Doctor Who Series 12: Ten Huge Questions After Can You Hear Me?
8. How Can The Mobile Phones Work?
Once again the Doctor and her companions communicate with each other across time and space with mobile phones. It is happening far too often this series for it to be coincidental, but it isn’t an unheard of occurrence.
Rose Tyler was the first companion to be able to contact the Doctor with a mobile phone, no matter where in time or space he was, but primarily she was meant to use it to phone home and check in on her mother, Jackie. The ninth Doctor places a chip inside the phone to make it useable outside the 21st century satellite network. No wonder Rose nicknamed it her superphone (World War Three).
How exactly the phones work is unclear, but the TARDIS is also involved for sure. We know that it can boost mobile phone signals (Rose). Martha, Donna, Amy, Rory and Clara all have phones that function across time and space, but the explanations as to how they were adapted are not always the same. Sometimes the Doctor uses the sonic screwdriver, other times it’s just a given.
Early on in her travels with the Doctor, Yaz’s phone loses its signal until she returns to Sheffield (Arachnids in the UK) so at some point thereafter, hers has been pimped by the Doctor. Oddly, this series the Doctor and her friends can also communicate with each other through a chip attached to their necks. Will one or other of the communication methods be sabotaged, is this a clue that something is happening behind the scenes that will only make sense in the finale?