Concept and creation In naming the character, executive producer and head writer
Russell T Davies drew inspiration from the
Marvel Comics character
Agatha Harkness, Jack's original appearances in
Doctor Who were conceived with the intention of forming a
character arc in which Jack is transformed from a coward to a hero, Following on that arc, the character's debut episode would leave his morality as ambiguous, publicity materials asking, "Is he a force for good or ill?" Actor John Barrowman himself was a key factor in the conception of Captain Jack. Barrowman says that at the time of his initial casting, Davies and co-executive producer,
Julie Gardner had explained to him that they "basically wrote the character around [John]". Davies had singled out Barrowman for the part. On meeting him, Barrowman tried out the character using his native Scottish accent, his normal American accent, and an English accent; Davies decided it "made it bigger if it was an American accent". Barrowman recounts Davies as having been searching for an actor with a "matinée idol quality", telling him that "the only one in the whole of Britain who could do it was you". A number of television critics have compared Barrowman's performances as Captain Jack to those of
Hollywood actor
Tom Cruise. The character's introduction served to posit him as a secondary hero and a rival to the series protagonist, the Doctor, simultaneously paralleling the Doctor's detached alien nature with Jack's humanity and "heart". John Barrowman describes the character in his initial appearance as "an intergalactic conman" and also a "rogue Time Agent" which he defines as "part of a kind of space
CIA" and alludes to the moral ambiguity of having "done something in his past" and not knowing "whether it is good or bad because his memory has been erased". Jack has also been compared to the
title character of America's
Xena: Warrior Princess, which featured lesbian subtext between Xena (
Lucy Lawless) and her close friend
Gabrielle (
Renee O'Connor). Polina Skibinskaya, writing for
AfterElton.com, an American gay men's website, notes both are "complex characters" haunted by their past misdeeds. Furthermore, like Xena, Jack is "a gay basher's worst nightmare: a queer weapon-wielding, ass-kicking superhero gleefully chewing his way through awesome fight scenes". One academic article refers to Jack as "an indestructible
Captain Scarlet figure". In a comparative contrast, where the Doctor is a pacifist, Jack is more inclined to see violent means to reach similar ends. The
BBC News website refers to Jack's role within
Doctor Who as "[continuing] what began with
Ian Chesterton and continued later with
Harry Sullivan". Whereas in the classic series the female "companions" were sometimes exploited and sexualised for the entertainment of predominantly male audiences, the producers could reverse this dynamic with Jack, citing an equal need amongst modern audiences to "look at good looking men". John Barrowman linked the larger number of women watching the show as a key factor in this. Jack is
bisexual, and is the first televised
Doctor Who character to be openly anything other than heterosexual. In Jack's first appearance, the Doctor suggests that Jack's orientation is more common in the 51st century, when humankind will deal with multiple alien species and becomes more sexually flexible. Within
Doctor Who's narrative, Jack's sexual orientation is not specifically labelled as that could "make it an issue". On creating Jack, Davies comments "I thought: 'It's time you introduce bisexuals properly into mainstream television,'" with a focus on making Jack fun and swashbuckling as opposed to negative and angsty. Davies also expresses that he didn't make the character bisexual "from any principle", but rather because "it would be interesting from a narrative point of view." The bisexuality-related labels "
pansexual" and "
omnisexual" are also frequently applied to the character. Writer
Steven Moffat suggests that questions of sexual orientation do not even enter into Jack's mind; Moffat also comments "It felt right that the
James Bond of the future would bed anyone." In an interview with the
Chicago Tribune, John Barrowman explained that "[He]'s bisexual, but in the realm of the show, we call him
omnisexual, because on the show, [the characters] also have sex with aliens who take human form, and sex with male-male, women-women, all sorts of combinations." The term is also used once, in-universe, in the novel
The House that Jack Built, when Ianto comments to a woman's remark about Jack, "He prefers the term '
omnisexual'." In fact, in her essay "Fashioning Masculinity and Desire", Sarah Gilligan attributes
Torchwoods popularity—as well as that of the character—to the costume. She credits the greatcoat with helping to fashion the character's masculinity, and argues that Jack's costume creates its own discourse "through which costume drama and Post
Heritage cinema's escapism flows". During Jack's initial appearances in
