I’m Convinced This Torchwood Season 1 Episode Had A Secret Connection To Doctor Who’s Time Lords
Set within the main Doctor Who continuity, Torchwood was largely a self-contained story that unfolded away from any version of the Doctor, but I’m almost certain that the spinoff’s very first episode included a powerful connection to the Time Lords that the main show didn’t pay off until years later. Created by Russell T. Davies, Torchwood‘s debut in 2006 came just one year after Davies also revived Doctor Who. The two shows ran parallel to one another, mainly during David Tennant’s reign as the Tenth Doctor, but also a little into Matt Smith’s era as Eleven.
Of all the Doctor Who spinoff TV shows, Torchwood was the most mature, and large parts of the story would have been inappropriate for younger Doctor Who fans. The Torchwood cast was led by John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, a character who started as one of the Doctor’s companions who wasn’t from present-day Earth. Although the show’s first two seasons had a specific feel, the final two runs each kept things fresh by adopting new formats. No run of Torchwood episodes ever directly addressed the Time Lords or much of the larger Doctor Who universe, but it came close.
Torchwood’s Resurrection Gauntlet Looks Very Similar To Rassilon’s Glove In Doctor Who’s “The End Of Time”
The Gauntlet debuted in Torchwood in 2006, and Rassilon’s glove appeared over 3 years later
Torchwood season 1, episode 1, “Everything Changes,” introduces a mysterious piece of alien tech called the Resurrection Gauntlet. The metal glove, which can raise the dead to varying degrees of success, goes on to plague Jack and his team for the show’s first two seasons, and a second one even comes along eventually. It looks like it has been taken from a medieval suit of armor, making it even more difficult to guess where it could have come from. However, Doctor Who provided a cryptic clue in Tennant’s final regular episode, 2010’s “The End of Time – Part Two.”
Timothy Dalton’s Rassilon enters the fray in “The End of Time” two-parter, trapped in the Time War with the other Time Lords, but armed with a metal glove that looks staggeringly similar to the Resurrection Gauntlet – if not identical. It could be that the BBC simply repurposed the prop, but with Davies overseeing both projects at that time, I seriously doubt it’s just an aesthetic coincidence. Doctor Who canon is an intricate beast, and by design, Torchwood‘s lore also gets caught up in that complex web of canon. What’s more likely is that the Gauntlet is secretly Time Lord technology.
The Gauntlet Being Time Lord Technology Explains Why Torchwood Struggles To Use It Properly
Torchwood Three has an improvisational approach to using the Gauntlet
As well as their physical similarities, both gloves do roughly the same thing. Whereas Torchwood uses the Gauntlet to restore life to the recently departed, Rassilon uses it to take lives in a way that seems like its Torchwood counterpart could do, if used correctly. So, it could be that the Gauntlet can do everything Rassilon’s glove can, but Torchwood lacks the knowledge to be able to use it in the same way. Rassilon’s glove is likely tricky to use, even for other Time Lords, and he’s one of the rare few able to wield it to its full potential.
Rassilon is able to use his glove without physical contact with his victims, whereas Torchwood’s Gauntlet needs to be touching the skin of a cadaver to bring them back.
They do pretty much the same thing, but Torchwood can only harness a fraction of its power, and only briefly. This would make sense if it was designed for Time Lord use, and only very powerful ones like Rassilon. “The End of Time” doesn’t give Rassilon a chance to prove if he even knows if his Gauntlet is capable of what Torchwood can pull off with theirs. It could be that Jack and his team are so clueless about the Gauntlet’s true function that they’ve just happened upon an alternate use for which it was not designed.
How Time Lord Technology Could Have Come Into Torchwood Three’s Possession
The space-time rift in Cardiff opens up the possibility of Torchwood Three finding Time Lord tech
The entire premise of Torchwood was that Jack and the other Torchwood Three employees had originally set themselves up in Cardiff to monitor and contain anything that came through the space-time rift that existed in the Welsh capital. As such, they were constantly gathering and analyzing the various items that made their way to Earth. So, it would make perfect sense for something of Time Lord origin to end up in Torchwood’s possession. The right-hand Gauntlet is canonically confirmed to have come through the rift in Cardiff, but the left is located elsewhere on Earth.
Both Gauntlets that appear in Torchwood function slightly differently from each other when utilized by members of the team, which raises the possibility of them being from different sets.
It’s possible that the glove worn by Rassilon in “The End of Time” is one of the exact Gauntlets that also appeared in Torchwood. However, if this were the case, it would be the left Gauntlet, as Rassilon is shown to wear his on his left hand rather than his right. Both Gauntlets that appear in Torchwood function slightly differently from each other when utilized by members of the team, which raises the possibility of them being from different sets. On the other hand, this could have been an intentional design choice by the Time Lords.
The Resurrection Gauntlet Being From Gallifrey Is One Of The Best Explanations For Why The Doctor Never Appeared In Torchwood Seasons 1 & 2
The Doctor could show up at any time, but never does
One of the biggest criticisms of Torchwood is the fact that the Doctor never shows up – beyond Ten’s severed hand in season 1. The Doctor has had several canonical appearances outside Doctor Who, but Torchwood lacked any episodes featuring the famous Time Lord. I’ve never really had a problem with this, as I’d always just assumed the TARDIS hadn’t deemed Cardiff worthy of a visit in the first two seasons, as it knew Torchwood Three was there handling things. The Doctor’s absence gets a little harder to explain in later seasons, but not impossible.
Thankfully, the Doctor never did appear, and Torchwood was free to explore what was a brilliant storyline.
If the Resurrection Gauntlet is indeed from Gallifrey, there is no way the Doctor showing up in Torchwood would have ended in any other way than him taking the device with him. Time Lords are understandably very protective of their technology, as things can go very wrong when it falls into the wrong hands – as proven by Torchwood accidentally resurrecting Owen Harper (Burn Gorman) for good, but not quite properly. Thankfully, the Doctor never did appear, and Torchwood was free to explore what was a brilliant storyline.
| Torchwood’s Highest-Rated Episodes On IMDb | |||
| Season | Episode | Title | IMDb Score |
| 3 | 4 | “Children of Earth: Day Four” | 9.1/10 |
| 3 | 5 | “Children of Earth: Day Five” | 9.1/10 |
| 3 | 1 | “Children of Earth: Day One” | 8.8/10 |
| 2 | 13 | “Exit Wounds” | 8.7/10 |
| 3 | 2 | “Children of Earth: Day Two” | 8.7/10 |
Torchwood‘s darker themes of death and the concept of an afterlife were a huge part of what gave the show its identity. To tell these stories, the Doctor couldn’t really be a part of them, as he would have always tried to step in and stop Jack’s questionable methods – such as the use of the Resurrection Gauntlet(s). Alternatively, the Doctor would have probably come up with a more moral solution as he often did in Doctor Who, which sadly would have sidestepped what made Torchwood so great.
