After 21 years, Steven Moffat finally answers the Doctor Who question fans never stopped asking

So, even while Doctor Who is mostly twiddling its thumbs off-screen as the BBC faffs about looking for fresh production partners, it turns out the universe hasn’t gone completely quiet. If you thought we’d get a break from timeline curiosities and fan-picked mysteries, you’ve underestimated Steven Moffat. In true Moffat style, he’s kept the flame going—and this time he’s managed to give a cheeky answer to a question that’s genuinely been knocking around fandom since 2005: just what went on during those two lost years in Jack Harkness’s memory?

Jack Harkness: The Amnesia Mystery

Captain Jack, played by John Barrowman, first swaggered into the Whoniverse in Moffat’s own ‘The Empty Child’/’The Doctor Dances’ two-parter. We were told straightaway he’s a former Time Agent from the 51st century, who quit after discovering the Agency wiped two years from his memory. Classic set-up, never truly explored—at least not on telly. Even though the TV show ditched the memory mystery (preferring to make Jack immortal and plonk him in Torchwood), other tie-ins like the Big Finish audios have had a bash at filling in the blanks. But this is the first time we’ve got Moffat himself spitballing an explanation.

Moffat’s Patchwork ‘Solution’

The whole thing started on the official Doctor Who Instagram, where Moffat took part in a sort of improv storytelling roulette—pulling random Who-flavoured prompts out of a bag, for the sole purpose of spinning an on-the-spot yarn. Cue the chaos: he’s handed the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker), Amy Pond, Davros, and ‘51st-century London’ for his scene-setting. What comes out the other side is, I have to say, pretty entertaining, even if you sense he’s winging it.

• Davros, eternal pest, rocks up in 51st-century London to have a poke around the Time Agency, looking to nab a Vortex Manipulator and finally get a proper grip on time travel.
• Jack Harkness gets kidnapped (again)—Davros swipes his Vortex tech, locks him up, and apparently keeps him prisoner for two straight years.
• The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith’s version) somehow catches wind of all this, and sets up a meeting with his own earlier self: Mr Jelly Babies himself, Tom Baker. Eleven nudges Amy Pond into helping Four tackle the rescue.
• The Amy-Four combo go after Davros, try to sort the business with Jack.
• It gets a bit hazy on the details, but the gist Moffat floats is this: after they bust Jack out, the Doctor decides to wipe Jack’s memory to spare him the trauma of Davros’s dungeon. So that’s why Jack’s got a two-year black hole in his recollections.

Moffat himself calls the story a ‘possible explanation’, and let’s face it, the closest we’ll ever get to anything approaching canon unless Chibnall or Davies 2.0 pick up the crumbs.

'So, basically, the Doctor wiped Jack’s memories to spare him the trauma of his time captive to Davros. Simple.'

Problems? Oh, Absolutely

I know this is just a lark—Moffat stuck with a handful of prompts, not actually crafting next year's Christmas special. But for something cobbled together on the fly, it’s remarkably neat. That said, there are the usual timeline headaches if you bother unpicking it.

I appreciate Moffat at least clocked Amy’s situation—last we saw her, she was stuck in a Weeping Angel-infested time loop in 1930s New York. He gets around this by waving the ‘earlier Doctor can fetch her’ hand, but then, if that’s possible, why couldn’t Four (or literally any other Doctor) simply leap back into her timeline and save her for real? He’d need to explain why that loophole isn’t exploited on-screen. Sure, in theory, you could have Four and Amy crossing paths before her New York fate, but that gets a bit involved, given that Four never had a clue who Jack was anyway, nor that Jack needed rescuing. Unless you want to tie yourself in sci-fi knots about paradoxes and timey-wimey interference, it’s extremely easy to trip yourself up.

Frankly, it would make more sense just sticking to the Eleventh Doctor for this, or if you really want the Fourth Doctor present, at least pair him with one of his own era’s companions—less confusion, more logic. Still, the main reason for this somewhat odd line-up is that Moffat was literally improvising from scraps, not working to series structure.

The bit I actually quite like, though, is the notion that Jack’s real first encounter with the Doctor happens before he thinks it does—only, because his mind’s wiped, he never remembers it. Suddenly, his big entrance in ‘The Empty Child’ gets a clever extra layer.

One nitpick: Davros supposedly wants to break into the Time Agency to pick up some decent time travel kit. But actually getting to the 51st century and infiltrating the Agency would be a slog for him, even with Dalek technology, since Daleks have never really nailed smooth time hopping—they crash about rather than arrive with precision. Maybe he just bounced around in a battered Dalek time corridor until he wound up in Jack’s backyard. Anyway, timeline quirks aside, it’s a Moffat special—make of it what you will.

Cast: John Barrowman (Jack Harkness), Tom Baker (Fourth Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor), Terry Molloy (Davros).