Eleventh Doctor's sonic screwdriver
After the loss of his previous model, the TARDIS gifted the Eleventh Doctor with a redesigned sonic screwdriver. Differing radically from the last screwdriver, with its extendible "claws" and green crystalline emitter resembling the inner structure of the TARDIS's new time rotor, it also had copper plating similar to the new control room. (TV: The Eleventh Hour) A psychic interface allowed its user to point it at a target and think of the function they wanted. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler, Death in Heaven) Having been mentioned to be more than sonic, (TV: Night Terrors) this screwdriver also shot beams of green energy in the shape of sonic waves. (TV: Day of the Moon, Closing Time) By at least the time of the Doctor's thirteenth regeneration, it had a voice-activation feature, which the Doctor forgot about when he needed it. (TV: Deep Breath) It had a charge that could last centuries; it once lasted 300 years before the Doctor could charge it in the TARDIS. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
Retaining ineffectiveness against wood, it also didn't work against Peg Dolls (TV: Night Terrors) or the Wooden King and Queen. (TV: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe) The Doctor considered it embarrassing and said that "I need to invent a setting for wood." (TV: Night Terrors) In similar situations, he yelled at it in panic; "Aliens made of wood, you know this was always going to happen!", "Yes, I know it's wood. Get over it!" (TV: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe) Though aware of this flaw, he was still able to successfully bluff a Wooden Cyberman into destroying itself. (TV: The Time of the Doctor) He also once defended this weakness, saying "Oi! Don't diss the sonic!" (TV: The Hungry Earth) At some point it had an anti-freeze setting. (TV: The Snowmen) This screwdriver was also shown to have a "red setting", (TV: Cold War) similar to River's sonic screwdriver.
This model was lost and replaced by the Doctor repeatedly, having been bitten in half by a sky shark and left behind, (TV: A Christmas Carol) left with the Ganger Doctor, (TV: The Rebel Flesh) destroyed by Danny Fisher (COMIC: The Blood of Azrael) and, in one instance, simply burnt out due to overuse. In the latter instance, a replacement was given to him by Santa Claus. (COMIC: Silent Knight) One of the Twelfth Doctor's sonic screwdrivers was incinerated by the Governor when he was admitted into the Prison. Clara Oswald attempted to give him a new one disguised as a large candle in a birthday cake, but the Governor refused to give the cake to the Doctor. To circumvent this, the Doctor created a sonic spoon in the interim for the time being. (PROSE: The Blood Cell)
Ultimately, he left one of his screwdrivers with Davros after abandoning him as a child. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice) Davros examined the screwdriver during his teenage years, upgrading its defensive laser into a true weapon. (PROSE: The Last of the Dals) Davros had it in his possession for many years after, until Colony Sarff returned it to the Doctor. By this point, it was no longer of any real use to him, as it had become heavily damaged and inoperable, visibly weather-beaten from exposure to war and conflict, and with one of the clawed prongs broken off. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice, The Witch's Familiar)
The Doctor eventually declared that he was "over" sonic screwdrivers, saying that they "spoil the line of your jacket". He replaced the screwdriver with a pair of sonic sunglasses. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)
However, he did not keep this promise, as he used this sonic screwdriver several times afterwards. (COMIC: Clara Oswald and the School of Death, The Fourth Wall)
When the Eleventh Doctor met the Tenth Doctor in England, 1562, upon the latter realising that the former was a future incarnation of himself, they both got out their sonic screwdrivers. The Eleventh Doctor immediately showed off how much bigger his was, to which the Tenth Doctor claimed that his future incarnation was compensating, remarking that "regeneration, it's a lottery." (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
