3 Doctor Who Gadgets That Do Just About Everything

Doctor Who is a great show with a great problem. As a time-traveling alien, the Doctor finds himself in a limitless variety of situations. The problem is how he can possibly handle all of them, given the technological and cultural differences in different time periods. It’s one thing for the Doctor to be in ancient Rome, dealing with Roman soldiers and aqueducts. Quite another when he’s in London in 1999, where he has to deal with computers and the CIA. As a result, the show has equipped the Doctor with a wide variety of gadgets based on alien technology. Three of them alone give the Doctor the ability to do pretty much anything. Let’s review…

Psychic Paper – Psychic paper is a small white card that normally appears blank. However, the Doctor can make the paper look like anything he wants. So if the Doctor needs a driver’s license, it will look like a driver’s license. If he needs a police badge, it looks like a police badge. Usually he’ll use it to make it look like he has the credentials to get into restricted areas, but it does more. At one point, he uses the psychic paper as a boarding pass for a bus, and in another, he uses it as a keycard. It’s even able to send and receive messages. It basically appears as anything the Doctor needs it to be.

Sonic Screwdriver – The sonic screwdriver is a small metal wand with a glowing tip that the Doctor carries everywhere. It emits some sort of energy or sound (never really explained what) that have a wide variety of effects. It can cut things open. It can seal things together. It can repair or destroy machines as simple as barbed wire or as complex as spaceships. It can give him information on anything or anyone. It can perform surgery. Basically, it does whatever the Doctor needs to do at any given time. All he has to do is wave it at or over the object, and the job’s done.

TARDIS – The Doctor’s ubiquitous transport is the TARDIS. The main function of the TARDIS is as a time machine. All the Doctor needs to do is program a time, and it will send him there. From the Big Bang to the end of the Universe, the TARDIS can have him there in the blink of an eye. It can also instantly teleport to any location in the entire universe. That means the Doctor can go anywhere, anytime, instantly. As if that wasn’t enough, it also has a planet-sized interior that carries whatever he might need, including clothes from every time period, a vast library of books, and even a swimming pool.

These three items combined give the Doctor the ability to do just about anything, anywhere, anytime. Coincedentally, they also make him easy to write for. A little too easy. The Doctor has a tendency to lose his TARDIS and sonic screwdriver on a regular basis, then find them just in time to save the day. Which is kind of cheesy, but we love him, anyway.

Which of these gadgets would you use? What other Doctor Who gadgets can you name that do more than these three? Let us know in the comments.