Doctor Who: Every Sonic Screwdriver Ranked Worst To Best

A number of sonic-adjacent devices appeared in the Tenth Doctor’s era, from the laser screwdriver to the sonic pen.

But the greatest of them all was the “future” sonic screwdriver carried by River Song upon her final meeting with the Doctor in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead.

At the time, the idea of a future sonic belonging to some as-yet unseen Doctor was unbelievably cool. And the design fully played into this, taking the template of the Ninth and Tenth Doctor’s device and giving it a more distinctive appearance, with an alternative ‘red’ setting and various additional components. It was as if the Doctor really had taken his own sonic, augmented it and passed it on to River.

Of course, we now know that the reality was slightly different, but that doesn’t take away from this sonic’s most breathtaking feature – the neural relay chip that, in a wonderfully timey-wimey twist, allows the Doctor to save his future wife.

It’s a cool model as it is, but the fact that it’s also the Doctor and River’s relationship in a nutshell (and what makes it all possible in the first place) is what really earns it a place in the top three.