Swansong

I agree that RTD is using immortality to explore wider themes about humanity, but the miracle isn't the ultimate big bad of the story. It's just the catalyst or the gun used by the ultimate big bad, The Families, to further their agenda to destroy the world and rebuild it more to their liking which is why I presume there is a plan A (use immortality to destroy the world) and when that fails a Plan B. Without the Families guiding and manipulating things along presumably there would be no miracle in the first place. I do agree that the Miracle is a much more interesting big bad than the Families though which is why if I hadn't given up on Torchwood before that a s5 with them still around would have been enough to ensure I wouldn't be watching. I like a lot of the themes Torchwood explores, but they aren't exactly original even in terms of the plots sometimes. The sex alien plot in s1 is pretty similar to one done on The Outer Limits, which was done much better, Adam lifts a lot from the Buffy episode and The COE plot is basically the film Quatermass just with junky aliens harvesting kids for drugs instead of aliens harvesting young people for food. Which is fine. It's fun sometimes to see how different people handle similar themes, plots, character beats. But I feel the same way about COE and MD that I feel about Torchwood as a whole. There are these interesting moments that intrigue me, but the overall whole is generally unsatisfying and feels kind of half-assed. I agree RTD can be very shoddy in terms of his sci-fi stories with the details, with continuity, but that seems especially true on Torchwood and I'm just not sure why that is. I mean RTD has always been a broad strokes, sledge-hammer approach kind of writer and he can often get more invested in the visual/ narrative set piece that looks or sounds good, but doesn't ultimately add much to the story and that's why I've never been a huge fan of his, but Torchwood even under his hand has always struck me as so much worst for that kind of shoddiness. I was far more intrigued by the plot possibilities that the whole immortality story line suggested than the one for COE, but MD was far more unwatchable than COE was and not just because it's longer. I thought S3 was good end for Torchwood. I mean I would have preferred something more than Jack leaving in disgrace, everyone else dying needlessly and Gwen surviving to return to her ordinary life, but it did fit with what we got of the characters and Torchwood for better or worst up to that point and Jack's 'just watch me' before he leaves is kind of poignant. But MD kind of reinforced the idea that they've never really known what to do with the Torchwood aspect of Torchwood, the organisation, the characters within it etc. and that the stories they apparently want to tell they can do far more effectively without it which is a bit of an unfortunate impression to give of a show's premise.

