Series Seven - Part Two Sonic Screwdriver

Started by Kingpin, Mar 18, 2013, 07:58 pm

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anakin starkiller

Well is silver and copper plastic instead of metal. The shape of the claws and emitter lens is very different and distinctly recognizable to the toy. Plus the color of the emitter is a dark green. You can see the triangle screws on the slider. There's more, but that's enough to tell its the co toy used in that shot.


Kingpin

Gotcha.

They probably decided it wasn't worth repairing the props anymore and so they switched to the toys... cheap, plentiful; durable, replaceable.

galacticprobe

Mar 31, 2013, 09:09 pm #17 Last Edit: Mar 31, 2013, 09:11 pm by galacticprobe
I know they were still using the BBC-made prop last season, but in "Closing Time" I could almost swear that the 3rd sound in the CO 11th Doctor sonic was used as "the app" to disable the cybermat.

Maybe this is a bit like the 9th Doctor's sonic; the CO version was more durable and the BBC asked to use the CO moulds for making the sonics for the 10th Doctor (at least for the casings - they obviously altered the workings of it). Is it possible the 11th Doctor CO sonic is sturdier than the BBC's props dept. sonic? ???

I wonder how the Doctor will operate the CO sonic in the episode. I also wonder why they're using it. A disposable stunt sonic, maybe? This has me very curious.

Dino.
"What's wrong with being childish?! I like being childish." -3rd Doctor, "Terror of the Autons"

Kingpin

Quote from: galacticprobe on Mar 31, 2013, 09:09 pmI could almost swear that the 3rd sound in the CO 11th Doctor sonic was used as "the app" to disable the cybermat.


Any sound you heard would've been dubbed in in post production, film and television props rarely... if ever have sound.

galacticprobe

Apr 01, 2013, 10:27 pm #19 Last Edit: Apr 01, 2013, 10:36 pm by galacticprobe
Quote from: Kingpin on Mar 31, 2013, 11:47 pm
Any sound you heard would've been dubbed in in post production, film and television props rarely... if ever have sound.


I fully realize that, but to clarify... What I was saying is that I think in "Closing Time", the sound "dubbed" (in post-production) for the sonic when the Doctor says "I have an app for that!" and then uses the sonic to disable the cybermat, sounded almost the same as that used for the CO sonic's 3rd sound.

As far as I know, the only prop that had actual sound was the Warp Core used on the set of 'Star Trek: Voyager'. All the other ship's sounds were placed in during post-production, but the Engineering set (which was connected to the rest of the ship's set, less the bridge) had a full-sound warp core (unlike the other starships' warp cores). For some reason the set designer thought it would be great to make one warp core actually "work", so he gave it sound; it wasn't dubbed in during post-production (which is why my friend wouldn't let me push any of the buttons when I visited the set back in 1996; that core, she said, "wasn't quiet" and everyone in the studio would know when it came on). But again, that's the only prop I know to have actual sound. All others, as you rightly say, are silent and their sounds are added in post-production.

Dino.
"What's wrong with being childish?! I like being childish." -3rd Doctor, "Terror of the Autons"

Greenlord

Quote from: galacticprobe on Mar 20, 2013, 03:52 am
Yeah, now that you mention it... In Series 5 it was bright white-looking in the star whale's mouth in "The Beast Below" and again going down the steps beneath Stonehenge in "The Pandorica Opens"


i always thought this 'bright white' look was just a sort off torch setting the sonic had. i assumed the doctor (or the TARDIS depending on how you look at it )had built in a torch setting, so that when he gets into those "dark" situations that he does so often, he can just pull out his sonic rather than carrying a separate unit. they definitely made more than one prop, and i believe one of them was made into a torch, but didn't have the "extending" action... also in the episode 'the angles take Manhattan' i think Amy uses the sonics 'torch' setting to look for Rory in the basement. :)

galacticprobe

Mar 05, 2014, 06:36 am #21 Last Edit: Nov 13, 2015, 06:59 am by galacticprobe
Erm... just curious, but why was this thread placed under a "Spoiler" tag? Series 7 (both halves) are well beyond their two-week delay for the Spoiler tag. There is nothing new that we haven't seen, even the pinkish-red setting in "Cold War".

