Television Owen is introduced in the
first episode of
Torchwood in 2006, as the sarcastic and womanising medical officer for Torchwood Three; the first episode sees him recreationally use alien technology to get a woman and her boyfriend to sleep with him. Owen's first centric episode comes in "
Ghost Machine", when an alien device makes him experience the rape and murder of a girl in 1963, which drives him to seek revenge for her. The next episode sees him kiss teammate
Gwen (
Eve Myles) in the midst of a
Cyberman attack on the Hub, and as the series continues they continue a destructive affair which Gwen conceals from boyfriend
Rhys Williams (
Kai Owen). Owen remains oblivious to the devotion of teammate
Toshiko (
Naoko Mori), but experiences real love with a time-lost 1953 pilot
Diane (
Louise Delamere) and is distraught when she disappears in an attempt to return to her time, and despondent over this, Owen ends the affair with Gwen. Owen investigates a men's 'fight club' which uses alien
Weevils, and Owen attempts to allow one to almost devour him; in the episode's
dénouement, however, Torchwood's captive Weevil mysteriously cowers in fear from Owen. When
Captain Jack (
John Barrowman) and Toshiko are lost to the past, Owen as second-in-command takes control and fights with
Ianto (
Gareth David-Lloyd) over whether to open the
Rift and 'rescue them'; Owen truly intends to rescue Diane, and is successful in opening the Rift and saving his teammates, but with consequences, for which Jack fires him. In the
series finale, the opened Rift causes global chaos. An apparition of Diane sent by
Bilis Manger (
Murray Melvin) convinces Owen to lead a
mutiny against Jack to open the Rift yet again; Owen goes so far as to shoot Jack twice in the head. Having unwittingly released the demon
Abaddon, who is eventually defeated by a resurrected Jack, Owen is shocked to discover that Jack offers him his forgiveness. The second series begins with Gwen now acting as the team's leader following Jack's mysterious disappearance, and the team now work more closely on field missions in an effort to compensate for this shortfall. Toshiko finds the courage to ask Owen on a date, and he does eventually accept. Shortly afterwards however, on a mission assisted by
Dr Martha Jones (
Freema Agyeman) of
UNIT, Owen is shot dead by
Dr Aaron Copley (
Alan Dale). Not willing to let Owen die, Jack tracks down and uses the mysterious resurrection gauntlet to restore Owen to life: however, this glove works differently from the one from previous episodes, and Owen is left in a permanent state of
living death. Owen is left to despair at his inability to eat, to drink, to enjoy sex and feel the beat of his own heart or heal from wounds, with the final point becoming a logistical concern after he breaks a finger on one of his hands, rendering that hand permanently limited as the bones will never mend. Despite being dead, he is forced to exercise regularly to avoid the onset of
rigor mortis. His despair at his undead state causes Owen to become severely depressed and even attempt suicide, via drowning, only to find that he has no breath so it doesn't work. Mysteriously, Weevils also begin to follow Owen as if in worship. Owen is discharged again from Torchwood, but returns to his position after proving his sustained value as a field agent, with certain stealth advantages due to not feeling pain or having a heat signature. In subsequent episodes, two alien species ignore Owen's presence as being dead makes him of no use to them. The flashback-centric episode "
Fragments" sheds light on how Owen came to join Torchwood: Owen's fiancée Katie (
Andrea Lowe) developed a parasitic alien tumor, which brought him to encounter Jack when she died; Jack notes Owen's determination and medical brilliance, and so hires him. In addition to the standard
BMBS degree of British physicians, Owen holds a dissertation-based
MD. Despite his existential angst in facing life after death, the second series finale sees Owen die a second time, when he is caught in a
nuclear meltdown caused by Jack's brother
Gray (Lachlan Nieboer). This occurs at the same time as Toshiko is dying from a
gunshot wound, and she and Owen spend their last minutes lamenting that they never formed a relationship. Though Owen does not appear again, in the 2008
Doctor Who/
Torchwood crossover "
The Stolen Earth", Gwen vows to keep fighting in the face of a
Dalek, for Tosh and Owen's memory, and in the miniseries
Children of Earth (2009) it is shown that Gwen keeps a photograph of Tosh and Owen on her desk. In 2011 episode "
The New World", from
Torchwood: Miracle Day, Jack uses the alias of "Owen Harper,
FBI" in an American hospital.
Literature Owen appears in the first six of the
Torchwood novels, published by
BBC Books. The first wave,
Another Life by Peter Anghelides,
Border Princes by
Dan Abnett, and
Slow Decay by
Andy Lane, were published in January 2007. Published in March 2008, and tying in with the concurrently airing second series of
Torchwood, Owen appears in the novels
Trace Memory by
David Llewellyn,
The Twilight Streets by
Gary Russell, and
Something in the Water by
Trevor Baxendale. The novel
Another Life reveals that Owen once had a relationship with a fellow medical student, Megan Tegg, in London. When he split up with her in 2001, he moved to Cardiff to continue his medical course. In the novel
Trace Memory, Owen is seen on the verge of completing his medical course in Cardiff in 2003. These appearances are consistent with his history shown in "Fragments". As with all
Doctor Who and
Torchwood spin-off media, the
canonicity in relation to the television series is unclear. Owen also appears in the first two
Torchwood audio books,
Hidden by
Steven Savile, narrated by
Naoko Mori (who plays Toshiko). and
Everyone Says Hello by
Dan Abnett, narrated by Burn Gorman.
Audio drama Gorman has reprised the role of Owen for various Torchwood audio dramas with
Big Finish Productions, beginning with 2017's
Corpse Day. ==Concept and creation==