The sonic screwdriver is a fictional multifunctional tool in the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who and its spin-offs, used by the Doctor. Like the TARDIS, it has become one of the icons of the programme, and spin-off media such as The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood have replicated its functions in devices such as the sonic lipstick, sonic blaster, sonic probe, sonic modulator and sonic cane. The sonic screwdriver was introduced in 1968 in the story Fury from the Deep, and used twice more (The Dominators and The War Games) during the Second Doctor's tenure. It became a popular tool for the Third Doctor and Fourth Doctor. It was written out of the series in 1982 due to the limitations it caused when writing for the show. It then featured briefly in the 1996 Doctor Who television movie, before making a full return in the 2005 continuation of the series. Throughout the programme, there have been many different versions of the sonic screwdriver, as with subsequent Doctors the design of it was changed. It has also been destroyed on a number of occasions, thus leading to the introduction of the next model, though keeping the same data and usage. Not all iterations of the Doctor have used the sonic screwdriver on screen; the Fifth Doctor in fact opted not to replace his after it was destroyed in "The Visitation". The Twelfth Doctor loses his sonic screwdriver to the creator of the Daleks, Davros, after lending it to him when he was a child. In the last episode of series 9, the Doctor received a new sonic screwdriver from the TARDIS in place of the sonic sunglasses he had been using temporarily in the meantime. Despite the Doctor's claim not to entrust his screwdriver to anyone, he lends one to his own doppelgänger in "The Rebel Flesh," and again supplies Rory Williams for its third job in his care in "The Girl Who Waited," after having given or loaning Rory one in "A Good Man Goes to War" and slipping him one in "The Big Bang". Before Rory, he lends the screwdriver to Sarah Jane Smith and Rose Tyler to investigate the computer room class in "School Reunion". Afterwards The Doctor made a Sonic Lipstick for Sarah Jane before departing for more adventures. He also gifts one to River Song in "The Husbands of River Song," which is then used by the Tenth Doctor to "save" her life in a previous TV story, "Forest of the Dead."
Functions
The functions of a sonic screwdriver are based on its power over sound waves, radiation, wavelengths, frequencies, signals, and electromagnetism. It is shown to hack, disable, activate, and otherwise control technology from almost everything, allowing it to remotely control almost any machinery, mechanisms, and computers it is applied to, allowing it to open locks, detonate explosives, remotely activate electronics, override most systems, activate computers, and cause some energy weapons to burst into flames or sparks. There is technology the sonic is unable to interface with, such as wood, or the isomorphic controls seen in "A Christmas Carol". It also is capable of causing chemical reactions that allow the Doctor to turn eyeglass lenses black like sunglasses and causing cut barbed wire to regenerate (setting 2428B). It is also capable of detecting, amplifying and controlling certain energies, sound, signals, frequencies, and waves, allowing the Doctor to intercept a teleporting individual and send them where he chooses, scan and identify matter, send out communications, enhance sounds, signals, and frequencies, and acting as a catalyst or conduit for energies. Sonics are also capable of calculations, such as The Day of the Doctor (2013), when the War Doctor used calculations to allow the sonic to work on wood, the calculations of which appeared partly done on the Tenth Doctor's sonic and completed in the Eleventh's. The War Doctor also used his sonic in tandem with the Tenth and Eleventh's to create a force field wave to repel a Dalek. These are more specific functions of the sonic screwdriver:
Unlocking or locking a door Burning or cutting certain substances Remotely detonating specific machines or explosives Amplifying sound waves and the power of an X-ray machine beyond its normal capacities Disarming weapons and electronics Flashlight Intercepting and conducting teleportation Hacking an ATM Regenerating barbed wire on a fence Darkening eyeglass lenses to transform them into sunglasses Microphone (when connected to an audio amplifier) Detecting and interpreting signals Conducting medical scans Fixing Locking the coordinates of the TARDIS Tracking alien life Using red setting or dampers Controlling the properties of atoms and molecules on a small scale Operating computers, whether their origin is alien or human Providing geolocation Lighting candles Creating a force field wave with two (or possibly more) other sonics to physically repel a Dalek (it may have to be the same sonic device at different points in its own time stream) Modifying a mobile phone Disclosing and deactivating camouflage Disarming robotics Scanning and classifying matter Shattering glass Creating an "acoustic corridor" for speaking with someone far away Shocking neural centers of living organisms Downloading a person's consciousness and transferring it into a computer hard drive (only seen in a special model created by The Doctor as a gift to River Song) Triggering particular protocols of the TARDIS Tightening and loosening screws Resonating concrete Creating glass-like walls ("Force Field") Creating holographic screens Reconstructing the TARDIS Hijacking traffic lights Creating a field that silences all noise Performing advanced calculations Aside from being a tool, the sonic screwdriver can be used and considered as a defensive weapon, which is effective for a few types of assault weapons, but not designed to kill or injure living things as the only way it can really hurt or incapacitate an organism is by emitting painful bursts of sound, or, as of "Day of the Moon" (2011) by blasting a green wave of energy to incapacitate a target, though only the Eleventh and Twelfth's sonic has been shown to do the latter.
History
1968–1982 and 1996
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