At least for me, as a Dr. Who fan.

Personally I was a fan of Sly McCoy... but then, I am a child of the 80's, so I'm biased.

Colin Baker suffered something similar, I believe.

A real shame, 'cause if you hear his Big Finish audio adventures, he really comes into his own as the Doctor.

The Jack Harkness dialogues (partial):

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elysienne Oh, great. *Sigh* We'll have to suffer another round of The Man With No Dramatic Tension then. He's immortal! Immortality is BORING! He'll win whatever he sets out to achieve by sheer stint of standing around the longest!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fedor But the interesting part is how immortality affects him. Jack is an interesting character.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DJ_Shecky Ummm... Correct me if I"m wrong and spoilers for those that have not seen it... Wasn't JAck revealed to be the Face of Boaz (sp)? Which means he eventually does die?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elysienne Indeed. So until then, he's immortal. Any danger he gets into at all will have no suspense involved in it.

Immortality is not nearly the same as infallible.
Death is not required for suspense.
Nor is death required for removal from the stage/events of a story.
And it's not always permanent even when the one who dies isn't an immortal.

Jack can still fail at what he's trying to do, and he can still be removed from 'the game' and his goals denied despite his immortality. After all, he's not omnipotent. Seal him in a container of some sort and fling him into an orbit that skims the event horizon of a black hole. Ten years of personal time later he gets freed and thirty millenia have passed for everybody else, making whatever his goals were, even in the fairly long term, effectively moot. Having a Tardis, or simply being the Doctor, does more for your ability to influence events in both the long and short term than simply not dying. Would anybody argue that the Doctor has had less influence over history than Jack despite his theoretically much shorter lifespan?

This is the problem, though.

The way he's been written, it seems like even being sealed in a coffin and buried under the earth for (I think) four hundred years does almost nothing to his character. (See the end of Torchwood season 2.)

There's a scene or two of angstiness, and then he seems to reset to neutral. I don't mind the CONCEPT of the immortal man, it's the execution that irks me.

Agreed. Such weighty concerns as immortality but not omniscience or omnipotence could probably fill whole seasons of the show, don't know how interesting they'd be but they should be looked at a little more in depth.

As often and as long as Capn Jack has been entombed I'd like to think he has developed a healthy case of claustrophobia and maybe even a general dislike for concrete.

I'd also suspect he would be changing identities left and right as folks apparently now know about his 'condition' and how to neutralize him.

Bugging off Earth for 100 years is probably a good thing, left folks forget and die off. :P

Watching end of time then watching rookys clip this question stuck in my mind:
Why the hell could he absorb a ton of radiation in Smith & Jones, and chuck it in his shoe, and not absorb this radiation? Like he said, they played with it in the nursery

Different kinds of radiation, I believe, Cien. In the Smith and Jones episode they said it was Roentgen radiation, which is basically what is used in x-rays. Not lethal even to normal humans except in massive, massive doses.

Whereas I presume the radiation from The End of Time was more on the level of nuclear reactors and what have you. Very very fatal to humans, and presumably moreso to Time Lords too.

now heres the question did the radiation kill him or was he going to implode anyway like the 10 dr whos before him

To get to the OP: I think what happened to Donna is sadder, but his voice saying those lines was very powerful.

On Jack, I actually like him a lot in Dr. Who and haven't seen any Torchwood. I'm actually glad they don't do more with the psychology of immortality because I really can't see it being anything but really boring angsty cliche. And his character does change over time, at least within the Dr. Who shows. Especially when you consider the Face of Bo's behavior.

On the radiation, it reminds me of a quote one of the writers made about the best part of writing for a time travel show being there is no such thing as a continuity error since you can explain anything away by saying time travel to before that moment changed the events. That said, it is two different kinds of radiation, and that has been relevant before (Midnight, for instance he reacts to the outside). I also theorize that he might not have been thinking clearly and doomed himself by not trying to save himself. Still, great scene there.

See, I still disagree. To my mind, Jack ONLY changes when he's seen as the Face of Bo. They may as well be two completely separate characters.

As to the whole... theory of the immortal mortal thing.. well, you really can't say you're worried about it being angsty when you look at the attempts at nods towards addressing it. The wartime sweetheart in Torchwood that has grown old in the Faerie-themed episode... the (great?)grandchild in the 456 three part special... It's all hugely overblown, removing all subtlety from the pieces. And yet he bounces back seemingly moments later. It's all very well saying that he hides his pain behind a facade, but I just don't get that impression. Barrowman's acting just... isn't nuanced enough for me.

the 11 doctors

I could so go for a Martha Jones type character for Doctor Who the 12th.

Maybe won't happen for the 12th doc but since his regens end at 12, something drastic will have to happen for a 13th and onward. Perhaps they WILL give the Doctor Double X's.

Well... if the Master's original "last" regeneration is anything to go by, the 13th Doctor should be a suppurating skeleton held together by the barest margin. Sexy!

RAWR!

I had to go look up 'suppurating' actually. It's great to learn. :P

My apologies if I spelled it incorrectly, then.

Personally, I'm kinda looking forward to the 12th/13th regeneration moment. Wondering how the writers at the time are going to work out a new cycle of regenerations from the Doctor. I mean, obviously, we know it's possible *Looks at the Master* so it's no stretch to keep the franchise going... I'm just excited to find out how it'll be done.