Doctor Who! Torchwood! Captain Jack!
Mar. 8th, 2007 05:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowscastSo, here's the thing. My inlaws gave me the new Doctor Who, series one, for Christmas. I watched it a little at a time over a month or so. Then my friend ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rayaluna gave me series two, and after taking quite a while to get around to it, I watched it all over the space of a couple of weeks. And having got to the end of that, I wanted more (more! more!) and discovered that I could get the 2006 Christmas special, as well as all of Torchwood, on Youtube.
So that's what I've been doing for the past four days. (No school this week.)
Now I want to ramble for a bit.
Okay, I am rather intrigued by Captain Jack Harkness.
When he first showed up on Doctor Who, I thought he was a villian. I mean, I thought that was his role in the episode (and really, it kind of was). I didn't like him, and it worried me to see Rose falling for him—I thought she was going to get burned.
Of course he grew on me quickly, which is the same effect he seems to have on pretty much everybody, including Rose and the Doctor himself. Jack's got a lot to recommend him: sexy and charming, mysterious, heartbreakingly brave when the chips are down, and let's not forget his sexuality-without-borders. I mean, after all these years of being a slasher and waiting in frustration for the subtext to ever become text, let me tell you, when Jack grabbed the Doctor and kissed him goodbye full on the lips, I cheered out loud.
I was awfully sad when he died, because I wasn't ready for his story to end. So then I was filled with joy when the Bad Wolf brought him back to life—followed seconds later by confusion and frustration as the TARDIS left without him. Poor Captain Jack!
I found out pretty soon afterwards that the character would return in Torchwood, so that was okay. I also kind of thought he might show up in series two (I keep typing "season" and then having to go back and change it—crazy British terminology!), but that never happened. After the end of Torchwood, though, I'm holding out hope for series three!
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
What I want to do right now is lay out what we know about Captain Jack. Because he's damn mysterious, and mysteries are fun.
The funny thing is, I think he got more myterious, rather than less, when he crossed over to Torchwood. It was strange ... the narrative POV of that show seemed to mostly belong to Gwen, who came into it all as an outsider in the first episode. When the POV was traded around, it was mostly handed to the other non-Jack characters. We saw them all sitting around talking about Jack, sharing guesses and confessing their ignorance. But the thing is, we the viewers already knew way more about Jack than his Torchwood staff does! We don't know a lot, but we know more than they do even by the end of the series.
What do they know? Gwen found out in the first episode that he can't be killed. That was news to me too, but Jack's brief non-explanation about "a thing that happened" must refer to Rose bringing him back to life on the Game Station. (Which, actually, even Jack probably doesn't understand the way that we the viewers do; does he even know that it was Rose?) Gwen also developed a pretty strong suspicion that Jack had been around circa WWII; this suspicion was confirmed for certain in "Small Worlds," when we meet his lover from that era. The other characters didn't even know about his unkillableness until "End of Days," though I guess they found out about his serving in WWII during "Captain Jack Harkness." At least, Tosh found out then. I'm not entirely sure whether the rest of the staff did. Tosh also found out that Jack Harkness isn't his real name, but rather an alias stolen from a dead soldier. That's not something we knew before, but it would have been a reasonable guess (since obviously he must have inserted himself into the 1941 timeline in some convenient way).
They don't know he's a time traveller, I think. At least, if I knew what they know (can't be killed; doesn't seem to have aged since WWII) I would guess that he was at least a century old. Immortal, but born at some point in the past and making his way along the slow path with the rest of them. I think that the only character who Jack confided in about actually being from the future was that older guy from the 1950s who came forward in the airplane and then killed himself. (Man, it's weird talking about a series where I don't even know everyone's names, and don't have a complete set of online transcripts to help me with quotes and stuff!)
So at the end of the series, that's what the characters know: Jack can't be killed, and he hasn't aged since World War II. That, and he knows an inexplicably large amount of stuff about aliens, and he keeps saying "The 21st century is when everything changes."
What do we know? Not a whole lot more, but it's some pretty important stuff. Everything about Rose and the Doctor. The fact that he's from the 51st century originally. The fact that he was left behind on the Gamestation in the year 200,000-ish after Rose brought him back to life. The fact that he used to be a "Time Agent," whatever that means, but that he went rogue after losing two years of his own memories.
We don't learn much more about Jack during Torchwood. He tells the real Captain Jack a story about going off to war when he was young, and about his best friend dying. I'm guessing that those events happened in Jack's native timeline? And that's about it.
Except for the hand, of course. I confess, the significance of the hand didn't hit me the first time I saw it. It was only when the jar got broken and Jack freaked out that I realized "omfg, that's gotta be the Doctor's hand from the Christmas Invasion!" Which is sad and sweet and creepy all at once. But I think I'm safe in saying that Jack is in love with the Doctor.
Here's some stuff we don't know: how did Jack get from the Gamestation in the year 200,000-ish to 21st-century Cardiff? And how much time has passed for him, subjectively, since series one? What with him being apparently immortal now, it could've been centuries, but I'm guessing it was a whole lot less: that the events on the Gamestation, and his parting with the Doctor and Rose, are very fresh in his memory. How and why did he get involved with Torchwood, and end up in Cardiff in particular?