Both COE and MD suck at situating these threats on a worldwide level, but I agree that COE perhaps sucks a little less at it because its shorter and the production is much more stream-lined. Having said that I think making the threat global in COE made the situation far less believable than it needed to be. And since they were never really going to attempt to show a global response because of the limits of the production it seemed a bit of a redundant gimmick in the end. I don't think having the threat focused solely as a UK threat would have made the story any less dramatic since that's where all the action happens anyway. It was never going to be particularly believable that every government would respond in the exact same way even if they wanted to because not all countries are remotely equal and that's a pretty significant fact about our world. Or that, for instance, the US would take orders from the UK or whatever they were trying to sell. And since they have the aliens supposedly studying and regurgitating actual real world facts that makes that harder for me to ignore. But even taking any attempt at realism out of it and presuming that Doctor Who has its own set of world rules it still didn't make sense because the whoverse, particularly under RTD's reign, is a world that deals with worldwide alien threats on a regular basis and yet COE seems to be happening in a world where that isn't really true. They kind of pay lip service to UNIT's existence, but we're basically left to believe that for the five days this is going on, while the government is busy inexplicably trying to kill off not only all Torchwood's personnel, but all its resources too, UNIT are apparently passively twiddling their thumbs. Not to mention you have to also ignore other potential resources like Sarah Jane and her trusty computer, Martha and her access to the Doctor (well with her you have to pretend she's honeymooning on some island with no children or media access and so misses the whole five days) even though Torchwood are stripped of their own resources and know these people thanks to their own apperances on Doctor Who. (I'm also amused at the suggestion that despite working at Torchwood all that time and being a leader for almost a decade the only useful contact at UNIT the supposedly charming, charismatic Jack has been able to cultivate in all that time is Martha, a woman he only recently met). And then after all that it apparently takes two minutes to solve the problem and for the world to go back to normal. And then in MD they don't even have the world particularly remember this, or any other alien threat for that matter, happened. Why is Esther, a person whose job requires her to be observant, still ignorant about the idea of aliens? I mean it was bad enough when they did this with Gwen, but by s4 they really needed to playing a new song. RTD seems to have a pretty one-track mind when it comes to world issues. Governments are evil and all officials become Nazis and everyone else, except our trusty heroes (and the occasional hero-adjacent person) are passive and never really curious about what's going on. And when it's all over, no matter how significant the threat, everyone just magically forgets it ever happened. This is particularly absurd in MD where literally everyone on some level is bound to be affected by the 'miracle' and the world destruction it supposedly wreaks. Gwen, supposedly one of the world's most wanted, can travel back and forth between the UK and US by plane as she wants despite the world going to hell. And even when she commits what would be considered a very public act of terrorism the only blowback for her and her family is the ridiculous kidnapping by some random people that doesn't even have much of a point in the end. And then, despite the destruction to governments and societies in the end everything just magically goes back to more or less normal. I mean why even make these threats global if the consequences are just going to be so negligible in the end? I think the idea of the miracle as a gift that just happens one day inexplicably and happens to have these horrible side-effects despite trying to do something good for the world would have been a lot more interesting as a plot than what we got. But that's not what happens. The 'families', who apparently already control the world, pour Jack's blood into some magic making hole deliberately so they can make the whole world immortal, so they can destroy the world so that they can create some sort of fascist society in its wake and control the world. Or whatever. And they can apparently turn it on and off as they choose. It is pretty much Torchwood style absurdly over the top, unnecessarily convoluted villainy at its not so finest. The miracle is a means to an end not the end itself more's the pity.

I thought it was ok. Not terrible, but not particularly great either. I think it relies too often on characters behaving in unnecessarily moronic ways just to move the plot from a to b that it makes it hard for me to take much of it seriously. The aliens don't really make a lick of sense which I could probably overlook if I liked the other stuff better. And as shocking as it seems I watched Torchwood for Torchwood and yet despite being alien experts, despite this being an alien invasion it felt like the script has trouble figuring out how to incorporate them into their own show. The stuff with Jack and Ianto just felt very paint by numbers and going through the motions. Mostly it just felt like it was there because the show is called Torchwood and they had to pay lip service to that. I would have preferred more of the family stuff and less of the political stuff which l agree was mostly two dimensional. They seemed to be going for a banality of evil theme, but the characters seemed to be evil just to be evil because they're politicians and that's supposedly enough of a reason as far as the writing is concerned.I think the issues that plague the first two seasons are pretty much in full force in this season and yet it always oddly seems to get a pass.

Doesn't The Doctor Dances establish Jack as human, albeit a future human? The Doctor aligns Jack with Rose in terms of species. His evolution does seem to be treated as more social and technological rather than genetic. At least until he's made immortal. I mean the Doctor looks human, but is clearly established as not, but I can't think of anything physically or even genetically that attempts to set Jack apart from Rose or Mickey. I tend to go with human just because I think if RTD wanted us to think of Jack as alien or a human/alien hybrid he wouldn't be subtle about it. They do explicitly establish that humans exist far into the future and the times they become something else they're pretty explicit about that too.

