Jack Harkness

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This article is about the 51st century con man known as Captain Jack Harkness. For other uses of Jack Harkness, see Captain Jack Harkness (disambiguation)
'"I'm Captain Jack Harkness, and who are you?"

Captain Jack Harkness (sometimes simply "Captain Jack" to those close to him), was the name adopted by a con man from the 51st century and an associate of the Doctor. His original identity remains a mystery. Reluctantly immortal and stranded on early 21st century Earth, he headed Torchwood 3.

Biography

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Given his frequent time travelling, much of Jack's personal chronology remains confused. However, we can say with some certainty that certain events happened to Jack before he met the Doctor, and others afterwards. However, we cannot necessarily regard everything Jack says as accurate.

Youth

Jack was brought up on the Boeshane Peninsula, in a sandy beach-like area. He often played with his brother Gray and his father. They played cricket and sang around campfires. Then one day an alien race invaded his homeland and killed many of the inhabitants. Jack was told by his father to run away with Gray while he went back for Jack's mother. Jack accidentally let go of Gray's hand while running. He returned to his home hoping to find him, but all he found was his dead father. Jack claims it was the worst day of his life. He has never found his brother even though he has spent many years searching for him. (TW: Adam)

Escapades

Originally, Jack used a different name, though we do not know what it was. (TW: Captain Jack Harkness). He grew up sometime around the year 5000, an era with less sexual mores than the 21st century. Humans had begun to expand outwards to explore the universe, and, meeting other species, often pursued sexual relationships with them, regardless of differences of gender or species. (DW: The Doctor Dances)

As a young man, he persuaded a friend to "join up" with them to fight against some unspecified enemies that Jack did not describe or name—other than to call them horrible, though it seems plausible that they are the same race that invaded Jack's home. Considering Jack's friend to be the weaker of the pair, the enemies tortured him as a lesson for Jack. Jack bore the guilt of his friend's fate. (TW: Captain Jack Harkness)

Once, when sentenced to death, he ordered four hypervodkas as a last meal and ended up bedding both executioners (at the same time). (DW: The Doctor Dances)

He also had a memorable experience once on a hunting expedition. (DW: Boom Town)

As a Time Agent

Jack Harkness worked as a Time Agent until he discovered that the Agency had erased two years of his memory, two years he wanted to have back. (DW:The Empty Child)

He had a friend called John Hart who also worked as a time agent. At some point, he spent five years trapped in a two-week time loop with John Hart, with the two becoming the equivalent of a married couple after spending so much time together (It is generally agreed that Hart was the wife). (TW: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang)

As Jack Harkness

Having left the Time Agency, Jack become a time-travelling con artist, performing various scams using his knowledge of future events, such as demanding money for items that he knew would be destroyed before the buyer could see it. He assumed the alias of an American volunteer Captain Jack Harkness, serving as a volunteer in the 133rd Squadron of the Royal Air Force. (DW: The Empty Child)

The "real" Jack Harkness had died in action in January 1941. The impostor knew very little about the "real" Jack, other than basic information, such as the former's date and manner of death. (TW: Captain Jack Harkness)

Prior to February 1944, he met Estelle Cole. (torchwood.org.uk) The pair spent some time in London together. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. Somehow, however, this never happened, and they lost touch with one another. (TW: Small Worlds)

Travels with the Doctor

First meeting with the Doctor

Jack worked as a con man, finding pieces of space junk and directing them to soon-to-be disaster sites, selling them to passers by, and letting them get destroyed before the buyers could pick up their merchandise. He would, at some point, acquire a sleek, small Chula spacecraft, fitted for human use, which could turn invisible.

In 1941, while pulling a con with a Chula Ambulance during the London Blitz, he spotted Rose Tyler hanging from a barrage balloon and rescued her, taking her aboard his Chula ship. Quickly finding out Rose came from the future, he suspected that other Time Agents had discovered him. (DW: The Empty Child). Shortly after, Rose introduced him to the Ninth Doctor. Together, the trio worked to stop the Empty Child plague brought about by the Ambulance's nanogenes. Although he was almost killed carrying in his ship a German bomb about to explode, the Doctor and Rose rescued him just before the ship exploded. (DW: The Doctor Dances) He accompanied them on their subsequent adventures.

