Steven Moffat: Torchwood's Captain Jack May Visit Doctor Who, But Never, Ever the Reverse

Doctor Who fans, did you think an appearance from John Barrowman’s Captain Jack was missing in the last new episode? You’re not the only one.

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“I’d have [brought back Captain Jack] for ‘A Good Man Goes To War,’ because it’d be obvious for him to call upon Jack in those circumstances,” Who executive producer Steven Moffat tells TVLine. “But John was busy doing Miracle Day.”

As long as Barrowman is saving the world on another show and on somebody else’s clock, it’ll be difficult to bring back the actor to Torchwood‘s mothership show. “Even if he was doing the role in Wales” — a big chunk of Miracle Day was filmed in Los Angeles — “that’s really hard to do,” Moffat explains.

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That said, Moffat is not ruling out an eventual reappearance by the immortal Captain. “When we’ve got a good story, we’ll do it,” he says. “You can’t just bring somebody back and say, ‘That’s a story.’ That’s just somebody walking through a door…. I won’t be thinking, ‘How do you bring Captain Jack back?’ I’ll be thinking, ‘You know what this needs? We need to bring Jack back for it.'”

And when the right story does come along, Barrowman is more than willing to jump back. “I love playing Captain Jack,” he told the crowd at Comic-Con. “It’s the best coat I could put on every morning, so I’m up for it.”

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The Doctor Who/Torchwood crossover door, however, does not swing both ways, if only because of the offshoot’s sometimes racier leanings. “The Doctor could never go to Torchwood,” Moffat attests. “[Torchwood EP] Russell [Davies] and I both agree on that. Doctor Who has a tremendous relationship with children in Britain. They’d want to watch Torchwood then, and it’s not really a children’s show.”