We still haven’t had the slightest clue, 8 episodes in, how Captain Jack ended up in Cardiff in, what must it be, 2007/8? What is clear is that the charming, reckless conman of The Empty Child is no longer with us. I’m hoping that…
What we know:
Jack was a Time Agent in (his presumably native) 51st Century, until he discovered two years of his life had been erased. He scarpered, turning on his former employers by trying to con them with pieces of worthless detritus he’d planted in time; this was how he met the Doctor on 1940s Earth. The Doctor left him in the 2001st century after he was brought back from the dead by Rose “Bad Wolf” Tyler, in the event which may have made him immortal. He ended up in 2007(ish) working wearing an unfeasibly large bluetooth headset.
Several things still have to fit. For a start, how Jack is in a position of responsibility? No just at all, but particularly since had he been in that job when the Doctor arrived at Torchwood One he’d have been able to contact him. So has he just walked into the position (assuming Torchwood is set soon after those events), or is there some reason he didn’t go to Canary Wharf to see the Doctor? Also, Jack WWII romance could hardly have happened in the time he was in London trying to flog a Tula Warship to the Time Agents, so has he been there twice? And when did he go to 1909 Lahore? Has he been on Earth for the last 100 years, or was that when he was travelling?
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