Well I think the show makes it more complicated than it needs to be. Especially when it can't seem to make up it's mind about whether people aren't supposed to know about Torchwood at all, not just what they do. I mean presumably Gwen can't even tell Rhys she works for Torchwood. But in Day One when they text her to come into work they text Torchwood. I suppose it's just lucky Rhys isn't the type of person to sometimes answer someone else's phone. So does Rhys think she still works for the police force until Meat? They also give the impression that Gwen is the first time Torchwood has ever had to deal with an agent either coming in with a spouse or partner or marrying someone while on the job. Certainly Jack acts like it is and he's been around almost as long as Torchwood has. I mean the challenge of having to juggle job and personal life doesn't become less of a challenge or less of a personal experience just because other people might have gone through or are going through the same thing, but apparently the show thinks so.

I fault Jack for acting like being with Rhys is what gives her Gwen-ness and insisting that Gwen-ness is important for both him and Torchwood, but then expecting that relationship to stay healthy when she basically has to lie to Rhys and put both the demands of Torchwood and Jack ahead of it. He's the one who makes it a big issue from the get-go, even before he knows much about Gwen let alone her relationship with Rhys. Gwen doesn't retcon Rhys because of anything to do Torchwood. She does it because she wants to get absolution without suffering any real consequences for a personal transgression. I agree that's all on her. Meat seems to forget or doesn't really want to acknowledge that while Rhys is worried she's sleeping with Jack, everyone else knows she did in fact sleep with Owen and we know she already retconned Rhys to hide that fact. So I also agree that not acknowledging in anyway that she was more than happy to retcon Rhys for even less compelling reasons than Jack has kills any righteous nobility they seem to be going for with her. At least it does for me. Especially when she doesn't even seem to respect him enough not to be eyeing up some other bloke while she's supposedly snogging him. She just ends up coming off like the worst kind of hypocrite.

I fault Jack because he's the one who makes such a big deal about it. Even more than Gwen.

It's not really dropped. It's pretty much the reason Rhys continues to exist on the show. Granted it stops making sense once Rhys becomes involved in Torchwood business, but the show still holds it as a truth. And her 'you don't understand what it's like to be me' speeches wouldn't exactly be all that effective if the team did supposedly understand what it's like to have people in your life you can't share this aspect of their life with. Like family and close friends.

Once again like the idea more than execution. I can't decide if it's the writers that got carried away or the props people, but I'm amazed the police had so much trouble solving this crime. The villagers are literally leaving bodies abandoned around their houses. lol. These people clearly don't watch horror films since the first rule of horror films is split up so the murderer or monster can pick you all off one by one. Which they accommodatingly do. Also, Jack stop fondling the staff and send them to a self-defence class or something. Both Gwen and Owen have weapons against one armed man, but they're the ones who give up their weapons? Even if Gwen is supposed to be inexperienced Owen is supposed to be a trained agent. I've been complaining that I wish they'd use the fact that Gwen is a police officer better, but after this episode I think I'll stop because clearly that's what they're trying to do that in this episode and the results are kind of bad. From her whinging to Jack about how she should be home with Rhys to her I need to know moment. I get that the situation is freaky, but it's a bit moronic for someone who planned to be part of the police force to be acting like, but for Torchwood she wouldn't be stumbling onto dead bodies. Aliens aren't the only things that commit murder. When people commit murder it's normally police not Torchwood who would investigate. If anything she should be lamenting she thought Torchwood would get her away from having to deal with the worst of humanity and yet here they are. Other than her scene with Owen when he's fixing her up her character moments are kind of crap and more unintentionally funny than effective. I think Tosh bragging about no cell being able to keep her would be more effective if they hadn't then shown her not actually being able to escape. Maybe they were setting up something for her and forgot about it after this episode.

Random Shoes? She insists they investigate Eugene's death because it's sort of connected to Torchwood, which I guess it is, vaguely, thanks to the eye in his stomach. Mostly because Owen's kind of a crap doctor in this episode. But I suppose if he'd been professional it would have been a very short episode. There are probably others, but I can't really remember. Good thing we're doing this rewatch. The problem for me is she never seems to re-evaluate how she responds to a situation no matter how often it all goes wrong or people are hurt by it. It's as if things have to end badly before she decides maybe I don't have a clue after all. But then the next time it's back to the same old same old. I think the show as a rule seems to work on the premise that good intentions automatically mitigate the bad results and I'm not sure I always agree. Not when the consequences so often are people getting killed. It starts to become a bit off-putting. I've always found it a bit weird that one of the big conceits of the series is that Gwen is needed at Torchwood because she reminds the team that the victims matter and yet the show itself never seems to act like the people who end up becoming collateral damage often thanks to Torchwood do really matter.