Doctor Who, Russell T Davies held a "half-hearted" theory that Jack would dress specific to the time period he was in, to contrast the Doctor who dresses the same wherever and whenever he goes. He is introduced wearing a
greatcoat in World War II-set episodes, but changes to modern day jeans in contemporary episode "Boom Town" and black leather in futuristic episodes. Davies admits that this was a "bit of a lame idea" and decided that Jack "never looked better than when he was in his World War II outfit". From the
pilot of Torchwood onwards, Harkness once again wears
period military clothes from the second World War, including
braces and an officer's wool greatcoat in every appearance. Costume designer Ray Holman commented in a
Torchwood Magazine interview that "We always wanted to keep the World War Two hero look for him, so all his outfits have a 1940s flavour." Because the character was expected to "be running around a lot", Holman redesigned his RAF greatcoat from
Doctor Who to make it more fluid and less "weighty". Jack's other costumes are "loosely wartime based", such as the trousers are "getting more and more styled to suit his figure". Holman explains that there are actually five Captain Jack coats used on the show. The "hero version" is used for most scenes, while there is also a wetcoat made with pre-shrunk fabric, running coat which is slightly shorter to prevent heels getting caught, and two "stunt coats" that had been "hero coats" in the first series." Davies feels the military uniform reinforces the idea that the character "likes his Captain Jack Harkness identity". Julie Gardner describes the coat as "epic and classic and dramatic", while director
Brian Kelly believes it gives Jack "a sweep and a presence".
Development The character is described as both "lethally charming ... good looking and utterly captivating", In
Torchwood's first series, Jack has been shaped by his ongoing search for the Doctor and also by his role as a leader, in which he is predominantly more aloof. In
Torchwood, he would occasionally inquire or muse about the afterlife and religion, sympathising with a man's desire to die. Returning in
Doctor Who Series Three, Jack indicates he now maintains a less suicidal outlook than before. In the second series of
Torchwood, Jack became a much more light-hearted character once again, after appearances in
Doctor Who where he was reunited with the Doctor. In the third series of
Torchwood, the audience sees some of Jack's "darker side", as well as "the secrets that Jack has, the pressures, drama and the trauma he's carrying on his shoulders". Lynnette Porter comments on Jack's relation to scholar
Lord Raglan's theses on 'the hero' in fiction. Because Jack is immortal and always comes back from the dead, Porter argues that Jack cannot literally fulfil the "physical death aspect" of Raglan's criteria for a hero. However, Jack instead has several symbolic deaths. For instance, in the last scene of
Children of Earth. Porter observes that camera angles emphasise Jack's profile as solitary man atop a hill in Cardiff, departing. This scene of "going away for good" against the backdrop of the city he has long protected, hints at the death of the Captain Jack persona; in Porter's words, "the immortal captain "dies" at the top of a hill in Wales at the conclusion of the "
epic" miniseries", "epic" traditionally being the genre of heroism. G. Todd Davis examines the ways in which Jack conforms to the Byronic hero character trope. Physically, he identifies Jack as dark-haired and strikingly handsome, with masculine physique; he is intelligent and aware of it, to the point of a
superiority complex; he demands unquestioning loyalty, has guilty secrets in his past, and is self-sacrificing. For this, Davis lists Jack alongside
Milton's
Satan from
Paradise Lost,
Shelley's
Prometheus, and also Angel from
Buffy, amongst others. As a show,
Torchwood is highly intertextual. The consequence of this is that many sides of Jack are shown across various media. One commentator feels that this emphasises Jack's pivotal place in the development and change of modern science fiction heroes. Barrowman also remarks that "The beauty of Captain Jack, and one of the reasons why I think, as an actor, I've landed on my feet, is that he's popular with one audience in
Torchwood and with another in
Doctor Who." which within
Doctor Who, allows Jack's character to act in ways the lead character cannot. Barrowman remarks, "He'll do things the Doctor won't do ... [such as] fight. Jack will kill. And the Doctor, in a way, knows that, so he lets Jack do it. I'd say Jack's the companion-hero." When reuniting with the Doctor in the 2007 series of
Doctor Who, he is told "don't you dare" when pointing a gun, Witnessing the murder of his colleague Owen in
Torchwood, Jack shoots
his killer in the forehead, killing him in an act of swift revenge. Whilst the Doctor scolds Jack for joining the Torchwood Institute (an organisation he perceives as
xenophobic and aggressive), Jack maintains that he reformed the Institute in the Doctor's image; One academic article, which compares