A version of this screwdriver was kept in the Twelfth Doctor's office at St Luke's University. (TV: The Pilot)
At one point during his travels with Bill Potts, the Twelfth Doctor had a version of this sonic design in the colour scheme of his second sonic screwdriver. (COMIC: Tulpa)
The sonic was found in the Remembered TARDIS by Jo Jones. (TV: The Three Doctors [+]Loading...["The Three Doctors (TotT TV story)"])
Uses[[edit] | [edit source]]
Security[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Trying (unsuccessfully) to open the exit back into Starship UK. (TV: The Beast Below)
- Opening the chest plate of an android's controls. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
- Opening the entrance hatch of a spaceship. (TV: Flesh and Stone)
- Breaking open padlocks. (TV: The Hungry Earth)
- Locking the TARDIS doors. (TV: Cold Blood, The Doctor's Wife)
- Opening the gate to the London Underground. (GAME: City of the Daleks)
- Opening up a discarded Dalek dome. (GAME: City of the Daleks)
- Bypassing Dalek security seals. (GAME: City of the Daleks)
- Opening up control panels in Kaalann. (GAME: City of the Daleks)
- Closing and locking a door to a Cyber-conversion room. (GAME: Blood of the Cybermen)
- Unlocking Cyber-conversion unit manacles. (GAME: Blood of the Cybermen)
- Opening an electronic door. (GAME: Shadows of the Vashta Nerada)
- Opening the door to a time ship. (TV: The Lodger)
- To open, close and lock the Pandorica. (TV: The Big Bang)
- Unlocking the door to Melody's room. (TV: Day of the Moon)
- Unlocking Amy's restraints. (TV: Day of the Moon)
- Locking and failing to unlock the TARDIS. (TV: The Doctor's Wife)
- Unlocking a grating. (TV: The Almost People)
- Locking a grating into place. (TV: The Almost People)
- Closing doors inside a Cyber-ship. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
- Opening doors on Demons Run. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
- Opening a fake door. (TV: The God Complex)
- Sealing the trapdoor that Gantok fell down, out of fear of the carnivorous skulls. (TV: The Wedding of River Song)
- Unlocking Dalek prisoner restraints. (COMIC: The Dalek Project)
- Turning off the defence system of Kahler-Jex' ship. (TV: A Town Called Mercy)
- Locking a door in the Great Intelligence Institute office. (TV: The Snowmen)
- Stripping away the disguise around the Great Intelligence's voice. (TV: The Snowmen)
- Unlocking the door of the Maitland home. (TV: The Bells of Saint John)
- Unlocking the door of an aeroplane's cockpit. (TV: The Bells of Saint John)
- Opening the secret entrance to the Doctor's tomb. (TV: The Name of the Doctor)
- Disabling a Sontaran invisibility field to leave two Sontarans invading the town of Christmas defenceless against the Papal Mainframe. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
- Unlocking restraints around Clara and the Doctor. (TV: Deep Breath)
- Opening a Dalek drainage hole. (TV: Into the Dalek)
- Unlocking the seal to a space capsule door. (TV: Listen)
- Opening air vents. (TV: Time Heist)
- Shutting an automatic door on the Pollyanna. (COMIC: The Eye of Torment)
- Opening a door on the Pollyanna. (COMIC: The Eye of Torment)
- Fusing a lock. (COMIC: The Eye of Torment)
- Opening a panel which released cooling gases, causing harm to Rann-Korr. (COMIC: Terrorformer)
- Unlocking the door of 3W. (TV: Dark Water)
- Opening and closing the inner and outer airlock of a spaceship. (COMIC: Spirits of the Jungle)
Medical[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Forcing a star whale to regurgitate by overloading its chaemo-receptors. (TV: The Beast Below)
- Simultaneously healing and analysing wounds. (TV: The Vampires of Venice)
- Scanning lifeforms to determine how integrated into a host body they are. (TV: Amy's Choice)
- Scanning piles of dust for traces of people. (TV: Amy's Choice)
- Scanning an infection. (TV: Cold Blood)
- Unwittingly pleasing a Krafayis. (TV: Vincent and the Doctor)
- Stunning the Silence. (TV: Day of the Moon)
