Companion - Jack Harkness
Captain Jack Harkness is a fictional character played by John Barrowman in Doctor Who and its spin-off series, Torchwood. He first appeared in the 2005 Doctor Who episode "The Empty Child" and reappeared in the remaining episodes of the 2005 series as a companion of the ninth incarnation of the series' protagonist the Doctor. Jack became the central character in the adult-themed Torchwood, and returned in the 2007 series of Doctor Who, reuniting with the tenth incarnation of the Doctor, and again for the 2008 series and a 2010 special.
In the program's narrative, Jack begins as a time traveler and former con man from the 51st century. In contrast to the Doctor, Jack is a man of action, more willing to apply a hands-on solution to a problem. As a consequence of his death and resurrection in the 2005 series finale of Doctor Who, the character becomes immortal. On Earth, Jack becomes a member of Torchwood, a British organization dedicated to combating alien threats, becoming its leader over a century later. An ambiguous back-story is gradually revealed in the course of both series, adding another layer of complexity to the character.
Jack is the first openly non-heterosexual character in the history of televised Doctor Who. The popularity of the character amongst multiple audiences directly influenced the development of the spin-off series Torchwood. The character became a figure of the British public consciousness, rapidly gaining fame for portrayer John Barrowman. As an ongoing depiction of bisexuality in mainstream British television, the character became a role model for young gay and bisexual people in the UK. Jack is featured in various Doctor Who and Torchwood books, as well as having action figures created in his likeness.
Jack Harkness first appeared in the 2005 Doctor Who episode "The Empty Child" and its continuation "The Doctor Dances", when Rose (Billie Piper), a companion of the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston), meets him during the Blitz. Although posing as an American volunteering in the Royal Air Force, Jack is actually a former "Time Agent" from the 51st century who left the agency after inexplicably losing two years of his memory. Now working as a con man, Jack is responsible for unwittingly releasing a plague in London in 1941. After the Doctor cures the plague, Jack redeems himself by taking an unexploded bomb into his ship; the Doctor and Rose rescue him moments before it explodes. He subsequently travels with the Doctor and Rose in the Doctor's time traveling spacecraft, the TARDIS. During his time with the Doctor, Jack matures into a hero, and in his final 2005 appearance, he sacrifices himself fighting the evil alien Daleks. Rose brings him back to life while suffused with the power of the time vortex, but when the power leaves her she doesn't remember doing it. She and the Doctor subsequently leave Jack behind on Satellite 5.
Harkness returned in 2006 as a character of the spin-off series Torchwood, in which he is a member of the Cardiff-based Torchwood Three in combating alien threats and monitoring a space-time rift which runs through Cardiff. Jack is re-introduced as a changed man, reluctantly immortal, having spent years on Earth waiting to reunite with the Doctor. Jack recruits policewoman Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) to the team of experts after she discovers them; there are hints of romantic feelings between the two, but Gwen has a boyfriend and Jack enters a sexual relationship with the team's general factotum Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd). Despite having worked with him for some time, his present-day colleagues know very little about him; over the course of the series they discover that he cannot die. Jack was once a prisoner of war, and was an interrogator who used torture. In the Torchwood Series One finale "End of Days", Jack returns to the TARDIS. This immediately leads into the 2007 Doctor Who episode "Utopia", where he joins the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) and his companion Martha (Freema Agyeman). Jack explains he returned from Satellite 5 to the present day by traveling to 1869 via vortex manipulator, and lived through the 20th century waiting for the Doctor. By the series finale, having spent a year in an alternate timeline enslaved by the Master (John Simm), Jack opts to return to his team in Cardiff. Before departing, Jack speculates about his immortality and reminisces about his youth on the Boeshane Peninsula, implicitly suggesting that he may one day become the mysterious "Face of Boe" (a recurring character voiced by Struan Rodger).