Now, if this thread was about any changes seen on the filming for Series 8, then I would agree, but this thread is well beyond its Spoiler date. (I'm sure when someone notices any changes in the sonic that Peter Dapaldi uses, there will be a new thread for that. ("The Capaldi Sonic", maybe?)

Dino.
"What's wrong with being childish?! I like being childish." -3rd Doctor, "Terror of the Autons"

Kingpin

It was probably given a spoiler tag before the series began... because of a small snippet of The Bells of Saint John, and never gotten back to to remove the spoiler tag.

superrichi1a

Are we even sure Capaldi, or indeed his parallel universe counterpart
Quote from: galacticprobe on Mar 05, 2014, 06:36 am
Peter Dapaldi
;) will have another sonic screwdriver? I personally don't see any reason to change it, and the TARDIS isn't changing (at least to the untrained eye!). I'm not sure, but is there a climate now of "new Doctor, therefore there must be a new everything else", because I was talking to a friend the other day, a fan although not part of the prop circle, who was really surprised and troubled by my assertion that I didn't expect the TARDIS, sonic, theme or companion to change just because of a new Doctor. Just a passing interest on my part.

With regards to the colour of sonics, what I believe, but am not totally sure on, is that there were two emitters: blue/green and red. The blue/green was more like a turquoise with a white swirl pattern in it made of resin, and most of the time it was lit up by a green LED accentuating the green, but when in torch mode and when production required it it was replaced with a white one, which enchanted the cool blue of the emitter. The red I'm not so sure on, but I had assumed it was a quick, one-off resin cast without the distinctive swirl probably made for production reasons in the moment. At least, that's what I believe :)
Isn't it how ironic that we have to think of solutions out of the box, in order to build our boxes a lot of the time?

Kingpin

I can, for at least two reasons:

1) The Sonic Matt used is too synonymous with him now.  I know that David used the same basic design as Christopher (but I believe that had Christopher been around for longer, his successor would've got their own variant).  The design we've seen Matt saving the day with for four years is and will always be the 11's, and it doesn't seem fair to make the 12th Doctor have to make do with his precessor's Sonic, especially because...

2) Since Matt's Sonic was first debuted in The Eleventh Hour, the TARDIS "desktop" has undergone a change, and as we've seen the Sonics correlate (pun not intended) to the TARDIS interior to a degree.  9/10 had a coral pattern, 11 had metal, leather and green to it... it stands to reason that a Sonic influenced by the Console Room design starting in The Snowmen will end up being 12's Sonic Screwdriver.

And, for a bonus reason:

3) Merchandising.  The BEEB know they're making a tidy profit off of the Sonic Replicas, as indicated by the expansion of the classics line and re-releases.  They're the go-to option for inexpensive replicas, they wouldn't turn down the opportunity to develop a new Sonic Screwdriver which could net them even more money.


...and there's the matter of what exactly happened to 11's Sonic Screwdriver whilst he was stranded on Trenzalore, we saw something that could've been the cannibalized remains of his Sonic build into a Grammaphone.

We might see the current theme tune remain for another series or two, like the crossover period from Tom Baker to Peter Davison... but again we might not, we could end up with a new theme and intro (and logo) starting this year, which I don't have a problem with.  All part of the changing face (pun intended) of Doctor Who. :P

superrichi1a

All valid reasons I had not fully taken into consideration well stated :)  I guess I'm thinking more as a fan of a show than a prop-interested individual, it just seems to me that the sonic remained vastly unchanged between 3-8 and 9-10, so why would we need a new one so soon? And whilst I still hold that, the reasons you give are compelling. A lot of fans want the Future Sonic to become the norm, and regardless of the little profit in that, the story implications and consequences for its operation, I do quite like the idea of the sonic matching the TARDIS, and that would be a nice match!
I guess we'll have to wait for filming pictures for confirmation. I wasn't aware of the grammaphone incident! Do you have any screen caps, this sounds interesting! :)
Isn't it how ironic that we have to think of solutions out of the box, in order to build our boxes a lot of the time?

galacticprobe

Mar 06, 2014, 06:42 am #26 Last Edit: Mar 06, 2014, 07:07 am by galacticprobe
Quote from: superrichi1a on Mar 05, 2014, 07:35 pm
Are we even sure Capaldi, or indeed his parallel universe counterpart
Quote from: galacticprobe on Mar 05, 2014, 06:36 am
Peter Dapaldi
;) will have another sonic screwdriver? I personally don't see any reason to change it...