Man, I really hope that we get some answers in series three. I really hope Jack shows up in the first episode—after the way that Torchwood ended, it'll be kind of confusing if he doesn't!
rayaluna gave me series two, and after taking quite a while to get around to it, I watched it all over the space of a couple of weeks. And having got to the end of that, I wanted more (more! more!) and discovered that I could get the 2006 Christmas special, as well as all of Torchwood, on Youtube.So that's what I've been doing for the past four days. (No school this week.)
Now I want to ramble for a bit.
Okay, I am rather intrigued by Captain Jack Harkness.
When he first showed up on Doctor Who, I thought he was a villian. I mean, I thought that was his role in the episode (and really, it kind of was). I didn't like him, and it worried me to see Rose falling for him—I thought she was going to get burned.
Of course he grew on me quickly, which is the same effect he seems to have on pretty much everybody, including Rose and the Doctor himself. Jack's got a lot to recommend him: sexy and charming, mysterious, heartbreakingly brave when the chips are down, and let's not forget his sexuality-without-borders. I mean, after all these years of being a slasher and waiting in frustration for the subtext to ever become text, let me tell you, when Jack grabbed the Doctor and kissed him goodbye full on the lips, I cheered out loud.
I was awfully sad when he died, because I wasn't ready for his story to end. So then I was filled with joy when the Bad Wolf brought him back to life—followed seconds later by confusion and frustration as the TARDIS left without him. Poor Captain Jack!
I found out pretty soon afterwards that the character would return in Torchwood, so that was okay. I also kind of thought he might show up in series two (I keep typing "season" and then having to go back and change it—crazy British terminology!), but that never happened. After the end of Torchwood, though, I'm holding out hope for series three!
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
What I want to do right now is lay out what we know about Captain Jack. Because he's damn mysterious, and mysteries are fun.
The funny thing is, I think he got more myterious, rather than less, when he crossed over to Torchwood. It was strange ... the narrative POV of that show seemed to mostly belong to Gwen, who came into it all as an outsider in the first episode. When the POV was traded around, it was mostly handed to the other non-Jack characters. We saw them all sitting around talking about Jack, sharing guesses and confessing their ignorance. But the thing is, we the viewers already knew way more about Jack than his Torchwood staff does! We don't know a lot, but we know more than they do even by the end of the series.
What do they know? Gwen found out in the first episode that he can't be killed. That was news to me too, but Jack's brief non-explanation about "a thing that happened" must refer to Rose bringing him back to life on the Game Station. (Which, actually, even Jack probably doesn't understand the way that we the viewers do; does he even know that it was Rose?) Gwen also developed a pretty strong suspicion that Jack had been around circa WWII; this suspicion was confirmed for certain in "Small Worlds," when we meet his lover from that era. The other characters didn't even know about his unkillableness until "End of Days," though I guess they found out about his serving in WWII during "Captain Jack Harkness." At least, Tosh found out then. I'm not entirely sure whether the rest of the staff did. Tosh also found out that Jack Harkness isn't his real name, but rather an alias stolen from a dead soldier. That's not something we knew before, but it would have been a reasonable guess (since obviously he must have inserted himself into the 1941 timeline in some convenient way).
They don't know he's a time traveller, I think. At least, if I knew what they know (can't be killed; doesn't seem to have aged since WWII) I would guess that he was at least a century old. Immortal, but born at some point in the past and making his way along the slow path with the rest of them. I think that the only character who Jack confided in about actually being from the future was that older guy from the 1950s who came forward in the airplane and then killed himself. (Man, it's weird talking about a series where I don't even know everyone's names, and don't have a complete set of online transcripts to help me with quotes and stuff!)
So at the end of the series, that's what the characters know: Jack can't be killed, and he hasn't aged since World War II. That, and he knows an inexplicably large amount of stuff about aliens, and he keeps saying "The 21st century is when everything changes."
What do we know? Not a whole lot more, but it's some pretty important stuff. Everything about Rose and the Doctor. The fact that he's from the 51st century originally. The fact that he was left behind on the Gamestation in the year 200,000-ish after Rose brought him back to life. The fact that he used to be a "Time Agent," whatever that means, but that he went rogue after losing two years of his own memories.
We don't learn much more about Jack during Torchwood. He tells the real Captain Jack a story about going off to war when he was young, and about his best friend dying. I'm guessing that those events happened in Jack's native timeline? And that's about it.
Except for the hand, of course. I confess, the significance of the hand didn't hit me the first time I saw it. It was only when the jar got broken and Jack freaked out that I realized "omfg, that's gotta be the Doctor's hand from the Christmas Invasion!" Which is sad and sweet and creepy all at once. But I think I'm safe in saying that Jack is in love with the Doctor.
Here's some stuff we don't know: how did Jack get from the Gamestation in the year 200,000-ish to 21st-century Cardiff? And how much time has passed for him, subjectively, since series one? What with him being apparently immortal now, it could've been centuries, but I'm guessing it was a whole lot less: that the events on the Gamestation, and his parting with the Doctor and Rose, are very fresh in his memory. How and why did he get involved with Torchwood, and end up in Cardiff in particular?
Man, I really hope that we get some answers in series three. I really hope Jack shows up in the first episode—after the way that Torchwood ended, it'll be kind of confusing if he doesn't!
