How does the Sonic Screwdriver work?

[SeerSGB]

I don't know if it was destroyed to stop it from being silly, but it was never used again during the original run of the program.

The writer of The Vistation destroyed it because he needed to keep the Doctor locked up for another half episode - he'd assumed that the Doctor had spares in the TARDIS, so it wouldn't be permanent.
The producer of the time thought that the screwdriver made things too easy for the Doctor, and decided that the scripted scene was the end for THE sonic screwdriver, not A sonic screwdriver.

Which of course, was one of the first things to go out the window when the John Nathan-Turner era ended. I even think the one Sylvester McCoy used in the McGann movie was the exact same model last seen in the series.

Sonic Screwdriver from the McGann Movie

 

[C.E. Evans]

I even think the one Sylvester McCoy used in the McGann movie was the exact same model last seen in the series.

Sonic Screwdriver from the McGann Movie

Yep, that's the one.

I also recognize some other bits and pieces from the Doctor's tool kit (as depicted in the 1983 Doctor Who Technical Manual) in the top photo:
-Laser probe
-Pen torch
-Magnetic clamp
-Stalos gyro
-Master drone clamp
There's probably some more stuff in there that I can't accurately make out...

Either the art department for the McGann movie either had access to the original props or they recreated them directly from that Technical Manual, because they're spot on...

 

[Bones2]

Which one's the neutron ram?

 

[Demonland]

Here is a screenshot from The Doctor Who Technical Manual on the contents of 4th Doctors toolkit:

http://www.goaste.cx/museum/drwhotechmanual012.php

 

[SeerSGB]

Near as I'm certain off, the contents of the tool kit:

 

[matthunter]

For all the talk of it being a "crutch", all it does is move the plot forward, not resolve it. The sonic has never - not once, in the new series - actually been the key to defeating the monster of the week. It serves as a mechanism to speed the action... if the plot calls for the Doctor to be trapped in a cell, he can't use the sonic and we get to watch him perform a clever escape. If being trapped in a cell is a logical situation but watching him escape isn't vital to the storyline, he sonics his way out so we don't waste valuable episode time dealing with it.

When it starts blowing up Daleks, I'll take issue, but until then it's a way of handwaving the unimportant stuff.

 

[Roshi]

It's powered by ionized McGuffinium...

 

[diankra]

The Doctor's toolkit in the TVM was all a reproduction of the stuff in the 1983 Technical Manual.

 

[Demonland]

Did anyone else notice that we got a new function to the Sonic Screwdriver the other night? It now doubles as a Star Trek-esque healing device as shown when the Doctor was healing Amy's vamp stamp.

 

[Captain Pike]

Yep. My eyes rolled so far they went 'round the back of me head..

 

[Brent]

Yep. My eyes rolled so far they went 'round the back of me head..

The Sonic Screwdriver can fix that....

 

[Stevil2001]

Ah, I remember those heady days of 2009, when it was insisted that Stephen Moffat was going to fix everything "wrong" with the new series, including overuse of the sonic screwdriver...

 

[Jax]

I was very saddened to see the Master in the new series

Just that bit for me.

Your very saddened to see RTD's Doctor Who on TV, would more like it I loved Simms as The Master he played a crazy nut very well.

As for the Sonic device its way more funky this time around, Smiths got some mojo going with that device I love the way the end of it seperates.

 

[matthunter]

Did anyone else notice that we got a new function to the Sonic Screwdriver the other night? It now doubles as a Star Trek-esque healing device as shown when the Doctor was healing Amy's vamp stamp.

Since they film parts of the ep out of order, it helped them save money not having to perform makeup continuity.

Besides, we don't know the limits of this function - minor cuts and bruises, fine... if it can close up a nasty sword wound or repair broken bones, that's pushing it.

To be honest, I'd have been surprised if the Doctor hadn't at least outfitted it with a way of healing twisted ankles...

 

[Bones2]

I was very saddened to see the Master in the new series

Just that bit for me.

Your very saddened to see RTD's Doctor Who on TV, would more like it I loved Simms as The Master he played a crazy nut very well.

Yeah, but since when was the character of the Master meant to be a crazy nut/prancing tit? Even Eric Roberts gave the role far more gravitas.

 

[Sci]

Just that bit for me.

Your very saddened to see RTD's Doctor Who on TV, would more like it I loved Simms as The Master he played a crazy nut very well.

Yeah, but since when was the character of the Master meant to be a crazy nut/prancing tit?

Since the summer of 2007, when RTD decided that that made the character more interesting and more believable than the panto villain he'd been in DW TOS.

 

[Psion]

Just that bit for me.

Your very saddened to see RTD's Doctor Who on TV, would more like it I loved Simms as The Master he played a crazy nut very well.

Yeah, but since when was the character of the Master meant to be a crazy nut/prancing tit? Even Eric Roberts gave the role far more gravitas.

