Overview

Another recognizable piece of Time Lord technology is the famous Sonic Screwdriver, like the TARDIS, this piece of equipment has gone through change after change, above are four incarnation’s of this gadget. The Sonic Screwdriver uses a 'telepathic interface' so the user just has to think of what action the Screwdriver performs. Despite this, it also as numerous settings, such as 2428D to re-attach cut barbed wire and setting 15B, which helped triangulate the source of the Cyberman ghosts.

The Sonic Screwdriver has been a piece of Doctor Who history since the second series of the show, where the Doctor used it as a sort of multipurpose tool to unlock doors and other locks, as well as a variety of other uses.

The Sonic Screwdriver has many uses, such as opening locks, repairing objects, detecting radio and other frequency transmissions, creating fire, creating/manipulating sound waves, disarm/prevent weapons from working, creating miniature force fields, hacking into machinery, scanning objects, and most notably of all, being used as a normal screwdriver.

The origins of the Sonic Screwdriver have never been properly addressed in either the TV series or any other media, though during the TV series ‘The Empty Child’ another character, Captain Jack Harkness uses a ‘Sonic Disruptor’ that appears to have the same uses as the Sonic Screwdriver, and more than likely share a common origin. The Sonic Disruptor was said to have come from ‘The Weapon Factories of Villengard’, which The Doctor later claims to have destroyed. It is possible that The Doctor picked up his Sonic Screwdriver there during this adventure, though this has never been shown on TV or any other media.