Debate: the Sonic Screwdriver MUST go

[Anthony Williams]

Denizens of Planet Skaro,

After eight years of meritous service, I give you the motion that the Sonic Screwdriver MUST go. I will present the case for the motion. I hope that someone will feel able to give the case against. If no-one is able to (i.e. if the thread gets a load of "agreed" responses, instead of anyone arguing against me), we will consider the motion carried. So, here goes...

Since Doctor Who returned to our screens in 2005, the writers have had an easy device to get the Doctor out of almost any trouble - the Sonic Screwdriver. It would be easy to make the argument that it was overused from almost day one - its use in The End of the World was gratuitous to say the least. Yet, this was mild compared to what would come later.

In the Eccleston series, we even had an episode where it wasn't used once (The Unquiet Dead), and during Tennant's era, we were presented with the notion of the "deadlock seal", which even the Sonic Screwdriver couldn't open. But, since Steven Moffat took over, and cast Matt Smith, we've seen even more weird and wonderful uses of the device. The Eleventh Doctor uses his Sonic Screwdriver to "scan" things, and then looks at it as if there's a display on it (which has never been seen on screen), and "reads" things from it. Maybe you could argue that this is a quirk of the Doctor - pretending it can tell him things, when really he's just guessing, in order to look authoritative. But that argument just doesn't wash with me. To put it simply, that argument is merely clutching at straws.

Then, there's the episode that was the worst culprit - The Rings of Akahten, where the device developed magical powers to act as a shield, much as Harry Potter wields his wand. To me, this was the turning point. In the Peter Davison-era, JNT ordered that the Sonic Screwdriver be destroyed and not replaced, to make writers think about how the Doctor can get out of situations - to discourage lazy writing through use of the device. We seem to have reached that point in modern Doctor Who, where the device has now become a get-out clause for lazy writers. And that's not good.

Of course, the argument that the BBC will make (and why the Sonic Screwdriver will never again go the way JNT desired it would) is that it is an extremely marketable toy. How many of us on this forum have at least one Sonic Screwdriver toy? How many have seen children wielding them in the strangest of places? I've even seen teenagers with them on the equivalent of the Tube in Atlanta, of all places! It's undoubtedly a spectacular money-spinner for BBC Worldwide.

While it will make money for the Corporation, is it really worth it in exchange for destroying the intelligence of the stories? I would vehemently argue that it is not - the Sonic Screwdriver MUST go.

Ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case.

[Alex]

Absolutely no argument here, I agree with you completely and would like it gone asap.

[J.R. Southall]

Okay, I will argue against.

There are three things to take into consideration here: one, whether it is over-used; two, whether it makes the series any less intelligent by allowing the Doctor easy get-outs; and three, whether the Doctor uses it for functions for which it wasn't designed, as some kind of "magic wand".

In response to the first criticism, the fact is that Matt Smith likes the prop. He's one of those actors who likes having something for his hands to do, or a "bit of business" he can be playing while other things are going on in a scene. For example, simply walking down a corridor might feel to him a rather dull thing to do visually, so partly for his own benefit (to make him feel as if the Doctor is being pro-active), and partly for the benefit of the cameras (to make a scene feel as if there is more going on than there really is), he will whip out the sonic screwdriver and do a little quick "scanning". Very often this is undoubtedly not even scripted - there are good examples both in Hide and in The Crimson Horror (and undoubtedly many other places) of him simply whipping the sonic screwdriver out and giving a quick scan, when there is no reference in the dialogue to why he has done it or what his findings were. He also appreciates that kids love to do the same with their sonic screwdrivers at home, and he probably delights in this. You also have to consider that many actors, when faced with a part in a long-running series, will arrive at certain character quirks, or tics in their characterisation, that kind of help them to essentially play the same thing week after week, month after month, year after year. Some less extreme examples in previous Doctor Who might include William Hartnell playing with his fingers (often up against his mouth or chin), Jon Pertwee rubbing his nose or his neck, Colin Baker rearranging his cat badges from story to story ... and so on. Tennant devised a system of reorganising the way his buttons were done up on his jacket from one story to the next, and for Matt Smith, it's playing with the sonic screwdriver.

