Captain Jack's timeline?

[Starkers]

Thanks!

As for the chameleon arch, it seems to be a pretty standard installation inside Tardi! And the Master does (I'm almost certain) state that he ran to the end of the universe, he wasn't put there. And so what if he woke up as Yana on Jack's homeworld? We have no evidence that Jack ever returned there after he left to become a Time Agent, in fact Boe seems to have spent the last few centuries of his life on New Earth.

 

[The Wormhole]

Maybe New Earth was just his favourite vacation spot which he got stranded in because of the quarantine? Yeah, I know, I'm starting to stretch things here.

 

[Starkers]

Well it did look like a nice place

 

[RavenCWG]

Also, I have always felt that the Jack Harkness given to us in Empty Child/Doctor Dances was far more interesting than the often cruel and depressed Jack from Torchwood. I'd rather see the high-tech time-travelling con man with a flair for life than the "kill all aliens, take the law into your own hands and cover everything up without mercy" Jack from Torchwood.

I'm glad to know that I am not the only one who feels this way about Jack. I absolutely loved the character when he was on Doctor Who, but found him quite unlikeable in Torchwood. It was like watching a totally different character, who just happened to be played by the same actor. I lost absolutely all the remaining respect I had for the character after seeing Children of Earth. Simply put, the Capt. Jack in that miniseries, was not at all the same person that we were introduced to in Empty Child.He was reckless, careless, heartless, and in every sense anti-heroic. Any sympathy we were meant to feel for him at the end when he was "forced" to sacrifice his own grandson was totally undermined by all of the horrible choices he had made and the callus, heartless attitudes he displayed up to that moment. After all, he was at least partially responsible for the situation in the first place. He was chosen to to hand over the original children to the Aliens because he was the one person that simply didn't care what happened to them. Then when the Aliens return, he went to see his grandson, not out of concern for the boy, but rather because (as his daughter correctly divined) he simply needed a child to experiment on. And when the time came to use his grandson to stop the Aliens, he did not hesitate even for an instant, despite knowing full-well that the boy would most likely not survive. It was only afterward, with the child dead in his mother's arms, and her screaming at him in hate, rage and grief that he showed any sorrow or remorse. Even then, I think he was more upset that he had destroyed any chance of having a relationship with his daughter than he was by the fact that he had just murdered his own grandchild.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I guess, ultimately, my question is: why do you have the theory? What was missing from the story that the Face of Boe has to be involved in getting Yana to the future?

The Face of Boe was aware that there was another Time Lord, and Yana was found on Silver Devastation, Face of Boe's homeworld. That to me is a bit too coincidental, and the only logical explanation is if the Face of Boe was involved in the transformation and relocation.

It's coincidental, yes. But isn't the logical explanation on screen? Jack is the Face of Boe. Jack met up and fought with the Master with the Doctor. Then millions of years later, as the Face, warned the Doctor. It's a closed loop.

 

[Iamnotspock]

I'm glad to know that I am not the only one who feels this way about Jack. I absolutely loved the character when he was on Doctor Who, but found him quite unlikeable in Torchwood. It was like watching a totally different character, who just happened to be played by the same actor. I lost absolutely all the remaining respect I had for the character after seeing Children of Earth. Simply put, the Capt. Jack in that miniseries, was not at all the same person that we were introduced to in Empty Child.He was reckless, careless, heartless, and in every sense anti-heroic. Any sympathy we were meant to feel for him at the end when he was "forced" to sacrifice his own grandson was totally undermined by all of the horrible choices he had made and the callus, heartless attitudes he displayed up to that moment. After all, he was at least partially responsible for the situation in the first place. He was chosen to to hand over the original children to the Aliens because he was the one person that simply didn't care what happened to them. Then when the Aliens return, he went to see his grandson, not out of concern for the boy, but rather because (as his daughter correctly divined) he simply needed a child to experiment on. And when the time came to use his grandson to stop the Aliens, he did not hesitate even for an instant, despite knowing full-well that the boy would most likely not survive. It was only afterward, with the child dead in his mother's arms, and her screaming at him in hate, rage and grief that he showed any sorrow or remorse. Even then, I think he was more upset that he had destroyed any chance of having a relationship with his daughter than he was by the fact that he had just murdered his own grandchild.