Abandonment

Jack was aboard Satellite 5 when the Dalek fleet launched their assault on Earth and was exterminated while defending the satellite from their advance. He was resurrected by Rose Tyler, who at that time had the powers of the Time Vortex. Returned to life, Jack discovered he was now immortal, although he was unable to rejoin the Doctor and Rose before the Doctor's TARDIS departed, and was left stranded on the satellite. (DW: The Parting of the Ways) The Doctor, who had just regenerated, believed that Jack could begin the process of "rebuilding the Earth". (DW: Children in Need Special)

Marooned on Earth

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19th century, 20th century

After Jack was left on Satellite 5, he employed his Vortex Manipulator to go back to Cardiff, knowing the Doctor would eventually need to return and fuel his TARDIS. (DW: Utopia). Unfortunately Jack ended up in 1869 and had to live (and die several times) before meeting the Doctor again in the 21st century. His first death occurred when he was shot in 1892 during a fight on Ellis Island.

At some point he joined a travelling show and was billed as "the man who couldn't die" in order to investigate the Night Travellers. (TW: From out of the Rain)

In 1899 Torchwood 3 agents Alice Guppy and Emily Holroyd found out about Jack's immortality and about the Doctor. Established in 1885 (TWN: Slow Decay), Torchwood 3 monitored the space-time rift located in Cardiff. They captured Jack and tortured him trying to discover why he couldn't die and what his connection to Torchwood's enemy, the Doctor, actually was. He was released on one condition, that he worked for them. On his first mission he had to go stop a criminal Blowfish, which he returned to the Hub to be contained but instead it got shot in the head. He continued working for Torchwood on-and-off for years, but became leader in 2000 when the current leader killed everyone else on the team, including himself, leaving Jack as Torchwood 3's leader and only member. Jack recruited Suzie Costello, then in 2005 Toshiko Sato and Owen Harper, and in 2007 Ianto Jones. (TW: Fragments) and Gwen Cooper (TW: Everything Changes)

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Jack in Victorian times

21st century

After the destruction of Torchwood 1 in the Battle of Canary Wharf, Jack still continued to run Torchwood 3. With Torchwood 1 gone and Torchwood 4 having "gotten lost", Jack ran Torchwood 3 with more or less complete freedom and decided to run it according to the ideals he thought the Doctor represented. (DW: The Sound of Drums) Jack, though, held on to the hope of re-establishing contact with the Doctor, whom he believed could help him. He kept the Doctor's hand in a portable hyperbaric chamber in Torchwood 3's nerve center, the Hub. (TW: Everything Changes through TW: End of Days)

He revealed very little of himself or his origins to his team, even when pursuing a flirtatious relationship with Gwen Cooper (TW: Ghost Machine) and a more physical one with Ianto Jones. (TW: They Keep Killing Suzie) Although he rarely confided in his team, preferring to keep his past secret- Gwen was the first person to learn about his immortality-, he nevertheless often showed great compassion for them and other innocents who got caught up in Torchwood's missions (TW: Out of Time), even as he demonstrated a far more ruthless side in dispatching the team's enemies than the Doctor might have exercised (TW: Countrycide).

Transported back to 1941 by the Cardiff rift, Jack met his namesake, the original Jack Harkness, and briefly romanced him, before returning to the 21st century. (TW: Captain Jack Harkness).

