Did You Spot the Torchwood Nod in Face the Raven?

Andrew Reynolds is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

We’re unlikely to see Captain Jack’s Torchwood team back on our screens anytime soon – there’s the odd audio drama to keep the Torchwood flame burning bright – but that doesn’t mean we can’t get the odd cheeky reference to Doctor Who’s more adult spin-off.

In Face the Raven, Rigsy (Jovian Wade), was enticed down a hidden street and drugged, losing his entire memory of the incident. The drug that was used? Retcon – also known as Compound B67 or the amnesia pill – a favourite of the Torchwood Three for wiping the minds of anyone who stumbles across their operation.

And boy did they need it; it’s been used in no less than seven TV episodes and two of the spin-off novels.

Ostensibly a nod to televisions own process of ‘retconning’ where previous narratives are changed to suit the present story – say, the Twelfth Doctor’s  new frowny face – and its own tendency to rely on this most convenient of deus ex machina; it does raise the question: Just where did Ashildr (Maisie Williams) get it from?

Did John Barrowman’s Captain Jack finally ‘get around’ to her as promised/threatened by the Doctor in The Woman Who Lived? And just how creepy is that?

Anyway, it’s nice to have a few nods to the much-maligned spin-off; if only to keep any chance of its return alive.

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