The plot obviously relies on them using the glove, but I've noticed on this re-watch beyond showing that she's 'curious' being a police officer rarely seems to inform her character much. It just seems to be mostly a hook which is kind of a pity. Somebody had a scan of an interview they did just before Torchwood started and they had a segment where they talked about the teams roles and skills and with everyone else it was doctor, receptionist, tech, but when it came to Gwen they had for skills 'the heart'.lol It's interesting how quickly she goes from you must care about the victims to apparently not caring about bringing them back to relive the worst moment of their lives because the tech will make solving the crime easier for her. I'd say it's an interesting character moment, but since the episode thinks its highlighting how empathetic she is that's obviously not intentional. Speaking of the lockdown and an over-reliance on tech. Torchwood are really bad at contingency planning. In Cyberwoman all their weapons are essentially locked down when they're trapped in the base with Lisa and it's just luck Jack happens to have that gadget Tosh uses to get out. And again here they're basically rendered useless because the base goes into lock down. Shouldn't they have some sort of plan for when that happens so they're not completely vulnerable? lol

To spoiler something just click on the spoiler icon ( circle with the slash through it) and just type in the box that comes up. This is another one of those situations where we're supposed to think there's nothing else to do, but this one thing i.e use the glove. But what about forensics, cctv, talking to neighbours, investigating the victim and all known associates? You know all the stuff actual police officers might do. They don't even attempt to do any of that before resorting to the glove. Mostly because they're damn lazy. Even after they don't get much from the victims it's still not a consideration. It does kind of make having a police officer on your team a bit redundant. It's pretty much as you say if they can't rely on their tech they tend to be pretty stumped. I love that scene with Swanson too.

I think the point was to show that the fairies were so other wordly that no equipment created in our world, no matter how sophisticated, could detect them. I found it amusing because this speech came right after they've been looking at the photographs from Estelle precisely because they showed the fairies. So obviously cameras and film, at least, can pick them up. It did make me wonder if they can show up on film then why can't they potentially be detected by other instruments, but I'm not exactly an expert on these matters so I probably shouldn't think too hard about it. lol. I assume the point was to make them so unstoppable that Jack has only one course of action. That seems to be a bit of a favourite trope on Torchwood. Backing Jack into a corner so singularly his only course of action is to do the one most horrible thing going. And quite a few of them gave me unintentional laughs.

I think that was more of a they are so terrifying we can't fight them with anything so give them that kid stat moment. But yes about their over reliance on tech.

Yeah I read a bit of the episode transcript and she does say it's the first time she's managed to photograph them so I guess that's supposed to be the trigger? It was just that the episode suggested that she'd been going to the woods to try and capture them on film for a while and her supposed arguments with Jack about whether fairies are good or not gave the impression this was a long time hobby. I don't know if the lectures were a new thing, but I assumed she planned the lecture before she got the photos since she only took them a couple of nights earlier. So if none of that had been enough to mark her for death before it seemed a bit arbitrary that they suddenly decided to kill her then. I know Jack suggests they can be kind of capricious, but the episode only ever really shows them killing after very specific actions/threats by the victim. But anyway. The transcript did remind me of another thing that Jack says that made me chuckle when he tells the team nothing can pick them up. But cameras can pick them up because Estelle has photos and Jasmine shows up at the end of the episode in one of them. Lol! Yeah pretty much this. Which kind of all adds to the whole pointlessness of her being there. She shows no real interest in whatever is going on, they don't exactly have her act all that professional about it, almost all her questions to Estelle are nosing into Jack's personal life so they can set up the faux mystery about Jack. And then on top of it they have Jack needlessly behaving the way he does. The audience already knows Jack can't die so there's no real tension for them with this story line. And if you're assuming your audience is adult and not say, five, I don't think Gwen is needed around to figure out the Jack in the photos is show Jack and not really his dad if they also want us to believe that Jack is this desperate to keep his past this private he'll lie needlessly to Gwen about some guy in a photo that is clearly him. We can learn this aspect of Jack's history just as effectively through Jack and Estelle interacting.