After the Cardiff rift was finally opened by Owen Harper, Jack was forced to confront Abaddon, released from the rift by Bilis Manger. Abbadon was destroyed while attempting to leech Jack's life, though the exertion Jack remained dead for three days, his immortality apparently unable to save him. He was brought back to life by a kiss from Gwen. (TW: End of Days)

Minutes after his resurrection, Jack noticed the Doctor's hand begin to glow. The sound of the TARDIS materialising was heard inside the Hub. By the time the rest of the Torchwood team arrived to investigate the sound, Jack had gone. (TW: End of Days) Seeing the TARDIS, he grabbed on to the outside as it was dematerialising. The TARDIS tried to shake him off, throwing the Doctor, Martha and Jack into the year 100 trillion. (DW: Utopia)

Chasing The Master

When he arrived in the year 100 trillion, he appeared dead, but, just as Martha was attempting to revive him, he awoke, gasping for life. He, The Doctor and Martha saw a man being chased by the Futurekind. They went to a base where the last humans were hiding from the Futurekind. He brought the Doctor's Hand with him, describing it as a 'Doctor detector', and he met the Professor Yana. Jack helped to launch the ship by entering a chamber flooded with Stet radiation, and fixing the power canisters (the radiation would have killed a normal human). When Yana was discovered to be The Master, he took the Doctor's hand and went back in time to the 21st century. Jack, the Doctor and Martha returned to the 21st century using his Vortex Manipulator to escape from the Futurekind. He revealed to the Doctor that he was recruited in Torchwood 3 when he returned to Earth following the Battle of the Game Station. The Doctor was appalled at this; Jack stated that the old Torchwood had been destroyed at Canary Wharf. After the battle had ended, he had taken over and rebuilt Torchwood anew, in the Doctor's name. Soon after this explanation, Jack was arrested onboard the Valiant by Mr. Saxon, (the Master) along with the Doctor and Martha. After being imprisoned within the Valiant for one year, he managed to release himself (perhaps with the help of the Doctors temporary superpowers) and destroyed the Master's Paradox Machine.

After the events precipitated by the Master were reset, he returned to Torchwood 3, but not before asking the Doctor about the possibility of his eventual death. He joked about his vanity, saying that he couldn't help it—growing up in the Boeshane Peninsula (DW: Last of the Time Lords) in the 51st Century, he had been a poster boy, nicknamed the Face of Boe as a result of being the first one ever to sign up for the Time Agency.

This would explain how the Face of Boe was aware of the Doctor, Professor Yana and times/places/details of future (to Boe at least) meetings with the Doctor (as they were in Boe's past/Jack's present).

Reunion with Torchwood 3

After being onboard the Valiant with The Doctor and The Master for a year of an erased time line, Jack returned to Torchwood and the Team. Surprisingly for the Team, Jack arrives just in the nick of time to save a woman's life by killing a blowfish-like alien. The Team wondered where he had been, although he refused to explain himself, besides making a reference to his previous adventure with The Doctor. While this took place, there was some Rift activity and his old friend Captain John Hart from the Time Agency appeared in Cardiff. Jack tracked him to a bar, where they reunited with a passionate kiss, followed by a lengthy bar brawl. Soon after they got talking about their past lives. He told Jack that there were three alien 'radiation bombs' nearby, and the team split up and searched for them. Captain John was teamed up with Gwen. Hart disabled the team one-by-one after conning them into finding the pieces, which formed a triangular ring, to slot around a pyramid hologram device being carried by the blowfish alien. John Harts ex-girlfriend appeared in the hologram, and claimed that the device would attach a DNA-seeking high-explosive onto whoever killed her. Hart subsequently handcuffed himself to Gwen with deadlock sealed cuffs and he raced to the rift, while Jack and Owen concocted a means of confusing the bombs DNA scanner, arriving just in time to save Harts life, throwing the bomb into the rift. The resultant explosion caused all of the events prior to Harts arrival to reset to before he arrived. Hart asked for a place on the team but Jack callously declined, telling him to leave. As Hart faded through the rift he mentioned to Jack that he knew where Gray was. A shocked Jack claims that the statement meant nothing. (TW: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang)

Special items

When Rose and the Doctor first met him, Jack owned a own small Chula Warship, fitted for human use, as well as psychic paper and a store of nanogenes in the ship. When saving the Doctor and Rose by carrying a German bomb a safe distance away from London, the bomb explodes inside the ship, but luckily, the Doctor and Rose save him. (DW: The Empty Child, The Doctor Dances)

Weapons

Jack owned a sonic blaster in the Doctor Who episode, 'The Doctor Dances'. (DW: The Doctor Dances) He also managed to store a Compact Laser Deluxe away somewhere "you really don't wanna know"', in case of emergencies. (DW: Bad Wolf). As the leader of Torchwood 3, Jack liked to carry a World War II Webley. (TW: Everything Changes onward).