Richard, I think you took my comment out of context, and I'll admit looking back at my post I wasn't 100% clear. But to clarify and staunch any rumors...

I was referring to this thread still being under the Spoiler tag, which I could see especially when Series 7b was airing as there was discussion of changes to the color of the sonic's emitter light. What I referred to with my comment on the sonic and Capaldi is that I could see the need for a Spoiler tag depending on whatever changes they made to the current sonic when Capaldi's Doctor used it (i.e. possible other colors of the emitter light, minor alterations in the look of the prop, in the same way they made minor alterations in the sonic from 4th to 5th Doctor, and how that had slight alterations in appearance to the 7th/8th Doctor's sonic in the TVM, etc.).

In fact, the 11th Doctor's sonic had small alterations made to it as his era wore on. At the start, when he extended it, the part of the sonic he looked into was longer and had a thin brass ring around the middle of the green part; later on, it didn't extend as far - only about as far as that brass ring would have been - and that brass ring was never seen in the extended part as the Doctor looked into it. (Not sure, but I think they may have moved the activation button from the back of the black leather wrapping to the middle of it - never really got a good look at it so I guess I'll have to watch all of those episodes again. Oh, darn. ;))

I wasn't suggesting that Capaldi would be getting a completely new, redesigned sonic. Like you, I also don't see any reason to change the one they have now.

Quote from: Kingpin on Mar 05, 2014, 08:47 pm
1) The Sonic Matt used is too synonymous with him now...  The design we've seen Matt saving the day with for four years is and will always be the 11's, and it doesn't seem fair to make the 12th Doctor have to make do with his precessor's Sonic...

I'm afraid I have to disagree on this one, Kingpin (something which I rarely, if ever, have done with one of your posts). The same could be said of the sonic Tom Baker used for seven years as the 4th Doctor (which was a carryover from Pertwee's last two years as the 3rd Doctor). They made such subtle changes to that sonic when Peter Davison became the 5th Doctor that unless one knows what to look for, those changes would never be noticed. That one is still considered an iconic 4th Doctor sonic, but it never bothered Davison's performance when using it, and no one ever said 'Oh look! They're making this new Doctor use the sonic screwdriver that belonged to the 4th Doctor!' (And the only reason JN-T got rid of the sonic was - as he said in one interview - he simply did not like it; he thought it was too much of a Deus ex Machina, and that sonic had far less functions than any of the New Series sonics. Makes me wonder what JN-T would have thought of the 9th/10th and 11th Doctors' sonics. And that is a rhetorical statement; I don't want it to cause this thread to sprout wings and take off on an irreversible tangent because of it.)

Quote from: Kingpin on Mar 05, 2014, 08:47 pm
2) Since Matt's Sonic was first debuted in The Eleventh Hour, the TARDIS "desktop" has undergone a change, and as we've seen the Sonics correlate (pun not intended) to the TARDIS interior to a degree.  9/10 had a coral pattern, 11 had metal, leather and green to it... it stands to reason that a Sonic influenced by the Console Room design starting in The Snowmen will end up being 12's Sonic Screwdriver.

Not necessarily. The Classic Series console room underwent quite a few "Desktop" changes, especially in the way of roundels and consoles, especially in the 3rd through 5th Doctor eras, and from Pertwee's last two seasons as the 3rd Doctor until the sonic was destroyed in the 5th Doctor story "The Visitation", the sonic remained pretty much unchanged; this was even through the solid unlit roundels of early Tom Baker stories, the Season 14 wooden console and room, the later Tom Baker stories with a new main console and new lit fibreglass roundels and fluted columns of the console room, which carried some of it over into Peter Davison's 5th Doctor. And had it not been for JN-T's dislike of the sonic, I believe that sonic would have been with us until the last Classic story in 1989.