So finally got around to watching the episode. It's decent enough. I really like Estelle. I like the scene at the beginning between Jack and Ianto. I agree it's a nice understated scene that shows the beginning of them re-building their relationship. Pity the rest of it pretty much happens off-screen. The dialogue makes no sense if we're supposed to believe Jack lives at the Hub since Ianto looks after Jack, though, (and no I don't just mean sexually *wink* *wink*) because even if Jack isn't expecting Ianto, Ianto shouldn't be surprised to see Jack. So is there any other canon besides what we get in this episode that suggests that Jack might live at the Hub? I can't really remember. The fairies are scary until they open their mouths. So they probably should have kept them the creepy silent type. Structurally I get why they have Gwen go with Jack at the beginning to see Estelle because she's the "audience surrogate" and the main character and so must be involved in everything, but it ends up feeling she's there just to be there . Especially since they seem determined to have this faux mystery around Jack and his longevity which eradicates the most obvious reason why Jack might take her along. You know because she's the one team member he doesn't have to hide the fact that he's been around a while with and so he won't have to come up with awkward excuses when she stumbles on photos of him clearly taken decades ago in the house of an old girlfriend. Except then he totally does feel the need to come up with awkward excuses when she stumbles across photos of a guy who looks exactly like him in some old ladies home that were clearly taken 50 + years ago. Because I'm Jack and I'm just oh so mysterious like that. Lol! If he feels the need to keep this secret of how long he's been around this badly, even with someone who already knows his secret, wouldn't it have just been easier to go alone especially since the visit seems more personal than professional and Gwen serves no purpose being there except to connect some pretty obvious dots the audience can pretty much manage on their own. I never really paid much attention before, but when Jack is explaining the fairies to Gwen he says something like people know nothing about fairies so they like to pretend they're happy and cute even though they're really dangerous and evil which made me chuckle since I'm pretty sure most people see fairies as happy and cute because they don't actually believe they're real not because they feel the need to fill in the blanks to make them less evil. lol JACK: (describing what fairies are to Gwen): Old moments and memories that are frozen in amongst it. Like debris spinning around a ringed planet - tossing, turning, whirling. Then backwards and forwards through time. I guess just saying they're creepy and really old and dangerous doesn't really cut it. I agree about Owen disappearing pretty randomly in the middle. They're called to the scene of a mysteriously dead body and so decide to leave their resident medic behind? Why? Did he have a doctor's appointment? Was he in the loo when they were getting ready to leave? Killing Estelle kind of bugs me. It feels like it's only really purpose is to give Jack some angst. Especially since all the other deaths seem pretty specifically motivated which ends up making hers feel pretty random. The fairies trashing Gwen's flat also feels pretty random since it doesn't seem motivated by anything other than it must be all about Gwen somehow. Or apparently the fairies are also in the know that Gwen is the only one with a real life outside TW. But at least it gives her an excuse for one of her it's all TW's fault moments because we can never have too many of those apparently. lol. No real explanation for why the fairies don't kill Jack on the train. I assumed initially it's because they know he can't die, but then they try to kill him at the end so clearly that's not an issue. The entire team being mad at Jack and blanking him for letting Jasmine go with the fairies is such an eye-roll moment. Gwen I can understand because she's Gwen and at least has the excuse of being new to it all, but you'd think Tosh and Owen would have a less black and white understanding of things even if they're upset about the situation.

