Sonic screwdriver never became a thing. Think about how many classic moments
07:14wouldn't have happened, how many scrapes the Doctor would have got stuck in, and how many toys
07:18wouldn't have been sold. Oh, the horror! As it turns out, though, you don't need to imagine too
07:22hard, as this was very nearly the case. The script for 1968's Fury from the Deep initially called for
07:28Patrick Troughton's second Doctor to use a regular old screwdriver to inspect the metal box attached to
07:34the pipeline. But when production assistant and later Doctor Who director Michael Bryant saw this,
07:39he decided that it was too boring. Bryant pitched the idea of a special tool that operated using soundwaves,
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, one of the most recognisable pieces of
07:55Who Mythology was born. This story gets even weirder when you find out that Troughton didn't even use
08:01this new prop for the episode. He kept dropping the screwdriver due to some cold weather, so the
08:05whistle from Deborah Watling's life jacket was used instead. Oh, simpler times, eh?
08:10Number three, why it doesn't work on wood. There you go. You didn't think we'd miss this
08:15important fact, did you? In series four's Silence in the Library, Donna asked the 10th Doctor to use
08:20his sonic screwdriver on a door. He replies that he can't because it's made of wood. Thus began the
08:25long-running gag that, for all its wondrous abilities, the trusty screwdriver simply doesn't
08:30do wood. This joke ran throughout the entirety of Stephen Moffat's time in charge, and has entered
08:35popular culture as one of the most well-known phrases in the show. The question is, though,
08:39why? Why doesn't it do wood? Series 8 pitted the 12th Doctor and Clara against a giant forest that
08:45covered the Earth overnight. This naturally spells big trouble for the sonic. After scanning a nearby
08:50tree, the Doctor notes that they have no circuits and no mechanism, and that the sonic interacts with
08:56any form of communication you care to mention. Sadly, trees have no moving parts and don't communicate.
09:01In other words, the sonic only works on machines and not on anything organic. If there was a robot
09:06with wooden casing, then it would work fine. But pure wood on its own? No chance. Maybe the master
09:11should build an army of wooden monsters if they really want to come out on top. Why have none of
09:16the enemies ever thought of this? Seriously, you're missing a trick here.
09:20Number two, it exists in real life. Sort of. Doctor Who has a weird habit of accidentally predicting our
09:27future. Things like NFTs, ice volcanoes, and 10th planets were all featured in the show before they
09:33became reality. And we might one day be able to add the sonic to that list too. In 2012,
09:38scientists working at the University of Dundee in Scotland developed an ultrasonic device capable of
09:43not just moving items, but rotating them accurately. This breakthrough was hoped to give surgeons more
09:49freedom to use 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. Like Doctor Who's own device,
10:03our 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. Unlimited snacks? Yes, please.
10:26Number 1. It's the TARDIS' Sibling
10:28The first time the 10th Doctor met Martha Jones, he spent more time worrying about his broken
10:34screwdriver than he did about the well-being of her patients, which, to be honest, sums up their
10:38relationship quite nicely. 10 fried his favourite toy after leaving it in an x-ray machine, resulting in
10:44an actually quite cool 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 Series 4 finale,
10:56was tasked with bringing the burnt screwdriver to life. In doing so, he revealed an interesting
11:00detail of the device's backstory. Along with his concept art, McKinstry noted that he designed the
11:06innards of the sonic, specifically those green crystals in the dome, as a nod to the 10th Doctor's
11:11green time rotor at the centre of his TARDIS' console. He refers to the sonic as the TARDIS'
11:17little brother, because they come from the same technology. Now, we've seen numerous times that
11:21the TARDIS can make a new sonic screwdriver, but the idea of them having this almost symbiotic
11:27relationship is something that's yet to be explored, but sounds really cool. Imagine if the
11:31sonic also comes to life one day, and then the Doctor fancies that too. I mean, that's got
11:36Moffat written all over it. And that's everything for this list, but since we've been talking about
11:41the TARDIS, which, let's be honest, is the Doctor's other favourite gadget, why not check
11:45out Every 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.
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