1. "Hooray, You're Saved! I Mean, Uh, Confined To Your Own Personal Hell!"
Story: "Love and Monsters" (2006) - David Tennant
Usage Rating: Moffat - It's, uh, a happy ending. I guess.
Nyssa Scale: 5 - It really should've just been a magic wand. A defective magic wand. "Love and Monsters" remains a contentious episode of "Doctor Who" - If it'd been pulled later, like, in Series 4 it probably would've been better received. As it is, it is a Doctor-lite episode that focuses the action on a group that idolizes and is fascinated by the Doctor - It's a blatant love letter to fandom, but it unfortunately is a bold, meta-experiment when everyone desperately wanted Doctor Who to be the show they'd waited for or had heard about - Missteps with Slitheen hadn't helped, and this fascination with going to a council estate on Earth often still felt a bit pedestrian to a show that promised "all of time and space." So, taking a gamble on a comedy episode that depended on us sympathizing with characters that we'd never met, a romantic b-plot with Jackie Tyler (Whose actress' incapability I've dealt with in another article), and a monster designed on "Blue Peter" that wasn't even rendered correctly - This was always going to polarize fandom, and it does to this day. But even if you love this episode - And many do - it's very difficult to reconcile the finale - Where Tennant "saves" someone with the aforementioned "Deus Ex Machina" setting of the Screwdriver. Ursula (Or "Moaning Myrtle", if you like) is the last of the group to be absorbed by the, er, Abzorbaloff, who then sets off after Elton. The Doctor shows up with Rose (Who actually was out to give Elton a talking to for leading her mother on - Does the Doctor also settle fights with her girlfriends too?) and witnesses those the Abzorbaloff fed upon tear him apart. They all dissolve into the ground, and the Doctor has a talk with Elton about being an obsessive fan never paying off. But wait, there's more! The Doctor uses his Sonic to, uh, well... The Sonic, in its "Totally disregarding quality of life" setting, reconstitutes Ursula's... face. On a stone brick. Which Elton takes home. And has a "love life" with. Hey everybody! For one minute, imagine being JUST A FACE ON A SLAB OF PAVEMENT. The rest of your life. No limbs, body, or anything and you have to depend on the guy who loves you. Here's hoping he always loves you, and doesn't, you know, move on to someone who isn't A SLAB OF PAVEMENT. Because most men wouldn't be horrified by that. Or just realize they really only needed to put you face down in the garden to keep you quiet if they wanted out. I'm sorry, is that kind of dark? Because the episode's resolution isn't that much better. Find me someone who'd want to live out the rest of their days like that, rather than die defeating the creature who took their humanity away, and find some kind of rest in whatever afterlife would welcome them. My guess is you'd find very few who'd welcome the Doctor using the Sonic Screwdriver to reconstitute them in a way that makes many invalids seem outright spry and able by comparison. Considering that this is the only instance of the Sonic doing something akin to magic in the new series (Even lighting candles can be explained if it's exciting the molecules enough), it really stands to reason that that should've been the first clue that this MIGHT not've been the best idea. Once again, the Sonic Screwdriver is just an accomplice to bad writing/concepts....but geez, what an act to be party to.
Which uses of the sonic screwdriver have stuck in your memory? Let us know in the comments section below.