hmm that’s a very interesting question
I don’t know a definite answer, but my interpretation of the dungeon scene in the 50th anniversary episode is that Ten, Eleven, and War found a trick to work around the sonic screwdriver’s problem with wood, but didn’t invent a proper wood setting.
I mean, the sonic doesn’t do wood because it’s too “primitive” and doesn’t have any circuits or mechanism, but – as War says – in theory the Doctor can “trigger an isolated sonic shift among the molecules” to disintegrate the door. It takes centuries for the screwdriver to calculate how to disintegrate a door – therefore the Doctor can’t normally open or scan anything made of wood – but in the particular case of the 50th anniversary special, since there were three incarnations of the Doctor from different centuries each with the same screwdriver from different time periods, they managed to make the trick work. In my opinion, anyway, the sonic screwdriver only calculated how to disintegrate that one specific cellar door, not every wooden door ever; the Doctor found a way to destroy a wooden door in that specific situation but hasn’t made a real wood setting for the sonic yet.
I don’t know if this theory is right because in the end it turned out the door was already open so they didn’t even have to actually try to disintegrate it, but it could explain why Twelve’s sonic screwdriver still has issues with wood. Let’s hope that one day the show explicitly explains this.
Anyway, I hadn’t thought about this at all before your question so thank you, it was fun, no bother at all 🙂
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