8 Deleted Scenes That Explain Confusing Doctor Who Moments

5. The Second Screwdriver (The Almost People)

Doctor Who The Almost People sonic screwdriver
BBC Studios

The Mystery

The Almost People revolves around two different versions of the Eleventh Doctor - one real, one made of a substance called the Flesh - trying to stop the escalating conflict between a group of factory workers and their Flesh clones.

And, to put it bluntly, the sonic screwdriver situation in this episode is a right old mess. Some fans think they've counted three or four different ones being tossed between the Doctors, and overall, it's really difficult to track. If you're bothered about details like this, it becomes a huge distraction when watching the episode.

Just look at the closing scenes: the real Doctor gives the Flesh Doctor his sonic screwdriver to take down Flesh-monster Jennifer, while the real Doctor flies away to safety. The real Doctor then pulls another screwdriver out of nowhere, and uses it to melt Flesh Amy. WTF.

So... what's the deal with all these sonic screwdrivers?

The Deleted Scene

Think back to The Eleventh Hour. At the end of that episode, the TARDIS creates a brand-new sonic for the Doctor after his previous one was destroyed. A scene like this was cut from The Almost People's script, which offers an explanation for where the Doctor got his sonic from in that final scene with Amy.

With this scene being absent though, some fans think that the screwdriver was duplicated when the Flesh Doctor was created. But if there were multiple screwdrivers, why would the real Doctor need to give the Flesh Doctor one to take down Jennifer at the end? This is all so confusing.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!