Special abilities

Since his resurrection by the Bad Wolf entity (DW: The Parting of the Ways), Jack can "die" and come back to life almost instantly (TW: Everything Changes onwards). So far he has "died" of a gunshot to the head (TW: Everything Changes, TW: End of Days) and multiple electrocutions (TW: Cyberwoman). Jack's confrontation with Abaddon forced him as close he could come to true death. (TW: End of Days) Jack views this power as a curse as much as a blessing, as each time he has died he has not experienced anything at all, good or bad. (TW: Everything Changes)

Like other men in the 51st century, Jack possesses evolved human pheromones which make him naturally nice-smelling and attractive to others. (TW: Fragments)

Tosh could not use Mary's telepathy pendant to read his thoughts, although he could project thoughts to Tosh if he so chose, apparently showcasing some kind of psychic defence. (TW: Greeks Bearing Gifts)

It may be that he expanded his psychic ability after he transformed or that his larger brain size and different physiology made his ability more powerful.

Unrecorded adventures

  • Jack once quipped about the time he got pregnant, a memorable experience, though not necessarily in a good way. (TW: Everything Changes)
Although he states at the time that he is never going to become pregnant again, reference to the Face of Boe giving birth suggest that he will be forced to have more children eventually. (DW: The Long Game)
The fairies spared Jack, for unknown reasons, perhaps because, having already gained immortality by then, he couldn't die. It is also possible that he was spared simply because he wasn't with them at the time they ran over the Chosen One.
  • In the early 20th century, Jack pursued a serious relationship with Estelle Cole. They had wanted to spend the rest of their lives together, but it never happened. Estelle never found out about Jack's life as a space-time traveler. (TW: Small Worlds)
  • Jack related to a captive that he had experience in torturing prisoners, and that, "a long time ago", he had "quite a reputation as the go-to guy" in the event of needing to force information out of a person. (TW: Countrycide)
Given that he wanted to frighten a prisoner into divulging information at the time, he may have lied or stretched the truth. However, given the treatment of Jack's friend at the hand of his torturers, Jack may well have sought revenge against their enemy in this way—and it is not known what skills his job as a Time Agent required him to develop and utilise. The Torchwood 3 team do not seem to know of any such past. This might give more credence to the possibility that he lied, but, taking into account the secrecy with which Jack surrounds himself, it is more likely that he simply did not want to show that side of his personality to them, or preferred to keep such talents to himself until necessary.
  • He once worked for an employer named Victor, who surprised "his" staff by coming out as a male-to-female transsexual. (TW: Greeks Bearing Gifts)
  • Jack once had a boyfriend with no mouth. (TW: Fragments)

Key life events

  • Jack's home planet is invaded by an unidentified race of aliens, resulting in his father being killed and his brother vanishing, leaving only him and his mother. (mentioned in TW: Adam)
  • Jack enters the military with a friend, who also joins, at Jack's urging. The friend undergoes torture by their foe.
  • Transported to Earth in 1869 using his Vortex Manipulator he used as a Time Agent. The Manipulator burnt out after this journey and forced Jack to live through the 19th and 20th centuries (mentioned inDW: Utopia), and he eventually joins the Torchwood Institute in hopes of locating the Doctor. He assumes the role of head of Torchwood 3.

Behind the Scenes

  • Jack Harkness' first name was originally "Jax", in Russell T. Davies's original production outline. In this Jack's proper name was Jax, and he was using the Jack alias as a cover in World War II. The name was later abandoned due to its similarity to other names in the wider Doctor Who Universe.

External links

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