After 58 Years, Doctor Who Officially Retcons the Doctor’s Greatest “Weapon”

58 years ago, Doctor Who introduced the sonic screwdriver. It was created by Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor, and it quickly became a mainstay for the show; the Doctor used it for pretty much everything, especially after the 2005 revival. David Tennant’s Doctor took to brandishing it like a weapon, a habit Matt Smith repeated; there’s a delightful scene where River Song guns down Silence while he spins around her, dramatically pointing his screwdriver at them. Needless to say, River Song was not impressed.

2013’s 50th anniversary special, “The Day of the Doctor,” went one step further. There, John Hurt’s War Doctor teamed up with Smith and Tennant’s incarnations, and he was frankly bewildered when they brandished their sonic screwdrivers at Elizabethan soldiers who surrounded them. “Oh, the pointing again,” he grumbled. “They’re screwdrivers” What are you going to do, assemble a cabinet at them?” More combat-experienced Doctors clearly consider the sonic screwdriver a useful tool, but not a weapon. Or, at least, we thought that was the case – until a major Doctor Who retcon.

Patrick Troughton Wasn’t the First Doctor With a Sonic Screwdriver

Yes, you read that right: Doctor Who has officially retconned the history of the sonic screwdriver, revealing Patrick Troughton wasn’t the first Doctor to use one. Doctor Who may be on hiatus right now, but the Time Lord’s adventures continue in other media – including in a fantastic transmedia event, “Circuit Breaker,” which stars Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor. Introduced during Chris Chibnall’s tenure as showrunner, we gradually learned the Fugitive Doctor was a pre-Hartnell incarnation who worked for the Time Lords and eventually went rogue. This is the Doctor, before she became the Doctor.

Hartnell’s Doctor was blunter, arrogant and more forthright; in his first story, there’s a chilling scene where he contemplates murdering a caveman for his own convenience. In keeping with this, Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor was much more action-focused, and we’d previously seen her wielding a gun rather than a sonic screwdriver – a gun she was very, very experienced at using. She felt more like the War Doctor than any other incarnation, and we’d generally assumed she didn’t have a sonic screwdriver at all. Until “Circuit Breaker,” anyway.

To be fair, Doctor Who has gradually retconned the sonic screwdriver. Originally the Doctor’s own invention (just like the TARDIS), it’s now seen as a pretty standard piece of Gallifreyan technology. The Doctor didn’t actually invent the sonic screwdriver at all, he just made a new one. So it does kind of make sense that the Fugitive Doctor, who’d started off working for the Time Lords, would have Gallifreyan equipment like this.

I have to say, though, that I’m not entirely won over by the idea. “Circuit Breaker” is great fun, but I consider it flawed for one frustrating reason; it’s made Martin’s Fugitive Doctor less of a departure from the character we know, and more like a typical Doctor. In doing so, it’s quietly undermined the Doctor’s evolution as a character, which is a shame. This sonic screwdriver feels uncomfortably symbolic; Martin’s character is basically just another incarnation of the Doctor now, and she therefore comes with all the features. However cool they may be.