- Confirming how long Idris's body has before the TARDIS Matrix causes it to die. (TV: The Doctor's Wife)
- Scanning the Flesh. (TV: The Rebel Flesh)
- Detecting differences between Gangers and humans. (TV: The Almost People)
- Dissolving Gangers. (TV: The Almost People)
- Detecting if a person was fatally wounded. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
- Stunning the Rutan Lady Winters. (GAME: The Gunpowder Plot)
- Scanning the deceased to determine what caused death with no success. (TV: The God Complex)
- Scanning for life signs. (TV: Closing Time)
- Scanning pieces of what used to be the Ice Governess. (TV: The Snowmen)
- Stripping away the disguise of the Great Intelligence. (TV: The Snowmen)
- Melting the Ice Governess using the new anti-freeze setting. (TV: The Snowmen)
- Trying but failing to melt the Ice Governess again once she came back. (TV: The Snowmen)
- Stripping away the disguise of a Spoonhead. (TV: The Bells of Saint John)
- Scanning the people in an aeroplane to find out that they were unconscious. (TV: The Bells of Saint John)
- Removing a dream crab from Clara Oswald's face by electrifying its nerve centres. (TV: Last Christmas)
Diagnostic[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Scanning Starship UK's engine room to determine that there was no actual engine powering the spaceship. (TV: The Beast Below)
- Scanning voting booth for memory erasing function. (TV: The Beast Below)
- Scanning Father Octavian's computer. (TV: The Time of Angels)
- Determining the nature of the cracks throughout time and space, which was "extremely very not good." (TV: Flesh and Stone)
- Scanning for heat signatures. (TV: Cold Blood)
- Scanning Stonehenge. (TV: The Pandorica Opens)
- Helping trace who received the Pandorica's summons. (TV: The Pandorica Opens)
- Scanning the Pandorica. (TV: The Pandorica Opens)
- Scanning with a parabolic satellite dish for an exploding TARDIS. (TV: The Big Bang)
- Scanning River Song's vortex manipulator to see if it was wired into something. (TV: The Big Bang)
- Confirming the isomorphic nature of a control panel. (TV: A Christmas Carol)
- Scanning boxes of stolen NASA equipment to confirm that they are just what they look like. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)
- Scanning a spacesuit. (TV: Day of the Moon)
- Confirming if a nano-recorder was on telepathic transmission or a replay. (TV: Day of the Moon)
- Confirming the nature of an alien life-support system. (TV: The Curse of the Black Spot)
- Scanning for Hypercube transmissions to locate their source. (TV: The Doctor's Wife)
- Scanning for monsters and how powerful they were. (TV: Night Terrors)
- Scanning dimensional lesions. (GAME: The Gunpowder Plot)
- Detecting electrical interference. (TV: Closing Time)
- Confirming increased sulphur emissions. (TV: Closing Time)
- Scanning a Dalek's database for information, specifically anything that his oldest enemies knew about the Silence. (TV: The Wedding of River Song)
- Scanning a Headless Monk head box to confirm its contents. (TV: The Wedding of River Song)
- Scanning Albert Einstein's liquid to determine if it was the ingredient he thought he needed to make a time machine. (TV: Death Is the Only Answer)
- Scanning the life-force transference crown. (TV: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe)
- Detecting a magnetic field. (COMIC: The Dalek Project)
- Scanning a load of rocks and wood, determining that they were just that. (TV: A Town Called Mercy)
- Scanning the electric lights in Mercy to determine how far advanced the technology was. (TV: A Town Called Mercy)
- Scanning a Weeping Angel. (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan)
- Scanning a frozen pond. (TV: The Snowmen)
- Scanning the melted Ice Governess to make sure she was gone and draining through the carpet. (TV: The Snowmen)
- Scanning a Cybermite. (TV: Nightmare in Silver)
- Scanning the Doctor's time stream. (TV: The Name of the Doctor)
- Detecting the progress of the War Doctor's calculation in his iteration of the sonic screwdriver. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
- A heat sensor to discover the hiding place of the Mara. (PROSE: The Dreaming)
