Captain Jack Harkness

Captain Jack Harkness, former rogue Time Agent from the 51st century, first appeared on our TV screens on May 5th, 2006, in the Doctor Who series one story arch, “The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances.” He has gone on to become the central leading character on Torchwood, a British TV series based around a 21st century organization that “tracks down alien life forms” and “fights for the future on behalf of the human race” (as spoken by our hero in the series opening).

Aside from being an omnisexual ex-con man with a big… ego, Jack’s most compelling and important story arch is his immortality, which came about in the final episode of Doctor Who, series one.

The story goes: it’s the year 200,000. A fleet of Daleks have launched their assault on Earth while the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston), the Doctor’s companion Rose Tyler. (Billie Piper), and Jack suddenly find themselves trapped on Satellite 5, a space station orbiting the Earth. Jack is killed by a Dalek, the Doctor’s archenemy throughout the entire galaxy. In order to save the future of mankind, Rose absorbs the time vortex energy in the heart of the TARDIS, subsequently bringing Jack back to life. Permanently.

According to the Doctor Who Wiki, Jack was left stranded on Satellite 5 as the TARDIS sailed off into space. We know that Jack returned to 1869 Cardiff by way of his vortex manipulator, a leather band donned by Time Agents to bounce across time. He spent the better part of the 20th century looking for the Doctor (he needed answers), and in between, he became a field member (1899) and the eventual leader (New years Eve, 2000) of Torchwood Three.

He was finally reunited with the Doctor (David Tennant) and his new companion Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) in the third series of Doctor Who. Captain Jack latched on to the TARDIS and was dragged to the end of the universe, or the year 100 trillion. While in a chamber filled with stet radiation, the Doctor gave Jack the answers he was looking for. It is also during this three-episode story arch (”Utopia,” “The Sound of Drums,” and “The Last of the Time Lords”) that we discover Jack is the Face of Boe, a bodyless head that lives in an enormous jar. The Doctor meets the Face of Boe on many occasions throughout his travels, including episode 1×02 (”The End of the World”) and series 3×03 (”Gridlock”).

But what makes the man tick? How old is he? Where did he grow up? What is his real name? Well, in many ways, Jack still remains delightfully ambiguous, as well as one of the most complicated, interwoven characters of the Doctor Who universe. However, there are a few things we do know.

• According to Doctor Who episode 3×13 (”The Last of the Time Lords”) and Torchwood episode 2×05 (”Adam”), we know that Jack grew up on the Boeshane Peninsula with his mother, father, and brother Gray (Ethan Brooke and Lachlan Nieboer). Here, he was given the nickname, the “Face of Boe.”

• Jack worked as a Time Agent alongside friend and future foe John Hart (James Marsters). We know their relationship became equivalent to that of a married couple as they were trapped in a two week time loop that lasted the span of five years-plus. Jack left the Time Agency as they erased two years of his memory.

• Once he left the Time Agency, he became a freelancing con artist. It was during this time he stole the alias of “Captain Jack Harkness.” The real “Captain Jack” was a RAF officer serving in the 133rd squadron, whom Jack encountered in the Torchwood episode, 1×12 (”Captain Jack Harkness”).

• Jack became the leader of Torchwood Three on New Years Eve 2000, when the then-current leader Alex Hopkins (Julian Lewis Jones) shot himself and the rest of the team. Jack subsequently recruited brainy Toshiko Sato (Naoko Mori), medic Owen Harper (Burn Gorman), second-in-command Suzie Costello (Indira Varma), all-purpose Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd), and future second-in-command Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles).

• He has had many relationships (with both men, women, and probably a few species) throughout his time, most notably with John Hart and a woman named Estelle Cole (Eve Pearce). We also know he has possibly married before. He has eluded to many boyfriends before, usually in comic passing (”a boyfriend with no mouth,” a twin acrobat that made boring “grand entrances,” and a boyfriend “whose nostrils flared when he was lying”). He is currently involved (whether sexually or otherwise) with Ianto Jones, a member of Torchwood Three.

• Jack’s specific age is unknown. However, we know that he is at least 2,000 years-plus, as his brother Gray, in an act of revenge during Torchwood’s series two finale (”Exit Wounds”), buried him alive under Cardiff city center in the year 27 AD. He was dug up in 1901, cryogenically frozen in the Torchwood Hub, and reawaken in approximately 2009.

• Whether Captain Jack still has the ability to become pregnant is unknown, though we know he has been “up the duff” at least once before, and that it was not a memorable experience he is keen to relive (”At least I wont get pregnant - never doing that again”). If Jack is in fact the Face of Boe, it was revealed in Doctor Who 1×07 (”The Long Game”) that he will be forced to go through pregnancy at least once more.

• Jack has a past in torturing prisoners, and according to Torchwood episode 1×06 (”Countrycide”), Jack relayed to a captive that he had “quite the reputation as the go-to guy” in the event of needing to force information out of a person.

Written by John Barrowman Web, with information supplemented by the Doctor Who Wiki.