In Day One she seems surprised by Gwen having a boyfriend even though Gwen's only just started working for Tochwood. I always thought that was a pretty amusing moment. It's probably just poor writing, but if I go by that it does suggest a limited view of the world outside of Torchwood. They're job doesn't allow for much of a social life, so no job could allow for much of a social life? The scene in Sleeper also makes me laugh because Jack isn't actually flirting. He's shooing some pc out of the room, but she reads it as flirting. But I'm pretty sure she knows what flirting actually is so I have no idea what's going on there. I think the scene in KKBB is just supposed to show just how attractive people find John Hart, but I suppose it could be read as inappropriate flirting. They do suggest she didn't have much of a social life and her defining memory is a flat warming no-one comes to, but I don't think she's supposed to be all that sexually innocent though. I just think she's not supposed to have a lot of social skills.

I doubt they planned Jack and Ianto regardless of whether they were supposed to have been having sex all along or not. They didn't even plan on keeping Ianto around initially. And honestly I think the writing bears that out. Ianto is barely developed, they barely interact on screen even as colleagues. Jack randomly kisses an unconscious Ianto in Cyberwoman, but then they barely interact in the episodes after they supposedly have sex. Then Ianto goes from offering to stopwatch with Jack to sniffing his coat emotionally with almost none of the build up in between. I'd say they were pretty much winging it and not even all that well. And they were clearly surprised by that relationship taking off over Gwen and Jack. I don't think it's prudish to think Ianto and Jack didn't have sex before TKKS. TKKS is pretty much the first time the show actually suggests they are having sex and that stopwatch scene while fun doesn't exactly play out like these are two people who are in the middle of an affair. So if they were involved before all along it's never made clear when that ends or when it starts back up again. Or whether we're supposed to think it's always on-going? Was it a one off thing? Are they routinely having sex? It only happened a few times? I mean it's all very well them saying after the fact off-screen 'oh they were having sex all along', but if it doesn't actually happen on-screen it's as good as it not happening. You'd think RTD would get that considering how heavy-handedly he chose to be when it came to Gwen.

It's a possibility that Jack understands or believes that Ianto is emotionally stronger to handle a relationship with him than Gwen. I think the problem is, especially in s3, we're given the impression that Jack doesn't really share himself with Ianto, at least not willingly, and that ultimately Ianto knows very little about Jack, even really where he stands with him, even on his proverbial death bed. I don't think it's so much about Jack pushing him towards a normal life the way he does Gwen, especially since if the show thinks Gwen defines 'normal' that suggests they're working on a very narrow definition of 'normal', I think it's more about how much Ianto's needs, whatever they may be, factor into Jack's consideration of the relationship. I guess my point is that if Jack gets someone who is there for him no matter what, someone he can lean on when he needs it what, in return, does Ianto get from him? I think the issue I have, and this is likely a product of the fact that they are the main characters, is that for both Jack and Gwen their relationships with their respective partners (Ianto and Rhys) are framed almost exclusively in terms of their needs and wants and sometimes it's hard to tell what their partners get out of it beyond the fact that the show wants us to believe that Jack and Gwen are so attractive and so sexy and just so awesome that Ianto and Rhys should feel, I don't, lucky? that they're even in the running regardless of how they're treated. Having said that I do think, as far as we're allowed to know these characters, Ianto is probably better fitted to be in a relationship with Jack just because he comes off as less judgmental and much more flexible and doesn't seem to require to know everything. I think the fact that Jack feels the need to keep secrets is less of an issue for Ianto. Or at least the Ianto we meet in s1 and s2. Not sure about the one we meet in s3. On the other hand I can also see why those very qualities might make him utterly unsuited to be in a relationship with Jack in that him not pushing might be a sign he lacks a certain amount of confidence about his place in the relationship and he feels that if he pushes too much or demands anything Jack will simply walk away and he's willing to settle for crumbs rather than risk losing Jack. I

I don't think you have to be a romantic to stand on the side of the argument that they didn't have sex pre TKKS.

