Doctor Who: 10 Bizarre Powers You Forgot The Doctor Has

3. Mentally Unlocking Wooden Doors

Heaven Sent Doctor Who
BBC Studios

While there's still a lot of uncertainty surrounding this one, it's hardly a massive stretch considering all the insane things that are possible in the Doctor Who universe.

This uncertainty stems from a couple of factors. One, we've only seen the Doctor unlock a wooden door using his mind once (Series 9's Heaven Sent), and two, when he did do it, he was trapped inside his confession dial, a place that doesn't seem to abide by the natural laws of the universe. As a result, there's still some debate as to how the door was unlocked, and whether or not it was actually the Doctor that did it.

But for the sake of discussion, let's assume that the Doctor did do it, and that this is one of his abilities. In the episode, he says that he "used to know a trick" back when he was "young and telepathic", implying that he's mentally unlocked wooden doors before, or, at the very least, that he once knew how to do it.

What's funny about this whole thing is that it neatly complements one of the show's longest-running gags. On countless occasions, we've been told that the sonic screwdriver "doesn't do wood", but if the Doctor can unlock wooden doors using the power of his mind... then he and his screwdriver "complete" each other. Cute.

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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!