In Torchwood's second series (2008), Jack returns with a lighter attitude, and finds his team has continued working in his absence. They are also more insistent to learn of his past, especially after meeting his former partner, the unscrupulous Captain John Hart (James Marsters). The episode "Adam" explores Jack's childhood in the Boeshane Peninsula, revealing through flashback sequences how his father Franklin (Demetri Goritsas) died and young Jack (Jack Montgomery) lost his younger brother Gray (Ethan Brooke) during an alien invasion. Flashbacks in the series' penultimate episode "Fragments" depict Jack's capture by Torchwood in the late 19th century. Initially their prisoner, Jack is coerced into becoming a freelance agent for the organization, and eventually becomes leader of Torchwood Three at midnight on 1 January 2000. The series finale features the return of Captain John and Jack's brother Gray (Lachlan Nieboer), who, after a lifetime of torture by aliens, wants revenge on Jack. While Jack manages to repair his friendship with Captain John to some degree, he is forced to place his brother in cryogenic stasis after Gray kills his teammates Toshiko (Naoko Mori) and Owen (Burn Gorman). Jack subsequently appears alongside the casts of Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures in the two-part crossover finale of the 2008 Doctor Who series, "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End". Jack is summoned along with other former companions of the Doctor to assist him in defeating the mad scientist Davros (Julian Bleach) and his creation, the Daleks. Jack parts company from the Doctor once again, having helped save the universe from destruction.
Torchwood's third series (2009) is a five-part serial entitled Children of Earth. Aliens known as the 4-5-6 announce they are coming to Earth. Civil servant John Frobisher (Peter Capaldi) orders the destruction of Torchwood to cover a conspiracy; in 1965, the British government had authorized Jack to sacrifice twelve children to the 4-5-6, which is shown in flashbacks. Jack is blown apart in an explosion, but painfully reconstitutes from an incomplete pile of body parts; Gwen and Ianto escape and later rescue Jack from a concrete grave. Jack's daughter Alice (Lucy Cohu) and grandson Steven (Bear McCausland) are taken into custody by the assassins. The 4-5-6 demand ten percent of the world's children. Although he handed over twelve children in 1965, Jack refuses to give up any this time around. The 4-5-6 releases a fatal virus; Ianto dies in Jack's arms. To create the signal that will destroy the 4-5-6, Jack sacrifices Steven. Six months later, having lost his lover, his grandson and his daughter, he bids farewell to Gwen and is transported aboard an alien ship to leave Earth for parts unknown. In the closing scenes of 2010 Doctor Who special The End of Time, the critically injured Doctor gives each companion a farewell before his impending regeneration. Finding Jack in an exotic alien bar, he leaves him a note containing the name of Titanic crew member Alonso Frame (Russell Tovey), sitting on Jack's left side; the two proceed to flirt.
Fourth series Miracle Day (2011), an American co-production, sees Jack return to Earth to investigate a phenomenon where humans can no longer die; Jack discovers that he has become mortal. Investigating their connection to the so-called "miracle", CIA agent Rex Matheson (Mekhi Phifer) renditions Jack and Gwen to America, but joins the team along with CIA colleague Esther Drummond (Alexa Havins) after conspirators within the CIA betray them. Jack's investigations into the miracle repeatedly turn up dead-ends, indicating a decades-old conspiracy to manipulate the global economy, as well as political institutions, for unknown purposes. Flashbacks in "Immortal Sins" depict Jack's relationship with Italian thief Angelo Colasanto (Daniele Favilli) in late 1920s New York City, ending in heartbreak after Jack is killed, bled and tortured repeatedly by the local community. In the present day, Angelo's granddaughter Olivia (Nana Visitor) explains that the descendants of three local businessmen who wished to purchase Jack's powers—"the Three Families"—are responsible for the miracle, using Jack's blood in conjunction with what they call "the Blessing". In "The Gathering", the team ultimately track down the Families and the Blessing, which is revealed to be an antipodal geological formation connected to the Earth's morphic field running from Shanghai and Buenos Aires; the team divide, attempting to reach both access points. To end the miracle, in "The Blood Line", Jack has Gwen kill him so that his mortal blood can reset the human morphic field; Gwen kills him with a bullet through the chest, while Rex—who transfused himself with Jack's blood to keep it safe—allows the Blessing to drain him too, in Buenos Aires. Rex survives, and with the morphic field restored, Jack resurrects. At Esther's funeral however, they discover that Rex has acquired self-healing abilities just like Jack's.
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