Much though I enjoyed the making of the new sonic screwdriver in The Woman Who Fell to Earth, I have to wonder, in my pedantic once studied science way, is it really the sonic screwdriver? I’m not getting into the name of it (though the Thirteenth Doctor did), but just wondering about how it was made. I’ll accept you can cobble something together with some random alien tech and bits of local electronics, but a sonic screwdriver?

I’m not so sure..

How special is the sonic screwdriver?

We know sonic technology is not a Time Lord speciality (unlike trans-dimensional engineering). Captain Jack used it before meeting the Doctor, Ice Warriors have sonic weapons and there are other examples. The Doctor’s sonic screwdriver has certain properties. It runs on everlasting power, if not telepathic (and Big Finish have it as such) it manages a very sophisticated interface in almost no space at all. It has lots of computer power as well. Could a few bits achieve that?

I don’t want to be tedious, and the Doctor needs a sonic, but part of me wants access to more advanced technology to make on. Other Doctors got theirs from the TARDIS, I hope the current one gets fine-tuned as and when the TARDIS is found.

The pedigree point is important to me as well. As we learned in The Day of the Doctor, the various modern Doctors have all had different sonic screwdrivers, but they are all the same internal template, hence the wooden door sequence in the Tower of London. This new sonic screwdriver breaks the link. Perhaps that’s the point?

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!