Now, we must consider whether the sonic screwdriver has become a get-out-of-jail-free card, and I would contend that it hasn't. It's a tool, and almost always it is simply used as such. The best example I can give is the conclusion to The Power of Three, when there were many complaints that the Doctor waved his magic wand and solved the problem. Poppycock! The point with Doctor Who stories is that it's all about the assembly of information until the solution can be seen, and the sonic screwdriver rarely helps with that (except occasionally as something of a short-cut; in 45 minutes, there isn't always time for additional scenes of the Doctor picking up relatively trivial or easy-to-come-by information when this kind of a shortcut can be used, especially when it's more dramatic to concentrate on him picking up the more important information elsewhere in the plot). And the resolution to most stories is a case of doing what you have to do once that information has been gathered. In the case of The Power of Three, the Doctor discovered that the Earth was under threat from an automated system, and in order to resolve the plot, he simply needed to shut it off. There is only one way in which this can have been achieved: the Doctor pressing "stop" on the ship's flight-deck. But there are two ways in which this could be shown on screen: the Doctor pressing a button, or the Doctor using the sonic screwdriver to "press" the button. One of these is visually much more interesting, but it doesn't change the way the plot progressed to the point of resolution, nor does it change how the problem was actually solved. It was merely a visual trick, rather than one which allowed for an easy solution.

And after all, you have to ask yourself why would the Doctor not use a tool he has in his possession that would allow him the kinds of benefits the sonic screwdriver does? It would be like owning a power screwdriver and yet attempting to put screws in by hand. I don't for one moment imagine that the Doctor sits and plays with it during the downtime between stories, but once in a position either of peril, or in which the gathering of information becomes necessary, it would make very little sense for him not to use the sonic screwdriver.

Which brings us to point three, and the question of whether the sonic screwdriver is capable of too much. The answer is, of course not. If the Time Lords are supposed to be one of the most advanced civilisations ever to have existed, it would make far more sense for them to put together a handy little gadget with all these capabilities than it would for them to each carry something around that was only capable of doing or undoing screws. Okay, so it's called a "screwdriver", but then, your mobile phone is called a "phone" and that is only one of its many, many functions (ask yourself what percentage of the time you spend using your mobile phone is actually spent talking to people with it); sonic screwdriver is simply its name.

In conclusion, then, I'd say that once we had seen it in Fury From the Deep (and more particularly during Pertwee's tenure), the cat was out of the bag as far as it ever being put back to bed was concerned, and so the classic series is really to blame for its existence while the modern series has simply made more logical use of a tool that, to be fair, it would seem odd if the Doctor wasn't in possession of. After all, just take one look at the TARDIS and ask yourself if someone who owned and operated that wouldn't also be likely to carry a small multi-functioning gadget around with him for simple, menial tasks?

Logic dictates the screwdriver stays, and as for whether it "spoils" the stories, I'd argue not. That scene in The Rings of Akhaten would have been written entirely differently if the sonic screwdriver hadn't been available to use in it, with the door perhaps not having been an issue in it at all, and so the fact that scriptwriters will sometimes introduce peril simply in order for the Doctor to have to face an extra level of threat during a dramatic scene, because they know he has the device and can simply use the extra peril as a means of adding extra tension to an otherwise underperforming scene, isn't to me a problem.

[J.R. Southall]

P.S. Apologies if you weren't expecting anyone to disagree with you!

[Si Hunt]

I have to say I think it's over-used, and that it makes the stories less interesting. Now, I've always been a defender of the sonic; I've not problem at all with the Doctor using it to get through doors, solve minor problems etc.

The problem comes when it is used in an inplausible way, when a far more imaginative solution could be found. The last glaring example, in my opinion, was in "Nightmare In Silver" where the Doctor picks up a Cybermat, sonics it, and teleports to the Cyberman ship! Wait, what? Where did the teleport come from? How did the Cybermat activate it? What on EARTH (or Mondas) just happened? Okay, I'm sure one could come up with explanations for all these, but the point is that it's a "cheat" way of getting the Doctor from one place to another. Viewers like to guess, or think that what happens in the narrative is at least logical, but this just comes out of thin air. You feel as if the writer is being lazy, and it doesn't "feel" realistic within the context of the story. True, if the Doctor had walked over to the wall and said "Ah, a transmat!" and got it working with a bent hairpin (or, better still, discovered it earlier) it would have the same result, but it would feel more interesting and less like a cheat.

Si.

