Last week, we reported on the rumors bubbling up in the Doctor Who community that Captain Jack Harness was set to return to the sci-fi show opposite Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor in the upcoming season 11. It just so happens, though, that Jack himself, John Barrowman, came across our article and shared it on his Twitter account and, in doing so, suggested he might not actually be hopping back into the TARDIS, after all.
Barrowman posted our article with the short but intriguing caption, ?? JB – which you can see below:
?? JB https://t.co/4lzYPjMPoE
— John Barrowman MBE (@JohnBarrowman) June 2, 2018
The pansexual Time Agent last appeared in the Whoniverse in 2011, in the fourth and final season of his spinoff show Torchwood. Before that, he was seen alongside both Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant’s Doctors on and off from 2005 to 2010. There’s been the odd bit of speculation that he could return to Doctor Who ever since, but this new rumor seemed to promise it was finally happening.
Of course, Barrowman’s double question marks don’t actually outright deny our report. It would be in his best interests, after all, to preserve season 11’s secrets and pull the veil over fans’ eyes so that they’re genuinely surprised when he does show up with Doctor Number Thirteen. Or maybe we’re just reading too much into a bit of punctuation?
According to the original rumor, Jack’s return will be revealed in the first trailer for the new season, said to be arriving later this month – on June 17th. Unfortunately, however, the existence of that teaser has been called into question as well. BBC reporter Lizo Mzimba said on Twitter that he hadn’t heard anything from his sources about such a thing being in the works.
This is turning out to be a double-whammy of a bummer for Doctor Who fans, then, but we’re still hoping that we’ll at least get our first look at the new season fairly soon. And that Barrowman is deliberately misleading us.