Eighth Doctor's second sonic screwdriver
Later in his eighth incarnation, the Doctor carried a sonic screwdriver with a wooden handle. It had a metallic tip with six prongs that nested a clear diode at the end, which glowed blue when activated. (AUDIO: The Great War) Its handle doubled as a torch. (AUDIO: Sword of Orion) The Doctor claimed that he made this version of the sonic screwdriver to do more than open doors and blow up land mines. (AUDIO: X and the Daleks) He later made further modifications to the screwdriver. (AUDIO: Beachhead)
It was referred to as a pennywhistle by numerous World War I medics. (AUDIO: The Great War) The Doctor had it in his possession as early on as his travels with Charley Pollard, (AUDIO: The Light at the End) and was still using it in the early part of the Last Great Time War. (PROSE: Natural Regression) The Eighth Doctor later returned to using his original model by the end of his life. (TV: The Night of the Doctor)
Uses
- To locate the TARDIS, but instead opening a Vess force field. (AUDIO: The Light at the End)
- To hack into the reality orientation controls in a Vess weapons factory. (AUDIO: The Light at the End)
- Breaking the security lockdown in a Vess facility with the help of the Fourth Doctor's sonic screwdriver. (AUDIO: The Light at the End)
- Touching with the Fourth Doctor's sonic screwdriver to release enough temporal energy to force the door to the TARDIS to open. (AUDIO: The Light at the End)
- Disorienting a Rescue Operational Security Module. (AUDIO: Embrace the Darkness)
- Raising the bulkheads between Romana II and the Matrix chamber. (AUDIO: Neverland)
- Jamming motion-sensitive sensors long enough for the Doctor and his companions to get to safety. (AUDIO: Scaredy Cat)
- Locking the TARDIS console room away from the rest of the ship until it could repair itself during a Hellion attack. (AUDIO: Absolution)
- Tracking residual energy traces. (AUDIO: The Girl Who Never Was)
- Reactivating a long-dormant telegraph machine. (AUDIO: The Girl Who Never Was)
- Oscillating the atoms of wickerwork to weaken the structure. (AUDIO: Dead London)
- Vibrating Molluscari from their shells by duplicating the precise frequency necessary. (AUDIO: Orbis)
- Weakening a stone wall by weakening the molecular bonds between atoms. (AUDIO: The Book of Kells)
- Fixing a train track. (AUDIO: The Great War)
- To locate the TARDIS. (AUDIO: Fugitives)
- Trying to shatter the walls of a prison. (AUDIO: Tangled Web)
- Detecting a temporal intrusion. (AUDIO: X and the Daleks)
- Being activated by Herbert Goring, allowing the Doctor to track the screwdriver with the TARDIS. (AUDIO: The White Room)
- Breaking into the Ides Scientific Institute. (AUDIO: Eyes of the Master)
- Unlocking a freezer door slowly from the inside. (AUDIO: Eyes of the Master)
- Settings twelve and twenty could override security on a Ramossan spaceport. (AUDIO: The Reviled)
- Cancelling an alarm. (AUDIO: Masterplan)
- Tampering with a spaceship computer. (AUDIO: Masterplan)
- Unlocking handcuffs. (AUDIO: The Monster of Montmartre)
- Attempting to unscrew Gallifreyan bolts. (AUDIO: The Eleven)
- Access information from a terminal. (AUDIO: The Satanic Mill)
- Summoning the TARDIS to the Doctor's location. (AUDIO: The Satanic Mill)
- To detect energy emissions. (AUDIO: Beachhead)
- To detect tremors caused by the Gift. (AUDIO: The Sonomancer)
- To hack into a lock with three million possible combinations. (AUDIO: The Sonomancer)
- To access a Gallifreyan computer. (AUDIO: The Crucible of Souls)
- To open a door. (AUDIO: How to Make a Killing in Time Travel)
- To scan for animae particles. (COMIC: The Pictures of Josephine Day)
- To use a satellite dish to communicate with the Spherions. (COMIC: Music of the Spherions)
- Opening the back door to a theatre in Edinburgh. (COMIC: The Silvering)
- Unlocking a cell door. (COMIC: The Silvering)
- Destroying the Silversmith's mirrors. (COMIC: The Silvering)
- As a torch. (COMIC: Briarwood)
- To escape a cell on board a Bakri resurrection barge. (COMIC: A Matter of Life and Death)
- Scanning an Omsonii. (COMIC: The Time Ball)
- As a torch when the Doctor visited Rontan 9. (PROSE: Natural Regression)
- Fusing the lock of a metal door. (PROSE: Natural Regression)
Behind the scenes
While this sonic screwdriver was introduced in Dark Eyes along with the Doctor's new look, the Limited Edition cover for The Light at the End, set during his Main Range stories with Charley Pollard depicts the Eighth Doctor wielding this model of screwdriver. While the likely original intention of those stories was that the sonic was the one that originated in Doctor Who, there is nothing in those stories that contradicts the idea that it being a different one.