[Mike Saville]

I'd happily allow the screwdriver to stay if the actor and the screenwriters would exercise restraint in its use. For example, in the Narnia inspired Christmas episode The Doctor uses said device to ascertain that the creatures are indeed 'made of wood', boldly stated 'it doesn't work on wood', then proceeded to wave it incessantly at said wood for the next ten minutes.

The overwhelming evidence suggests the notion of less is more seems beyond them, so trash it.

[Nyder]

I think it's overused. Much as I love Matt Smith's Doctor, his constant waving around of his sonic does irritate me. It's got to go! Send for the Terileptils now!

[Si Hunt]

It would be hilarious if they turned up to destroy it.

But now we know the TARDIS manufactures the bleeding things, can it EVER dissapear? We need a story where the sonic becomes sentient, betrays the Doctor, and goes off into the sunset with a lady sonic chisel.

Si.

[shada pavlova]

Surely you mean Matron Cophelia's sonic pen? It's probably in a landfill somewhere now, just waiting to be fished out...

Although, it might be a bit awkward..."hi, you don't know me, but you once had involutary sonic-sex with my dad." "oh my...is that a sonic screwdriver in your pocket or are you just pleased to...oh. right. silly question."

...I'm not sure where I'm going with this and I don't particularly want to find out.

[Paul Monk]

I think I'm with J.R.
One assumption that always made about the sonic and turns up here, is that without it, writers would definitely come up with something more imaginative as a solution for the Doctor. Why would that be the case? As I think J.R says surely the easiest solution for the writer is not to include the problem in the first place. The Doctor doesn't get locked up for instance.
And surely if the Doctor gets stuck in a difficult situation and there's no sonic, the easiest thing to do is get the Doctor to discover a gadget in his pocket that would help or find some items that he can fashion into an appropriate gadget. The writing is not necessarily more inventive. The macguffin just comes from else where.

[Dino]

I'd rather see a series where he loses the Screwdriver in the first story and finds it in the last one.

But then I thought, really Dino?

If The Doctor didn't have the sonic, he'd have to look for the rest of the series at computer terminals and discovered notepads.
In every story would be loads of exposition props like electric diary used by someone who got killed- sorry, this is the New Series isn't it?- Disappears and The Doctor finds it.
So that VS the Sonic has the Sonic winning.

If I produced Who then I'd make him say the Sonic is basically the cheat to any question, ultimate calculator in exam and The Doctor only uses it because even with a mind like his, he admits to being lazy and wanting to use the Sonic.

But it doesn't happen like that.
The show eats exposition. Maybe the stories have to get better so it drowns out the use of the Sonic? But then it keeps popping up.

The fact the TARDIS can crap them out a bit of a cheat! So glad the dialogue was so fast I didn't notice until you actually pointed out!
So I'll be docking it down for that favour.
Keep, but hope they find something better to do with it. There is an argument for destroying it, but really it would have to be replaced with something to do the things the Sonic does.

I think one of the sweeteners for Doctor Who writers to write for the show is they have the maguffin of the Sonic to play with.

It's good to see there isn't a Psychic Paper MUST go threads, though!

...yeah, call myself a fan and I've never actually bought a Screwdriver...

[SiHart]

Perhaps they just need to use it a bit less, and give Matt Smith something else to play with to keep his hands busy.

[Philipnet]

Perhaps they [should] give Matt Smith something else to play with to keep his hands busy.

Oh er!

[J.R. Southall]

Perhaps they just need to use it a bit less, and give Matt Smith something else to play with to keep his hands busy.

I really don't mind it though. I honestly never ever think, "Sonic again!" when he brings it out; I barely even notice in fact. It's just there, like Tom's scarf or Sylvester's umbrella. Part of the background.

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

There is an argument for destroying it, but really it would have to be replaced with something to do the things the Sonic does.

What like K-9

[Logo Polish]

I could happily manage without any future episodes featuring a man waving a stick around which glows at the end, and being expected to find that intrinsically fascinating, interesting or entertaining. There's too much of it and it's tiresome. When you can just predict that the same old thing will be resorted to for just about anything, the effect ends up just being boring. I'd much prefer them to vary things a bit more.