Then fast forward to 1996 and the TVM, with Sylvester McCoy's exit as the 7th Doctor and Paul McGann's entrance as the 8th Doctor. That console and room - in fact the whole TARDIS interior - was as far a departure from anything of the Classic Series as the New Series TARDIS interiors were from the TVM, and yet McCoy and McGann used a sonic that looked almost identical to the 3rd-5th Doctors' sonic. So the look of the TARDIS interior should have no bearing on what the sonic screwdriver looks like.

Quote from: Kingpin on Mar 05, 2014, 08:47 pm
3) Merchandising.  The BEEB know they're making a tidy profit off of the Sonic Replicas, as indicated by the expansion of the classics line and re-releases.  They're the go-to option for inexpensive replicas, they wouldn't turn down the opportunity to develop a new Sonic Screwdriver which could net them even more money.

Well, amongst this and other 'Who' costuming and prop communities there has been a great hue and cry to CO for the Master's Tissue Compression Eliminator, as well as the 6th Doctor's sonic lance, yet CO is making no steps in the direction of acquiring the license from the BBC to produce those items. So if the BBC was that interested in making more money from new and re-released sonics (such as the new-sound-chip 3rd-5th and 8th Sonics - and apparently the 9th/10th as well now), and now the "Other Doctor's" (a.k.a. War Doctor) sonic, you would think they'd also release at least the TCE to be the Classic counterpart of the New Series Master's Laser Screwdriver. And with people still snapping up the current sonics on the market as fast as CO can keep up with them - and a good portion of that money no doubt going to the BBC for the licenses to produce them - I don't think the BBC is worried about increasing their income from creating yet another new sonic just because there's a new Doctor or console room in the TARDIS.

Moffat created that whole new look (and sonic) for the show because he wanted to make his mark, and distance his look from that of RTD (and people working on his design team have stated that). And while he did keep the coral motif, it was much cleaner on both the console room walls and the console. He wanted to make 'Doctor Who' his own in his reign, and he changed out everything that had come before him (sort of like what a new Egyptian Pharo did to his predecessor, trying to obliterate everything prior once the new Pharo took power). It's also probably one reason why we've never seen another hide or hair from "Mickey the Idiot", Martha, Jack Harkness, or Wilfred Mott (or even a 'regenerated' "Jenny" who's still out there, somewhere, carrying on her version of her "father's" work after "The Doctor's Daughter") since Moffat took over as showrunner.

So I think (IMHO) Capaldi will continue using the current sonic, and if he does get a new version, I'll be unpleasantly surprised.

Dino.
"What's wrong with being childish?! I like being childish." -3rd Doctor, "Terror of the Autons"

Kingpin

Quote from: superrichi1a on Mar 05, 2014, 09:03 pmA lot of fans want the Future Sonic to become the norm


At the very least I'd like to see it finally appear, it's absence is one of the plot-holes that Moffat has a lazy habit of writing around rather than fully resolving.

QuoteI wasn't aware of the grammaphone incident! Do you have any screen caps, this sounds interesting! :)


I didn't grab one at the time sadly... but around the time the Punch and Judy-style show of the Doctor's adventures appears in Trenzalorean culture, there's a Grammaphone-like contraption, complete with glowing Sonic emitter.


I think we need to be careful when drawing examples from the classic series for why the sonic doesn't need to change.  My main reasons for my reluctance being the differing approaches the pre and post hiatus crews have had, and also the far more significant budget and clout New Who has been enjoying over the Classic era.


A similar vein of discussion can be had with the TARDIS prop, we've seen two distinct looks to the Colin Richardson design since the show returned (and we may be seeing the beginning of a third), even though (ignoring the in-story explanation) the changes to the lamp, colour scheme, phone panel and Saint John badge seen in The Eleventh Hour didn't have to be made, they weren't the result of a need to refurbish the prop because it was starting to look like it was on it's last legs, they made those changes because they could, and the budget more than covered it.