Torchwood to the American drama series
24, opines that Jack's attitudes make the show's ethos largely antithetical to that of
24. Because Jack explores the "complexity of negotiating differing worldviews, cultural values, beliefs, and moral codes" through a framework established by the Doctor, to "value life, support democratic principles and egalitarianism, and protect those who cannot protect themselves", consequently "The world of
Torchwood is depicted, not as the dichotomous "
us" (or United States) and "
other" of
Jack Bauer's
24, but as the omnipolitical,
omnisexual, omnicultural world of Jack Harkness." Porter finds, however, that like Bauer, Jack saves the world using similarly morally grey means when he tortures Beth the sleeper agent, in "
Sleeper", in order to avert an interplanetary attack. Davies stated in an interview with
SFX that he "loved" the uproarious reaction to Jack's actions, defending the character in saying "He saved every single child in the world! If you would fail to do that then you're the monster, frankly. It's this extraordinary treatment that only science fiction heroes get." When Jack is departing Earth, the music playing is titled "Redemption", signifying that his departure is also perhaps his redeeming act in the serial. The Face of Boe first appeared in the 2005 episode "
The End of the World", watching the final destruction of the long-abandoned Earth by the expansion of the Sun in the Earth year 5,000,000,000; Boe appears in two other episodes, "
New Earth" (2006) and "
Gridlock" (2007), and is mentioned in other episodes, such as his being "the oldest living creature in the Isop Galaxy" as of the Earth year 200,100, per "
Bad Wolf" (2005). Barrowman described himself and David Tennant as being "so excited" to the extent where they "jumped up screaming" when they read Jack's line regarding the Face of Boe, remarking "It was probably the most excitable moment we had during the shooting of that series." In a spin-off novel,
The Stealer of Dreams (2005), Captain Jack makes a reference to the Face of Boe as a famous figure. However, Davies chooses not to confirm (within the story's narrative) whether or not Jack really is the Face of Boe, stating "the moment it became very true or very false, the joke dies". He has refused the publication of spin-off novels and comic books that have tried to definitively link the two. In relationship to
Miracle Day, where Jack becomes mortal, critics approached Barrowman and Davies about the implications of such a move for Jack's potential future as the Face of Boe. Barrowman stated that the open-ended rules of the science fiction genre meant that Jack could still become the Face of Boe even after
Miracle Day. By contrast, Davies was keen to emphasise that the possibility of Jack becoming the Face of Boe remained "conjecture", and that the possibility remained that Jack would not survive
Miracle Day, adding "You know how I love killing people off."
Relationships Ianto In a
Doctor Who Magazine interview, Barrowman described Jack's love for Ianto as "lustful", and explained "I don't think he'd settle down with Ianto. He might do, but he'd let Ianto know that he [Jack] has to play around on the side". The
Torchwood Series Two premiere sees Jack ask Ianto out on a date, after finding out Gwen is engaged. John Barrowman said in an interview that Ianto "brings out the "human" in [Jack]" and "brings out more ... empathy because he's actually fallen for someone and he really cares about somebody ... [which] makes him warm to other people ... [and] makes him more approachable." In the same interview, Gareth David-Lloyd said of the relationship and his character that "I think Ianto's always made him care and that is really the heart of the show." The novel
The House that Jack Built includes a scene where Ianto confides in Gwen that he knows that to Jack he is "just a shag", though discloses that the relationship means more to him. In the same novel, however, he also refers to himself in front of Jack as his "
boyfriend". Just as Jack and Ianto's relationship is developing, Ianto dies, in
Children of Earth (2009). While some fans felt "cheated" at not seeing the relationship develop further, Davies explains his intention was to heighten the tragedy by it also being a loss of potential, stating "You grieve over everything they could have been. Everything you hoped for them." For dramatic purposes within the story, Davies explains that Ianto's death was necessary so that Jack would be damaged enough to sacrifice his own grandson. Lynnette Porter feels that Ianto's demise is intended as a watershed moment where Jack loses his effectiveness as a hero. At least for a time, a grieving Jack loses his focus and gives up; within a few months, Jack flees Earth and his role as the expected hero. Subsequent to Ianto's death, in "The End of Time" (2010), the Doctor sets up Jack with a new romantic interest, Alonso Frame (Tovey). Fans of Ianto, who felt cheated by the character's death, disliked this development.