Even learning a bit more about Jack wasn't enough for me to put up with Grey. What a horrible character and then he unforgivably killed Tosh.

I like Gwen a lot in this too. I like that her compassion informs her job and isn't there to prove how much more human than the rest of the team she is (whoever thought that was a good idea?). It's a pity they didn't do more with this story line. I think I would have preferred this as a season ender than dull, wooden Grey.

The Captain's Blog was written by James Moran back in s2 I believe. I'm sure they got approval from RTD, but I'm not sure how much they bothered about whether it gelled with what happened on the show. I mean it's not as if they bother with that on the show. If RTD writes Torchwood mainly with the casual viewer in mind who isn't likely to read or even know about the web content and books etc. then I can't really imagine how he expects them to respond to a story line that barely develops onscreen and the bits that are shown are often contradictory except with indifference. They aren't likely to be the type to pour over minute details and come up with theories to explain the huge gaps. I thought it was weird that ultimately the relationship didn't give us much insight into the characters involved. I mean I can guess reasons why Jack might have behaved in certain ways, but there's no real sense of what motivates him onscreen. I will say like the idea that it started casual and developed into something more serious almost without them meaning too. Part of the appeal of this relationship for me was that it wasn't love at first sight, it wasn't fated in the stars. It was just two people who happened to be attracted to one another and decided to give it a go. Those kinds of relationships don't get a lot of respect in fiction. I don't think it got all that much respect on this show. I also like the idea that when it came to the job their professional duties took priority over the personal. I just think it's a pity we only ever got to see them on the job. We didn't even get to see them hanging out at the pub the way we got to see with the rest of the team.

I agree they did a better job on Doctor Who of showing that aspect of Jack. In terms of Mousey's question we see him flirting equally with men women and aliens. I think there's also a story about him sleeping with his executioners, which is pretty much the only sexy story I remember him telling on Doctor Who and he talks about a couple, but doesn't specify their gender. There may be other stories, but I don't follow Doctor Who that closely. That definitely shows on screen. CC was the showrunner and RTD oversaw enough to read the episodes and make the changes that suited him so I have to assume they were, at least in part, fine with it being this vague mess. The only time that changes, and I can't even say for the better, is when they decide to kill off Ianto to cause Jack pain. I think his one off relationships suggest that Jack tends to fall very quickly and very easily. He falls in love immediately for Estelle, he falls immediately for Captain Jack, he falls immediately for Angelo and shacks up with him right away and he apparently never gets over Estelle or Angelo despite his behaviour (can't speak for RCJ because he's never mentioned again, but I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted us to believe he never really got over him either), but outside of that I think it's hard to judge how Jack would be in a relationship with women v. men because the only real examples we have on Torchwood are Gwen and Ianto and both those relationships are clearly determined by the hierarchy of their respected roles on the show. And the only time Ianto is shown as significant to Jack is conveniently after he's killed off and the relationship is no longer going anywhere. Not to mention we see Jack and Gwen's friendship/whatever play out onscreen, but Jack and Ianto's relationship whatever it was developed almost exclusively off screen. Even now it's hard to say what it was or want beyond speculation. I suspect if they did have him a long term relationship with a woman not Gwen they wouldn't portray it in the same way they did his relationship with Ianto just because a guy treating a woman that way would probably be less appealing for the audience (see Rex and Esther and Owen and Tosh before the middle of s2). That may also be part of the reason we see Jack almost exclusively with women. It's amusing to see that continuity on the extra stuff is almost as bad as that on the show. That letter describing the incident with the fairies and the soldiers is dated a year before the incident supposedly happened on the show. lol. I think that's supposed to be a letter sent to Real Jack's mother not our Jack.

In his Doctor Who episodes it does tend to be a case of Jack being Jack.