Introduction
Well at the end of ‘End
of Days’ we saw the good Captain distracted by the sound of the TARDIS engines
and the bubbling of the canister containing the Doctors severed-hand and then
the rest of the team coming back to the Hub to find him gone!
In the opening of
‘Utopia’ we see him running towards the TARDIS and then taking a mighty leap
when the Doctor decides to take off in the hopes of leaving Jack behind.
This is the first of
three ‘Doctor Who Sidesteps’ where we follow Jack and his further adventures
with his old friend the Doctor and new friend, Martha Jones. These three
stories will be taking us gently into the second season of Torchwood.
So naturally I also must
take a step to the side and look at the technologies of the three stories. Or
at least, that is the plan. As you will know from past issues, this isn’t
always possible. As I have said in the past, for a Sci-Fi series they really
can lack the high tech gadgets we expect to see. I shall also warn you that we
will probably be revisiting some past gadgets as they may well crossover, in a
different way, with the three Doctor Who stories.
So what shall we be
looking at in issue 15s Gadgets & Gizmos? We shall have a look at The
Masters Fob Watch and we shall touch upon (as the subject is vast...50 years
vast) the Doctors Sonic Screwdriver and
his longest serving companion, the TARDIS.
The Masters Fob Watch
The first time we see
one of these special watches is in the season 29/3 episodes ‘Human Nature’ and
‘The Family of Blood’ when the Doctor uses it, in conjunction with the
Chameleon Arc, to become human in order to hide from the Family of Blood, when they seek out the
Doctor to take his body so the Son of Mine can live for eternity.
This beautiful
instrument is engraved with Gallifreyan symbols and a Time lord uses it to
store his Time Lord conscience, memories and biological make-up of a Time lord.
In order to stop the Time Lord from opening it and releasing his true self from
inside the watch, the watch uses a perception filter and so stops him from
noticing it. To the altered Time Lord it is just a broken and old watch that
has little use, but possibly sentimental value. This watch, with the exception
of the Gallifreyan symbols, looks just like an everyday pocket watch and so
would raise no eyebrows.
In ‘Utopia’ Martha
recognises Professor Yana’s watch as being the same as the Doctor’s and due to
her excitement, especially after the Face of Boe’s final message of “You Are
Not Alone”, encourages the Professor to notice it, just as she had with the
Doctor. A short time later the Professor opens the watch releasing the Master
back into his body.
It is worth noting that
our good Captain also carries a fob/pocket watch. Though it is just that. A fob
watch. A time piece. Nothing more. But I do believe, and please don’t quote me
on this, that the watch is actually John’s and was originally his grandfathers.
What Do We Have On Earth?
The only thing we have
is a very ordinary fob watch. They can look beautiful and half chimes that can
wake you when you set the alarm. And
then we have the open faced or Lépine watch. This has no protective metal cover
and is open faced
Pocket watches
originally came from around 16th century and came before the wrist watch. These
are carried in the pocket. The Doctor’s and the Master’s watches are in the
style of a hunters watch. These are a case with a hinged metal lid that covers
the watch face and crystal. This protects your watch from dust and damage.
A demi-hunter or
half-hunter style also has a cover, but the centre of this is a glass panel and
not a solid cover.
But for all my
searching, I was unable to find one where you could hide your true self. Unless
it has a section for putting in a picture and you placed a picture of yourself
without make up.
The Sonic Screwdriver
Firstly, as the subject
of the Sonic Screwdriver is almost 50 years old, and so vast, I shall only be
touching on this in this issue. And we shall look at the Master’s Laser
Screwdriver in a future issue, about issue 16 or 17.
It’s very hard to think
that the good old Sonic Screwdriver has
been on our screen as long as the Doctor himself, but shocking as it maybe, it
hasn’t. The Sonic Screwdriver first made its first TV appearance in 1968 in
season 6, episode 3 ‘War Games’. But in writing it appeared in a serial called
‘Fury from the Deep’ by Victor Pemberton and was used by the 2nd Doctor from
that point on as a kind of multi-tool
As its sonic this
implies that it works on sound waves that can physically dislodge objects and
open locks. And this was pretty much what it was used for - though there was an
occasion when the 2nd Doctor used it as a blow torch in the story ‘The
Dominators’.
The Sonic Screwdriver
has changed greatly from its first incarnations such as making a noise and
added pretty blue or green lights. Even its fictionality has changed and
increased functionality. Now I could sit here and list every single change
through each of the 11 Doctors, but I’d be here until the sun explodes before I
finish writing it AND I’d have our good editor, Jack, after me! And we really
don’t want that.
But what I shall do is
this. With the 2nd Doctor its Sonic Waves were used to undo screws, he also fed
Victoria Waterfields’ screams through it to amplify them in order to destroy
some weed like creatures in the story ‘Fury from the Deep’. He used it to drill
a hole in a wall in ‘the Dominators’ and removed screws from a pistol, from a
wall panel and also a control panel in ‘The War Games’.