Another indicator of the post-2005 show's greater budget and freedom with it is the sheer number of TARDIS props that've been built just in the court of 9 years.  Despite being more solid builds than what were used in the 80s, they aren't being used for nearly as long as the two classic Tom Yardley-Jones props.

If they can justify building all these TARDIS props, I can easily see them justifying giving Capaldi a new Sonic.


With the smaller budget that the older series had to work with, and the more practical nature of the BBC in the 70s and 80s, they wouldn't have seen the need to change the Sonic Screwdriver design beyond minor refurbishments (although they may have decided to debut a new version if they'd still been using it on the show by the time the prop was stolen from the production offices).


With the BBC giving more money to Doctor Who these days, the production can justify having a New Sonic for each incarnation of the Doctor, and I will be very surprised if we see Peter wielding Matt's.  I imagine something smaller and slimmer, less flamboyant than Matt's to match the potentially more serious, darker Doctor Capaldi is apparently planning to portray (hopefully also seen more sparingly, letting the Doctor solve the problem with his head more than his gadgets - but I doubt this'll happen until Moffat finally leaves).


QuoteNot necessarily. The Classic Series console room underwent quite a few "Desktop" changes, especially in the way of roundels and consoles, especially in the 3rd through 5th Doctor eras, and from Pertwee's last two seasons as the 3rd Doctor until the sonic was destroyed in the 5th Doctor story "The Visitation", the sonic remained pretty much unchanged


The flaw in that argument is that we never saw the Sonic destroyed until Davison's era, and then not subsequently replaced.  According to one of the behind-the-scenes materials for the TV Movie, I believe it was Doctor Who Regeneration by Phillip Segal (but I might be mistaken) that indicated they'd wanted a more Victorian/steampunk Sonic Screwdriver for the TV Movie, before they went for a replica of the classic Sonic.  The brass band added to the design was apparently a concession to the dropped concept.  Had it panned out, this would've been another bit of justification in my mind that the Sonics match the TARDIS they're created by to a certain degree.

I suspect JN-T would be appalled at how the Sonic has become so overused these days.


I can't offer much speculation as to why CO have opted to not make the Sonic Lance or the Tissue Compression Elimator.  Though I can imagine they just don't view them as economically viable.

galacticprobe

Mar 07, 2014, 05:43 pm #28 Last Edit: Mar 07, 2014, 05:55 pm by galacticprobe
Quote from: Kingpin on Mar 06, 2014, 01:02 pm
...even though (ignoring the in-story explanation) the changes to the lamp, colour scheme, phone panel and Saint John badge seen in The Eleventh Hour didn't have to be made, they weren't the result of a need to refurbish the prop because it was starting to look like it was on it's last legs, they made those changes because they could, and the budget more than covered it.

Budget aside, I've seen interviews on BBC America with the people working with Moffat leading up to Series 5, and they all said that Moffat told them he wanted a clean break from what RTD had done with the show and give the TARDIS - inside and out - a look all (Moffat's) own. Basically, it just looks like Moffat tried to leave behind everything that had the "RTD" stamp on it; the exception came when Moffat used the 2005 console in "The Doctor's Wife" episode, but then Neil Gaiman wrote that one, and not Moffat.

Quote from: Kingpin on Mar 06, 2014, 01:02 pm
If they can justify building all these TARDIS props, I can easily see them justifying giving Capaldi a new Sonic.