Was he? That's entirely a supposition. I see where you're coming from though, and I agree to an extent, although I like both takes on the character. That said, he was certainly a mercenary character in his first appearance, who could be described as careless, reckless and anti-heroic (if not heartless), but he had a lot more charm to disguise it. Also, he certainly did hesitate over the decision to sacrifice Steven, while Dekker and Johnson urged him to take the only option open to him - "One child or millions!" - and you can't say he's wrong to do it.

 

[Starkers]

Well I guess constantly dying and being reborn, seeing all your loved ones wither and die, not to mention being buried alive for 1000 years is gonna mess with your head somewhat. It strikes me that Jack is much like the Doctor, in that he needs a companion to influence the good in him. He might be ligher, but he isn't a good guy in The Empty Child, it takes the influence of Rose and the ninth Doctor to make him do the right thing, and in Torchwood Gwen acts as his concience, but again it isn't until he reconnects with the Doctor that he pulls back from the darker side of his personality. In fact I'd go as far as to say that Jack only does the right thing when someone he respects is watching him, when he's on his own he's far more ruthless.

With this in mind, and despite how we know he'll end up eventually, I think it'd be really good to see him become the Doctor's nemesis for a time--he really does feel like a proto Master at times.

 

[Saul]

Jack's had a rough time of it being constantly thrown back into the past. Sucks.

I for one am still waiting for those missing two years to be explained and had hoped the previous 3 series of Torchwood would do that. Not to mention the episodes of DW he was in.

 

[Iamnotspock]

Jack's had a rough time of it being constantly thrown back into the past. Sucks.

I for one am still waiting for those missing two years to be explained and had hoped the previous 3 series of Torchwood would do that. Not to mention the episodes of DW he was in.

If Jack ever appears in Doctor Who again, which Moffat has said is a very real possibility (he bumped into JB recently and they both want to do it, it's just a question of fitting it around Torchwood), it's likely that it'll be explored. The missing two years thing was something Moffat threw in, and wasn't part of RTD's plan, and so Russell always said that as it was the Moff's thing, he'd leave it to him.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Here's hoping they'll be able to do it. *crosses fingers*

 

[Checkmate]

In, what, the second episode of the revived series, that humans can eventually age to the point where they're nothing but a stretched face. The villain in that episode was completely human, just facelifted to the extreme.

The Face of Boe isn't much different than that. Maybe there was a really bizarre era where that was the highest sense of fashion or something?

 

[Cutter John]

Here's hoping they'll be able to do it. *crosses fingers*

Me too. Considering Moffat ( I assume) created the character. Maybe he'd even take him back to his original roguish personality.

 

[Iamnotspock]

Me too. Considering Moffat ( I assume) created the character. Maybe he'd even take him back to his original roguish personality.

AIUI, it was a collaborative effort between RTD and the Moff. RTD, with an eye on the finale, needed a character aside from the Doctor and Rose who could go up against the Daleks and generally be the "soldier", so he gave Moffat a rough brief of an omni-sexual alien named Captain Jaxx to introduce in his episodes. Moffat fleshed him out and made him a human Time Agent (a reference to 1977's The Talons of Weng-Chiang) from the future, reasoning that it would be more interesting as we already had the Doctor and didn't need another alien, and laid a lot of the groundwork for his early character. Of course, since then he has become much more Russell's character, as he's the one who made him immortal and had him live for 150 years and developed him into the darker, angst-ridden guy he's become.*

Of course, if Jack were to appear under Moffat's reign, I wouldn't be surprised if he were to meet the 11th Doctor earlier in his Time Agent days, during his missing two years before he has his memory erased (thus explaining why he doesn't remember the Doctor later on), which would mean him being his old roguish self, yes. Seems like just the kind of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey plot the Moff would do...


*Although I like both incarnations of Captain Jack, it's always struck me as strange from a creative standpoint that they gave such a popular character his own series and then de-constructed a lot of what made him a popular character in the first place!