Doctor Who: 10 Reasons The Eleventh Doctor Actually Sucks

5. It's A Sonic Screwdriver, Not A Magic Wand

In the 1980s, John Nathan-Turner got rid of the sonic screwdriver because he believed it had become a too convenient device to solve plot problems. With just 45 minutes episodes when the show returned in 2005, Russell T Davies brought it back to save time in the shorter stories. However, under Matt Smith, the sonic screwdriver became effectively a magic wand, one that was endlessly waved around to solve every problem. Just take The Power of Three, for example, which had Earth invaded by small cubes. After 40 minutres of sitcom shenanigans with the Doctor staying with the Ponds, the Doctor finally remembers the plot, confronts the mighty Steven Berkoff as the villain of the week and then... just waves his wand and saves the day. The Rings of Akhaten - along with so much else that is awful - also has the Doctor using the screwdriver to do just about everything. How does a screwdriver even fend off so many aliens, anyway? It got so bad by the end that Moffat even acknowledges it in The Day of the Doctor, having John Hurt's Hartnell like War Doctor ask why Ten and Eleven kept waving them about so much. Having a wave of a wand to solve a problem is not cute, Mr Moffat. It's just lazy, much like your time paradoxes.