GayNZ.com compared the situation to
Buffy fans' reaction to Willow's relationship with
Kennedy (
Iyari Limon) in
Buffys
seventh season, following Tara's death in the show's
sixth. Ianto makes a post-death appearance in 2011 audio drama "The House of the Dead". Encountering Ianto's spirit at a haunted location in Wales, Jack and Ianto are permitted a final goodbye. Without Ianto in his life, Jack wishes to be swept up into the Cardiff spacetime rift as it closes in an attempt at suicide. Ianto tricks Jack into leaving the House of the Dead, however, despite the possibility of resurrection. As they are forced to part forever by the closing of the rift, the couple declare their love for one another for the first and last time. In a 2007 interview, Eve Myles, who plays Gwen, describes the relationship between Jack and Gwen as a "palpable love" and opines that "with Jack and Gwen, it's the real thing and they're going to make you wait for that." AfterElton.com's Locksley Hall conjectures that Jack is attracted to Gwen because of "her warmth, her sense of justice, her very ordinariness and lack of glamour", whilst Eve Myles explains Gwen's attraction to Jack by stating: "the most monogamous woman in the world would probably go for him – it'd be hard not to". Valerie Estelle Frankel describes Jack as a "compelling trickster", who acts out Gwen's private desires with his "outrageous flirting". She suggests that Jack (unlike Rhys) is not mature enough to occupy the role of "steady prince" for Gwen, Lynnette Porter feels that part of the reason Jack leaves Earth at the conclusion of
Children of Earth is Gwen's idealisation of Jack, which is so intense that he cannot stand to look at her in the wake of Ianto's death. Gwen hopes that she is reason enough for Jack to stay on Earth, but Jack is ready to give up any hero worship because he feels unworthy. who in turn still feels for Jack and misses the exciting life she once led beside him. Whilst
Miracle Day lead writer Russell T Davies states in response to a question posed by AfterElton that he "hates" the idea of romantic tension between Gwen and Jack, executive producer
Julie Gardner answers by stating "They love each other. Of course they do." Myles believes that in series four, Gwen and Jack have a "love-hate-love relationship" resembling in different ways a sibling relationship, a marital relationship and also "the strongest friendship". Episode seven of
Miracle Day features a scene where Jack threatens Gwen with violence after she states she would have him killed to save her daughter. Writer Jane Espenson explains that the two characters have different needs and that this means they inevitably "clash like steel blades". Simon Brew of Den of Geek praises the dynamic between Gwen and Jack in series four, describing them as "a terrific double act" and states that "
Torchwood is at, or near, its best when the two of them are working in tandem". In their academic publication,
Queer TV, Glyn Davis and Gary Needham discuss Jack's role within
Torchwood as a post-gay,
romantic hero. Noting
Torchwood's central gay themes, they comment that "it is through the character of Captain Jack that
Torchwood is able to mine its
queerness." Discussing Jack's brief romance with his namesake,
the real Captain Jack (
Matt Rippy), academic critics have noted that "The Captain Jacks both share the same name and are quite similar in physical appearance, thus literalising the homo-ness of the situation. Through the time-travel
device this points to a
narcissistic self-fascination, the old cliché that homosexuality is the love for sameness." Duchess Eleanor, Commenting on the show's
postmodern attitude towards bisexuality, or in what Russell T Davies calls "omnisexuality", they continue to remark that "His character brushes against definitions of queer sexuality in that he
resists any sort of classification based on sexual orientation." They also comment on the subtexts of particular episodes, such as gay time-travel romance episode "
Captain Jack Harkness", and within that the relevance of time-travelling Jack Harkness to tackle the question of forbidden gay attraction in what is post-
Brokeback television. Fans expressed fear that an
Americanized fourth series of the show would mean the show would no longer portray Jack's bisexuality, but Davies assured interviewers that Jack's interests in both men and women would be honoured. ==Critical reception and impact==