By the time we get to
the 11th Doctor its uses have increased more than tenfold. So many I can’t sit
typing them all out. But here’s a few; he scanned the crack in the wall in
Amelia Ponds bedroom wall, scanned the monastery ruins and the Flesh in ‘the
Rebel flesh’, Boosted River Song’s communicator ‘The Time of Angels’, scanned
human remains and possessed humans as well as opening and locking doors and
blowing out a light in ‘Amy’s Choice’, scanned for heat signature anomalies and
exploded guns as well as scanning Rory in ‘Cold Blood’.
If you wish to know how
much more there is to the Sonic Screwdriver and its functions look for a book
called ‘Doctor Who - A History of the Universe in 100 Objects’ by James Goss
and Steve Tribe, then turn to page 175. It lists all functions from the 2nd
Doctor through to the 11th Doctor. I wonder what new things we shall get from
the 12th Doctors Sonic Screwdriver.
What Do We Have On Earth?
Sadly there is no such
thing as a Sonic Screwdriver. If there was, our lives would be so much easier.
But we do have things that do similar things. Only they’re not so compact.
Obviously we have screwdrivers. Some are simple hand tools, where as other are
power driven. We can pick locks with wire picks, but there is such a tool that
will open digital locks too. We can scan people for illness, but only those
that can be seen via an MRI scanner, such as lumps and other physical
anomalies, but not say a problem with your blood. For that we have to do blood
tests. In fact there are still many illnesses that either needs tests or
exploratory operations. We can rejoin barbed wire with a soldering iron and so
on. But we don’t have one single tool that does these and all the other
wonderful things the Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver can do.
The TARDIS
The subject of the
TARDIS is huge. I mean it is so huge, it’s impossible to see where the subject
ends, let alone where it starts. So much like the Sonic Screwdriver, I shall be
only touching on it and at some point in the future, will write more about her.
I know this because I own a TARDIS and I’ve seen the future.
So where do we start.
The TARDIS is a Time
Lord creation for the purpose of travelling anywhere through both time and
space, unless that is, that point in time is ‘time locked’ such as the Time
Wars.
The name TARDIS is an
acronym for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space and was named by the
granddaughter of the Doctor, Susan, as stated by Susan in the very first
episode ‘An Unearthly Child’ back in 1963. She is also a type 40 (yes she is a
she...read on) and was already old technology when the Doctor and Susan ran off
with her back in the day.
We also now know that
the TARDIS’ are not built, but grown; though this is now not possible due to
the seeds being destroyed on Gallifrey during the Time Wars. Although towards
the end of ‘Journey’s End’ in season 30/4, the Doctor gave his new self and
Rose a piece of TARDIS so they could grow their own. Captain Jack also had some
TARDIS coral growing on his office desk in Torchwood 3’s Hub. Of course due to
the destruction of the HUB in the third season of Torchwood, this will now no
longer exist.
What Do We Have On Earth?
As all the seeds for
growing a TARDIS were destroyed during the Time Wars it is impossible to have
anything like this on earth! No...it really is!
Sorry...only
kidding. But really in ourselves we time
travel all the time; we call it memories.
We store memories via photographs, film recordings, audio recordings and
the written word.
The science fiction
writer HG Wells once wrote - “We all have our own time machine, don’t we. Those that take us back are memories...And
those that carry us forward are dreams.”
Whenever we hold a
fossil, read old books and so forth it is like taking a step back in time. And
as we have experienced with science fiction writing, we have seen ideas become
a reality, hand-held communicators, and medical equipment that can see into the
human body. It’s as if those writers could see into the future.
As my father has often
said, if time travel is possible, it’s already happened. Would someone really
stand there and say “Hi my name is Dave and I have travelled from the future,
from the year 2596!” Those in the future
know what a numpty 21st century man is and how unwelcoming we would probably be
and know full well they’d either A: be furnishing a new room with matching
padded furniture or B: End up flat on their back on a dissection table.
So if time travel is
possible in the future, we won’t know until the time comes.
Jikai made, sayōnara
(Japanese for “Until next time, goodbye”)
Mickie
Bibliography
Books
Torchwood:
The Encyclopedia by Gary Russell
Doctor
Who: The Encyclopedia A Definitive Guide to Time and Space
by
Gary Russell
The
Time Traveller’s Almanac: The Ultimate Intergalactic Fact Finder by Steve Tribe
The
TARDIS Handbook: The Official Guide To The Best Ship In the Universe by Steve
Tribe
Doctor
Who - A History of the Universe in 100 Objects
by James Goss and Steve
Tribe
Wikipedia
Torchwood
Items: Wikipedia
Torchwood
Three
TARDIS
Data Core
Doctor
Who Items
The
Sonic Screwdriver
Other
Sites Used
Pocket/Fob
watch