Very true, but we can agree that the character of the Doctor has changed from one regeneration to the next. If anything, we should have seen more distinctive personalities in previous incarnations of the Master to match the kind of changes typical with the Doctor.

They definitely went with a more Joker-esque vibe for Simms' Master, making him more of a cackling madman than a calculating nemesis. That's a shame, but I give them points for getting the idea that regeneration changes every Timelord, not just the Doctor.

 

[Sci]

Your very saddened to see RTD's Doctor Who on TV, would more like it I loved Simms as The Master he played a crazy nut very well.

Yeah, but since when was the character of the Master meant to be a crazy nut/prancing tit? Even Eric Roberts gave the role far more gravitas.

Very true, but we can agree that the character of the Doctor has changed from one regeneration to the next. If anything, we should have seen more distinctive personalities in previous incarnations of the Master to match the kind of changes typical with the Doctor.

They definitely went with a more Joker-esque vibe for Simms' Master, making him more of a cackling madman than a calculating nemesis. That's a shame, but I give them points for getting the idea that regeneration changes every Timelord, not just the Doctor.

And indeed, the Master's Derek Jacobi incarnation was not nearly so manic as his John Simm incarnation, which seems to have been designed to be a sort of counter-point to David Tennant's Tenth Doctor. I imagine that if the Master were to be brought back today, he'd regenerate again into an incarnation designed to serve as a dark counter-point to Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor.

 

[Psion]

Yeah, but since when was the character of the Master meant to be a crazy nut/prancing tit? Even Eric Roberts gave the role far more gravitas.

Very true, but we can agree that the character of the Doctor has changed from one regeneration to the next. If anything, we should have seen more distinctive personalities in previous incarnations of the Master to match the kind of changes typical with the Doctor.

They definitely went with a more Joker-esque vibe for Simms' Master, making him more of a cackling madman than a calculating nemesis. That's a shame, but I give them points for getting the idea that regeneration changes every Timelord, not just the Doctor.

And indeed, the Master's Derek Jacobi incarnation was not nearly so manic as his John Simm incarnation, which seems to have been designed to be a sort of counter-point to David Tennant's Tenth Doctor. I imagine that if the Master were to be brought back today, he'd regenerate again into an incarnation designed to serve as a dark counter-point to Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor.

Yep! I'm looking forward to Eleven's Master, although Eleven isn't so different from Ten as, for example, Seven was from Six. I'd like to see the Master get an agenda, something a bit beyond being the Doctor's foil. Something that generates a series of adventures, not all of which end well for the Doctor. I'd love to see the Doctor retreat to his TARDIS at the end of an episode, licking his wounds and admitting that the Master won their latest encounter.

EDIT TO ADD:
I really do contribute my share to topic drift, don't I?

As anyone who has paid very close attention to U.S.S. Bones' excellent, but infuriating reviews of NuWho will know, I remain a strong supporter of the sonic screwdriver as the Doctor's magic wand. The latest setting, "Heal Vampiric Wounds", definitely went farther into Harry Potter than we've seen yet. But the thing that got me was what it didn't do this week. It didn't open a locked door. When "Guido" barricaded the door to his home prior to detonating his stores of gunpowder, the Doctor couldn't open it because it was "bolted" not dead-locked, just bolted. Does the screwdriver have trouble with wood? I don't see how a metal bolt would be any harder to pick than handcuffs for the sonic screwdriver.

 

[Sci]

Very true, but we can agree that the character of the Doctor has changed from one regeneration to the next. If anything, we should have seen more distinctive personalities in previous incarnations of the Master to match the kind of changes typical with the Doctor.

They definitely went with a more Joker-esque vibe for Simms' Master, making him more of a cackling madman than a calculating nemesis. That's a shame, but I give them points for getting the idea that regeneration changes every Timelord, not just the Doctor.

And indeed, the Master's Derek Jacobi incarnation was not nearly so manic as his John Simm incarnation, which seems to have been designed to be a sort of counter-point to David Tennant's Tenth Doctor. I imagine that if the Master were to be brought back today, he'd regenerate again into an incarnation designed to serve as a dark counter-point to Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor.

Yep! I'm looking forward to Eleven's Master, although Eleven isn't so different from Ten as, for example, Seven was from Six. I'd like to see the Master get an agenda, something a bit beyond being the Doctor's foil. Something that generates a series of adventures, not all of which end well for the Doctor. I'd love to see the Doctor retreat to his TARDIS at the end of an episode, licking his wounds and admitting that the Master won their latest encounter.

Well, the Master has had an agenda in his last two appearances: Set himself up as the head of an interstellar empire with Earth as his base of power. He wanted to create a new "Time Lord Empire" in "Last of the Time Lords," and wanted to do the same thing a bit more literally in "The End of Time" by using the Immortality Gate to turn the resurrected Time Lords into copies of him.

And the Master did win at the end of "Last of the Time Lords" by not regenerating.