- Scanning Dalek memory technology. (TV: Into the Dalek)
- Scanning a lock of hair. (TV: Robot of Sherwood)
- Scanning an apple. (TV: Robot of Sherwood)
- Scanning Bank of Karabraxos technology. (TV: Time Heist)
- Tracing the Skovox Blitzer. (TV: The Caretaker)
- Calculating how long before the Skovox Blitzer would return. (TV: The Caretaker)
- Scanning a cocoon. (TV: Kill the Moon)
- Scanning a spider germ. (TV: Kill the Moon)
- Scanning the Excelsior Life Extender. (TV: Mummy on the Orient Express)
- Scanning for traces of the Boneless. (TV: Flatline)
- Scanning trees. (TV: In the Forest of the Night)
- Scanning Clara Oswald. (TV: Dark Water)
Technology[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Isolating the lighting so that the Weeping Angels could not drain the power. (TV: Flesh and Stone)
- Redirecting all the power to the doors in order to open them. (TV: Flesh and Stone)
- Uploading proximity-alerting software to Amy's communicator. (TV: Flesh and Stone)
- Detecting the location of lights. (TV: Amy's Choice)
- Exploding lightbulbs. (TV: Amy's Choice)
- Hacking into computer records. (TV: The Hungry Earth)
- Activating bio-programmed soil. (TV: The Hungry Earth)
- Disabling Silurian weapons. (TV: Cold Blood)
- Accessing the Visualiser eye and repowering it. (GAME: City of the Daleks)
- Tampering with the Dalek Emperor's casing. (GAME: City of the Daleks)
- Activating a Dalek console trap. (GAME: City of the Daleks)
- Constructing a Dalek Vision Disruptor. (GAME: City of the Daleks)
- Fixing platform lift control panels. (GAME: Blood of the Cybermen)
- Disassembling a Chronon Blocker. (GAME: TARDIS)
- Activating emergency light switches. (GAME: Shadows of the Vashta Nerada)
- Turning on the lights inside a generator. (GAME: Shadows of the Vashta Nerada)
- Setting the TARDIS on its "adventure setting". (TV: Good as Gold)
- Unsuccessfully attempting to free Sophie's hand from the time ship console. (TV: The Lodger)
- Changing a hologram between its different forms. (TV: The Lodger)
- To send a signal through to Amy's communicator to help guide her through a forest. (TV: Flesh and Stone)
- Scrambling a Cyberarm's circuits. (TV: The Pandorica Opens)
- Giving orders to androids. (PROSE: The War of Art)
- To reconfigure the binaries in the TARDIS. (GAME: Evacuation Earth)
- Disabling a force field. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
- Hailing the Eleventh Doctor's sonic cane. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler)
- Disabling privileges from the Teselecta's crew. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler)
- Activating George's toys. (TV: Night Terrors)
- Detaching the view glass from the visitation facility. (TV: The Girl Who Waited)
- Augmenting the view glass to work disconnected. (TV: The Girl Who Waited)
- Locking on to Amy's timestream. (TV: The Girl Who Waited)
- Switching off CCTV monitors. (TV: The God Complex)
- Repairing and activating a lift. (TV: Closing Time)
- Fusing the controls of a Cyberman teleporter. (TV: Closing Time)
- Overloading/imploding a Cybermat; unfortunately wiping its memory in the process. (TV: Closing Time)
- Repairing the controls of a Cyberman teleporter and using it. (TV: Closing Time)
- Taking apart a Supreme Dalek. (TV: The Wedding of River Song)
- Freezing the Teselecta in place; this caused sparks to fly inside of it. (TV: The Wedding of River Song)
- Reprogramming Proto-Daleks to recognise Daleks as enemies. (COMIC: The Dalek Project)
- Used to help with rewiring the TARDIS; he told Lilly it was because the light in his "wardrobe" wasn't working, claiming it was the reason he dressed as he did. (TV: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe)
- Deleting an answering machine message from the phone the message was made from. (WC: Pond Life)
- Activating the reverse in a badly damaged, insane Dalek's casing to send it into other insane Daleks (as it was going to self-destruct). (TV: Asylum of the Daleks)
- Taking apart the device emitting the Silurian Ark's signal, and activating it upon placing it in Solomon's ship. (TV: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship)
