Wild goose chase

"Wild goose chase" was a term used to refer to things that wasted one's time.

After searching for Planet 5, only to discover it had been placed in a time loop, the Fourth Doctor told Leela they had been on a "wild-goose chase". (TV: Image of the Fendahl)

, disguised as British Prime Minister Harold Saxon, sent the Torchwood Cardiff team on a "wild goose chase" to the Himalayas, preventing them from assisting Captain Jack Harkness. (TV: The Sound of Drums)

Behind the scenes
On the series 2 version of the Torchwood website, Owen Harper did a report on the "wild goose chase" Torchwood Three went on that was mentioned by during The Sound of Drums. At 5am, Ianto Jones picked up a phone call telling Torchwood about "[s]omething funny going on in the Himalayas", which Ianto specified was in Pakistan. Ianto claimed to Owen that the call came from UNIT, who were "already there", calling for "all four of us" — Owen, Ianto, Toshiko Sato and Gwen Cooper, and that according to them it was connected to Abaddon.

Torchwood were briefed that there was apparently another space-time rift, halfway up K2. While Tosh was setting up rift-detecting equipment at the location on K2 that was given, a humanoid doll resembling their missing leader, Captain Jack Harkness — described by Owen as "quite a good likeness" — was rigged to jump out of the snow from a spring at the moment the equipment was activated. Owen dubbed it a "Jack-in-the-box", adding, "How bleeding hilarious." The team realised it was a set-up. After two days waiting for transport, Torchwood Three headed back home.

On the trip back, they learnt Saxon had won the election, murdered the American President and was himself murdered by his wife. Owen noted from this that "a week really is a long time in politics".