Not really convinced by the argument that it's the kind of the thing the Time Lords would invent. On the strength of what has been shown of life on Gallifrey, it's unlikely that reconnecting barbed wire is the sort of thing that anyone's going to need to do there for example. The place is full of advanced computer technology as it is, so the tools required for it would be fairly basic, it's the instrumentation that does most of the work. Their locks appear to operate on the principle of hand prints, code recognition or voice prints, and, according to Invasion of Time, the sonic screwdriver doesn't work on them anyway.

Although it was always supposed to be more the Doctor's invention anyway, and while the former story has Rodan asking for one - although as one of many tools, suggesting it only has a limited range of utilities - the dialogue between him and Romana in Horns of Nimon still implies that the one he has is an adaptation of his own, with Romana basing her version on his. Even the business of the TARDIS producing replacements doesn't necessarily cause any problems for this, as he could just have programmed it to do that. It still doesn't make it that difficult for them to write it out if they choose either. For example, they could just establish that it relies on a fuel or mineral source which has been exhausted, hence no further ones can be made.

Even in the old series they didn't exclusively and invariably rely on it. They had other technological devices which could occasionally turn up, whether a Geiger counter, the radio detection control he has in Pyramids of Mars or the robot detector in Android Invasion, before you even get to the bits of string or whatever that might turn up sometimes, such as the yoyo which he tests the gravity with in Ark in Space. Can't help suspecting that now all of that would just be given to the screwdriver. Which reduces the range of possibilities, and drives up the formulaic side of it.

It's not as if it makes any difference to pacing and running time. Frankly, if you're short of time you don't want to be wasting it on throwing in cheap obstacles where the answer can be so easily predicted. There's no excitement there at all. It's not as if the episodes are normally being depicted in real time anyway, they wouldn't be obliged to feature every single stage of the Doctor getting through this, that or the other thing, even if it was something that took longer from his point of view.

There is also the Psychic Paper, although it's interesting that according to something I read somewhere its appearances have been in decline for some time, and I'm not sure it's been in more than two episodes of the most recent series? I haven't checked on this, but if so, it would demonstrate that the rate at which some elements can feature can still vary. Even if it were a lost cause to desire that the screwdriver appeared less often or not at all, it would still be worth expressing a preference, and in any case, it's always possible that directions can change, that a future Doctor or production regime may be less interested in it. Whether it features to the extent it does just to sell toys or not, considerations like that shouldn't really be driving artistic decisions anyway, that would be very much the tail wagging the dog.

I'm not keen on the current design either. Too bulky and ugly and doesn't make much sense from a user friendly perspective anyway, it'd be more in line with technological development for it to remain sleek and easily pocketable, like the way it started out as not much more than a pen torch in appearance.

It's probably the way it gets fetishised so much that sometimes annoys people too. Endless scenes or stills of the Doctor waving it about or pointing it like a weapon. It's really just a way of having the same sort of action-style iconography that would involve him aiming a blaster, despite his supposedly not carrying weapons. Having your cake and eating it.

[J.R. Southall]

Ah but... I didn't say it would have been developed for use on Gallifrey. In fact, the idea that it has a slot in the TARDIS suggests that it's a tool that was developed for taking on "outside jobs".

You also have to remember that the show reflects its environment. Back in the 1970s, the sonic screwdriver was just a screwdriver because things like smart-phones didn't exist. It was exotic, something that the Doctor had that seemed magical and futuristic in the eyes of people watching. Something functional that reflected something they might own themselves - a simple tool - but that operated in a manner (sonically!) that people wouldn't quite have understood.

And nowadays, it has been reinvented after the same fashion: something functional that reflects something the watching audience might themselves possess (a smart-phone), but that operates in a magical or mysterious manner that is just a touch beyond what we can realistically conceive.

Call that a "ret-con" if you like, but no more of a ret-con than if you were to make a story featuring a super-computer like BOSS or WOTAN, and not having it take up an entire room. Things have just got more sensible.

[Logo Polish]

It not only bears no resemblance to a smartphone, either in appearance or utility, but the redesign has been in the opposite direction from how these have actually developed. If you look at how mobiles have evolved, the tendency has been for them to get smaller, more compact, rather than bigger. The kind he has now is harder to put in the pocket or conceal on one's person, and more unwieldy to carry about, hence less practical, so doesn't really reflect that kind of technology at all. It's much more likely that a more advanced version would be smaller, or perhaps had its functions inbuilt to a bracelet or a ring on one's finger.