- Disabling the android the Shakri put on Earth to control the Shakri cubes. (TV: The Power of Three)
- Reversing the Shakri's programming of the cubes to jump-start the hearts of the humans they previously stopped. (TV: The Power of Three)
- Reversing a friction amper. (COMIC: The Cornucopia Caper)
- Overloading a light bulb, creating a blinding light, to act as a distraction to escape the Angels. (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan)
- Getting rid of the shield that was blocking the Ice Governess and putting a new one behind the Doctor and Clara (TV: The Snowmen)
- Seemingly adding an extra layer of super-dense water vapour to keep the Ice Governess "trapped for the moment" (TV: The Snowmen)
- Shattering a glass window (TV: The Bells of Saint John, Flatline)
- Turning off the TARDIS anti-grav. (TV: The Name of the Doctor)
- Activating the memory-erasing device in the Black Archive. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
- Ringing the bell in Christmas' Clock Tower. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
- Bluffing a wooden Cyberman into thinking that he sent a signal to its flamethrower so it would reverse its direction as soon as it tried to fire. Though a Truth Field was active, the Cyberman was not told the screwdriver couldn't affect wood. It pointed its weapon backwards, thinking it would reset, and killed itself by accident. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
- Sealing a damage crack within a Dalek. (TV: Into the Dalek)
- Activating a holographic scanner. (TV: The Caretaker)
- Leading the Skovox Blitzer to Coal Hill School. (TV: The Caretaker)
- Attracting the attention of the Skovox Blitzer with pulses of helicon energy. (TV: The Caretaker)
- Transferring a video phone message to a screen monitor. (TV: Kill the Moon)
- Activating and altering a 3D projection. (TV: Kill the Moon)
- Altering a phone so it would work wireless. (TV: Mummy on the Orient Express)
- Changing a train signal from green to red. (TV: Flatline)
- Detecting the location of a mobile phone. (TV: In the Forest of the Night)
- Activating an emotional inhibitor. (TV: Death in Heaven)
- Using energy waves from android weapons to recharge a teleport bracelet. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)
Amplification[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Amplifying an electrical beam. (TV: The Beast Below)
- To increase a signal's strength. (TV: The Time of Angels)
- Making the voice of a star whale audible to the human ear. (TV: The Beast Below)
- Displaying energy barricades which are usually invisible to the naked eye. (TV: The Hungry Earth)
- Transmitting Abigail's singing from one broken segment to the other to open the cloud belt. (TV: A Christmas Carol)
- Amplifying Amy's sonic probe. (TV: The Girl Who Waited)
- Creating a high pitched noise to get attention. (TV: The God Complex)
- As a microphone. (TV: The God Complex)
- Creating a sound loud enough to distract Kahler-Tek to allow the Doctor's escape. (TV: A Town Called Mercy)
- Amplifying the sound of the Time Lords calling out "Doctor who?" to the Daleks to remind them how easy it would be to answer their call and the difficulty it would take to kill him if he could live for ages. Also bouncing sonic waves of the bell in the clock tower on Trenzalore to mark the coming of war. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
- Amplifying the sound wave produced by an Ice Warrior made sonic cannon. (PROSE: Let it Snow)
- Creating localised gravity to hold the entities which surrounded Maebh Arden. (TV: In the Forest of the Night)
- Creating an acoustic corridor to allow communication from 50 feet away. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice)
Other[[edit] | [edit source]]
- As a torch with blue light. (TV: The Beast Below, Closing Time, The Angels Take Manhattan)
- It was voice activated, coded to the Eleventh Doctor's voice. (TV: Deep Breath)
- Blocking out the effects of perception filters. (TV: The Vampires of Venice)
- Giving a Cybermat a "Cyber-Migraine". (GAME: Blood of the Cybermen)
- Distracting Cybermats. (GAME: Blood of the Cybermen)
- Heating water and ice. (GAME: Blood of the Cybermen)
