Howling:Jack is mortal

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Any guesses a to how Miracle Day could have made Jack mortal? Jack is a fixed point in space and time, which means that normal alien technology couldn't have done it. Maybe the entire Human race is now fixed points in space and time and he somehow isn't anymore, though they seem to resemble Owen more than they resemble Jack. Maybe the rest of the Humans somehow absorbed his powers of immortality, though someone would obviously have to be responsible for it.Icecreamdif 02:54, July 9, 2011 (UTC)

I don't know that it's necessarily true that normal aliens (or even humans) can't ever change a fixed point; just that generally it's a hard thing to do and has disastrous consequences if you pull it off.

Also, just making Jack mortal might not count as changing a fixed point in time unless he actually dies. After all, making it so Adelaide Brooke didn't die on Mars turned out not to matter in the grand scheme of things so long as she died that day; in the same way, as long as Jack is alive and re-immortalized in a few months, it may not matter that he could have died during those months.

On the other hand, even if the Miracle gets resolved, unless it somehow gets unwound like the Year That Never War or something, it's hard to imagine that this wouldn't have a drastic effect on human history, to the point where it would affect our future expansion into the galaxy as much as, say, Adelaide Brooke surviving. So, how is that allowed? And how does the Doctor not notice such a massive rewrite to human history? (Yeah, I know he's busy a few millennia in the future, but it's future humans that he's busy with. Then again, I suppose it's possible that he does know something is up, e.g., the Earth Empire should have already won the Cyberwars or something, but he's got more important things on his mind than figuring out why that changed?) --99.8.228.116 09:59, July 16, 2011 (UTC)

How do we know that the Miracle wasn't always going to happen. Maybe by the time of the Great and Bountiful Human Empires, the Miracle is a major event in Earth history. Either way, whoever caused the Miracle is clearly trying to kill Jack, as evidenced by his poisoning, so it can't be a coincidence that he's mortal now. Icecreamdif 04:08, July 17, 2011 (UTC)

Sure, we don't have the Doctor's sense for what was and wasn't meant to happen, so maybe the Miracle is part of history; maybe it's even a fixed point that can't be changed. But that presumably would also mean Jack was always meant to be mortal for a few months in 2011, right? So the "fixed point" thing isn't really relevant either way.

Of course you're right that someone is trying to kill Jack. And, while it's possible that something made him mortal and some unrelated enemy is just opportunistically trying to take advantage of that, that seems like a big stretch, and not really RTD's style. So, you're probably right.

But that brings us back to your first question: how did they do it? And I still have no idea, but I look forward to hearing some speculations, and then seeing how RTD actually pulls it out. :) --99.40.53.116 09:36, July 20, 2011 (UTC)

The whole thing is pretty obvious if you think about it. The only person who's been shown to have a serious grudge against Jack almost certainly died when the Hub exploded in Day 1. That means that the only other reason that anyone would want to kill him is the fact that he is one of the Doctor's most powerful allies. Think about it, who would want to kill one of the Doctor's allies, one who has spent 150 years on Earth being a good man, and a hero to many? Clearly, either the Church or the Silence want to take out Captain Jack so that he will be unable to assist the Doctor in the never ending war. River could have looked into the heart of one of the Silence's Tardises, and gained Bad Wolf-like powers. Using these powers, she could have made Jack mortal, but made the rest of humanity immortal in the process. By the end of the season, she will kill Jack, and be sent to Stormcage for it.68.55.218.250 18:07, July 22, 2011 (UTC)

Since Starz are trying to introduce Miracle Day to a new, American, audience, it is unlikely that the plot of the series will tie in with the already ridiculously complicated plot of another TV show.Icecreamdif 20:19, July 22, 2011 (UTC)

stupid starz. i would have loved that plot twist, but i guess it won't happen now. also, it's really obvious how american the show is now that starz has joined. just the small things like the ridiculously over the top evplosions in "the new world". i know torchwood had explosions previously, but they were only there if it added to the story (like in "children of earth day one") and they werent made bigger just for dramatic effect. one of the things i liked about DW and tochwood was that they were so un-american and so obviously british in comparrison to what is normally on tv. rant over. 58.166.78.101 02:02, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

I might be biased since I am American, but I don't have a problem with the show becoming more American. There were always explosions in Torchwood, and they were all pretty important to the plot of The New World. There weren't really any explosions that I can remember in Rendition or Dead of Night anyway. The only major differences that I can see is that most of the characters are American now, and there are a lot of jokes about the cultural differences (driving on the wrong side, crisps instead of chips, etc.) Even if the show was still on BBC, I doubt that they would have tied the plot arc together with Doctor Who so closely. Torchwood would sometimes have references to the plot arcs in Doctor Who, like the "Vote Saxon" signs, or the Doctor's hand, but major plot points in Doctor Who were never related to major plot points in Torchwood. Icecreamdif 04:11, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Icecreamdif on almost everything (for once). RTD clearly always wanted to be an American writer, and that's part of what made his Doctor Who, and especially his Torchwood, work—it was somewhere between the two, with many of the strengths of both. Compared to American sci-fi it was clearly British, but compared to other British sci-fi it was pretty damn American. And, while it's hard to say after only two episodes, so far that still seems to be true of the Starz co-production. --173.228.85.118 04:24, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

i must admit that the last two episodes have been great, but just the first one seemed to have a strong ammerican influence. i know torchwood always had explosions, but not unnecisary ones like the overly dramatic return of jack in the files room or whatever it was called. compare that to his return in season two, his return then was just as effective, if not more so, with just a gun shot rather than a huge ott explosion and the crashing through the windows and everything. the one in the new world was something you would expect from an american tv show. it was things like that that i thought made the show feel more american, although as i mentioned before, i am fine with rendition and dead of night. i mostly mentioned the americanised thing because my friends also noticed that it was "very american", so it wasn't just me. Imamadmad 10:22, July 25, 2011 (UTC) (same person as 58.166.78.101 above)

The explosion wasn't unnecessary though. It gave us our first look at the enemies of this season, even though we still don't know who they are, it was how Jack realized that he is now mortal, and its where they got the "corpse" that they decapitated later in the episode.Icecreamdif 15:45, July 25, 2011 (UTC)

Also, I don't think anyone is pressuring RTD to change the show. They're offering him a bigger effects budget, and access to B+-list American actors, etc. (As well as the freedom to actually show a gay sex scene.) Sure, he'll occasionally go overboard with all those new resources, but I think by now we mostly agree that it's not ruining what makes the show, and his writing, work. --173.228.85.118 10:38, July 27, 2011 (UTC)