[Andrew Curnow]

It's definitely used a lot more now even than in the Tennant era, I'd say - I take JR's point about is just being 'a bit of business' for Matt; but where I really don't like it, is that it's just occasionally (it seems to me) being brandished a little bit as if it's a weapon. Not often, but in The Crimson Horror, for example, when he's just been revived and he & Jenny are confronted by a group of workers, the Doctor produces his sonic and waves it towards them. Now you could easily argue he's scanning them to see if they're human, but to me it just looks like he's pointing it at them in a 'one move & I'll shoot' kind of a way.

As I say, it's not often, but it's a very slippery slope!!

[J.R. Southall]

Logo, I'm not saying that it's the Doctor's smart-phone, I'm saying that within the fiction of the series, it is a fictional equivalent of a device that started out mono-functional and has come to have a range of new functions added to it - rather like the smart-phone has. You're taking me just a little bit too literally, I fear.

Smart-phones have actually got bigger anyway, as a tiny tiny device is no use to anyone who needs to bring up a keypad on-screen in order to type in sentences or play games.

[Si Hunt]

I think it's bad of the Doctor to have an electronic device that seems glued to his fingers, that he gets out and waves around at every opportunity. Almost as if he's obsessed with a silly electronic gadget.

*gets out phone and checks twitter*

Si.

[Logo Polish]

I'm not saying that it's the Doctor's smart-phone, I'm saying that within the fiction of the series, it is a fictional equivalent of a device that started out mono-functional and has come to have a range of new functions added to it - rather like the smart-phone has. You're taking me just a little bit too literally, I fear.

Not really, I was pointing out that there are various reasons why that analogy can be questioned.

Smart-phones have actually got bigger anyway, as a tiny tiny device is no use to anyone who needs to bring up a keypad on-screen in order to type in sentences or play games.

I doubt whether you'll find many larger than the virtually brick sized ones of the 80s.

Anyway, as the sonic screwdriver requires neither of those there's no particular reason for it to exist in the form of a rod which has to be taken out of one's pockets and handled, and especially not a large and ungainly one, which makes it heavier to carry with no gain. The bit at the end is the only part of it that ever operates so you could quite easily incorporate it into an item of clothing or jewellery. A bracelet, or wristwatch, or ring, could have its functions integrated, meaning that you could simply wear it. No more having to use up the fingers on one hand having to grasp it, simply point or press your wrist or finger at either the lock or whatever apparatus it is, and it's done.

There's a precedent for it too, the first Doctor had a ring which was occasionally employed for various functions, and where its qualities were never fully defined.

In addition to that, it doesn't help the issue that if you have something which is called upon again and again to solve something, then it remains a predictable and cliched plot device. The rationale is an irrelevance, and it doesn't matter how many comparisons one makes to mobiles, computers or any other existing technology. Constant repetition is ultimately boring to watch.

[Dirk Gently]

Anyway, as the sonic screwdriver requires neither of those there's no particular reason for it to exist in the form of a rod which has to be taken out of one's pockets and handled, and especially not a large and ungainly one, which makes it heavier to carry with no gain. The bit at the end is the only part of it that ever operates so you could quite easily incorporate it into an item of clothing or jewellery. A bracelet, or wristwatch, or ring, could have its functions integrated, meaning that you could simply wear it. No more having to use up the fingers on one hand having to grasp it, simply point or press your wrist or finger at either the lock or whatever apparatus it is, and it's done.

May be I'm being dim here but has the technology of the sonic screwdriver ever been explained? How do you know that it could be incorporated in to a smaller device? How do you know that its functioning parts are not in fact about 4 inches long?

[Logo Polish]

More pertinently, given that it's make believe, why should it be somehow impossible for any writers to have it upgraded in such a way? If there are no set boundaries as to how it works, then what is there to stop someone redefining the possibilities in the way described? Even if for some reason it depended on being tubular shaped, how would reducing the size of said tube by, say, a hundred times, so that it could fit into something button-sized be any more far fetched than any other kind of invented technology in the series?

[J.R. Southall]

And even more to the point, why would they? The kids love the sonic screwdriver, and it's one of the series' most iconic creations. If you're looking to make it "realistic" in a series that features a time-travelling Police Box that's bigger inside than out, piloted by a two-hearted man who regenerates into an entirely new body whenever he dies...