- Destroying a Weeping Angel. (TV: Good as Gold)
- Lighting flaming torches. (TV: The Pandorica Opens)
- Heating up a teapot. (PROSE: Snowfall)
- As a lure to attract a sky fish. (TV: A Christmas Carol)
- Attempting self-reconstruction via signalling its other half; it failed at this and was left behind by the Doctor to be replaced by a similar sonic screwdriver. (TV: A Christmas Carol)
- Protecting two versions of Rory Williams from falling victim to the Blinovitch Limitation Effect (PROSE: Touched by an Angel)
- Damaging a Cyber-ship. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
- Disarming Melody Pond. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler)
- Igniting a cannon. (GAME: The Gunpowder Plot)
- Destroying the Star of Solitude. (COMIC: The Cornucopia Caper)
- Opens and closing Dalek Transmat portals. (COMIC: The Dalek Project)
- Holding a heavy door with an acoustic lock open in the pyramid of the rings of Akhaten. (TV: The Rings of Akhaten)
- Deflecting sound-based attacks utilised by the Vigil. (TV: The Rings of Akhaten)
- Tracking the location of Grand Marshall Skaldak as he sneaked around out of his armour. (TV: Cold War)
- Receiving a signal from the TARDIS indicating that it had returned and indicating its location. (TV: Cold War)
- Enhancing the power of an arsenal of bombs. (TV: Cold War)
- Relaxing the grip from someone's hand. (PROSE: Shroud of Sorrow)
- Combining power with the Tenth and War Doctor's sonic screwdrivers to create a sonic force field to blast back and destroy an attacking Dalek in the Time War. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
- Used for centuries as a weapon against his greatest enemies during the Siege of Trenzalore. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
- Disconnecting a horse's reins. (TV: Deep Breath)
- Tracking a radiation signal. (TV: Into the Dalek)
- Blowing up an archery target. (TV: Robot of Sherwood)
- Driving off "skunkeys" which were attacking Clara. (COMIC: Terrorformer)
- Sending the Boneless back to their dimension. (TV: Flatline)
- Granting a football referee's glasses the ability to watch every football game in the galaxy. (COMIC: Bow-ties for Goal Posts)
- Connecting to the Doctor's Bookface account and projecting its posts. (COMIC: Timeliney Wimey)
- Creating a noise deafening to Sea Devils. (COMIC: Clara Oswald and the School of Death)
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
Sonic screwdriver toy[[edit] | [edit source]]
- A toy of the Eleventh Doctor's version was seen in "Light Echoes", an edition of "The Sky at Night" broadcast on BBC4 on Wednesday 5th October 2010. The screwdriver was (jokingly) used to scan a part of the LOFAR radio telescope, then under construction in Chilbolton, Hampshire, UK.
- The Eleventh Doctor's sonic screwdriver toy has a total of four sound effects, two of which alternate with every other button press. The third is activated by pressing twice and holding on the third button push. The fourth is activated with three presses and a hold on the fourth push. However, in some models of the toy, over-use of the hidden sound effects causes the sound functions to eventually break, leaving only the LED functional.
- The customiseable toy sonic screwdriver set featuring three screwdrivers with interchangeable parts can produce up to eight sound effects: the first two are the basic screwdriver sound, with slightly different pitches, and alternate each time the button is pressed. The other six effects are achieved in a similar manner to those of the Eleventh Doctor's sonic screwdriver toy, and are accompanied by a flashing lights instead of a constant light.
Other matters[[edit] | [edit source]]
- In the original script for The Eleventh Hour, the Doctor referred to his screwdriver as "Level 4000" technology.
- Doctor Who: Legacy mobile game contains a premium pack called "Sonic Adventure", which is centred around finding various sonic devices used by different incarnations of the Doctor and by several other characters. The playable characters form this premium pack represented almost every model of sonic screwdriver encountered in the DWU.