Well, since the current sonic is a Moffat creation, I will be (again unpleasantly) surprised if the sonic changes just because the actor playing the Doctor has. It becomes a groaner at that point: 'Oh jeez! Not another new sonic again?!' It's a pattern - no: a rut - that can get annoying. RTD got into a rut after Series 2 when he felt the need to change the Doctor's companion after every series; while I liked Donna, there really was no need to get rid of Martha. The same could be said of Donna, and she would have been a great companion, just by how her character was, to bridge the change from the 10th to the 11th Doctor. That rut RTD got into got old fast. Changing sonics when changing Doctors would get into another rut that would get really old just as fast. (One rut that RTD got into starting in Series 2, which Moffat thankfully left behind, was the "Doctor-lite" episodes: having just a 'glimpsing' of the Doctor in an episode near the end of the series. The exception was "Blink"; that was one great episode. But "Love and Monsters"? "Turn Left"? Boring, and episodes like that might have stayed the norm had RTD stayed as showrunner a little longer.)

Quote from: Kingpin on Mar 06, 2014, 01:02 pm
With the BBC giving more money to Doctor Who these days, the production can justify having a New Sonic for each incarnation of the Doctor, and I will be very surprised if we see Peter wielding Matt's.  I imagine something smaller and slimmer, less flamboyant than Matt's to match the potentially more serious, darker Doctor Capaldi is apparently planning to portray (hopefully also seen more sparingly, letting the Doctor solve the problem with his head more than his gadgets - but I doubt this'll happen until Moffat finally leaves).

Again, new Doctor=new sonic would be a definite "Oh no; not again!" moment, one I seriously hope doesn't happen. It would be pointless. As for how Capaldi will be portraying the Doctor, we have no way of presuming that it will be more serious or darker until we see him in a few full episodes. (Complaining, after regenerating, that he doesn't like the color of his "new" kidneys? I'd hardly call that serious.) I do, however, hope the sonic does take more of a back seat as it did in the Classic Series (mainly used to disrupt a force field or lock/unlock doors and such when needed, rather than being used almost like a 'Trek' tricorder). And true, that may not change until Moffat leaves, and from the grumbling I've been hearing from fans about the way Moffat has been splitting series into two parts and the extraneously long delays between series, they're hoping that he leaves sooner than later, and the next showrunner returns the Series to the original, "reliable" format: Christmas Special, followed by 13 straight weekly episodes.

Quote from: Kingpin on Mar 06, 2014, 01:02 pm
I can't offer much speculation as to why CO have opted to not make the Sonic Lance or the Tissue Compression Elimator.  Though I can imagine they just don't view them as economically viable.

I can't speculate on this either, but as for the lance and TCE not being economically viable, with the number of people I've seen on here and other forums, not to mention those I've met at Cons (quite a few at Timegate, the same at Nekocon when it had a 'Who' presence, and at the huge Otakon where you have thousands of people with 'Who'-related fans around just about every corner), there is a large demand for those two items. What I have trouble understanding is why with so many people asking CO for them, CO seems totally uninterested in what their customers want. (CO is missing out on a good amount of money by doing that, which doesn't make good business sense.)

Dino.
"What's wrong with being childish?! I like being childish." -3rd Doctor, "Terror of the Autons"

Kingpin

Quote from: galacticprobe on Mar 07, 2014, 05:43 pmAs for how Capaldi will be portraying the Doctor, we have no way of presuming that it will be more serious or darker until we see him in a few full episodes.


True, although my remark was based on this interview which did the rounds earlier:

http://io9.com/doctor-who-director-says-capaldi-brings-back-the-classi-1515244187

- Plus, I just don't see them having another jokester so soon after Matt.


Quote(Complaining, after regenerating, that he doesn't like the color of his "new" kidneys? I'd hardly call that serious.)


It wouldn't be the first time he said something strange after he'd just regenerated. :P


I couldn't put a figure on how many people have expressed the desire for the Tissue Compression Eliminator, or the Sonic Lance... but they can't likely compare in numbers (and provable profits) of Sonic Screwdriver sales every year.  Those props might stand a better chance if they appeared in a new episode, (and maybe the TCE could be brought back if they bring back the Master), but iconic status isn't necessarily enough on it's own... especially with more kids wanting to play the Doctor rather than the Master.  If an item being iconic were enough reason, I imagine we would've seen an official Key to Time tracer by now. :(

I also suppose with the classic sonics, Character Option can get away with not having to do too much tooling (as we saw with their classic TARDIS series), thus making that line more cost effective.