Doctor Who Blog

The Companion Departures - #22 - Captain Jack Harkness

Another RTD-era companion departure that is tough to rank in the grand scheme of things, because the majority of his appearances in Doctor Who (and for that matter, Torchwood) occurs after his regular run as a companion, which is atypical for both the new and classic series. It is also tricky because Jack doesn’t choose to leave the TARDIS as a companion - he’s killed and brought back to life and initially appears that the Doctor takes off without him seemingly not necessarily knowing that Jack had been resurrected. Later, in Utopia, it is suggested that the Doctor did in fact know that he was abandoning Captain Jack. Finally in The Last of the Time Lords, Jack chooses to not to re-join the TARDIS crew, which is as close as it gets to him deciding to leave. But this occurs two years after he actually does leave and ceases to be a regular companion. And just a few seconds before the unfortunate and annoying suggestion that he turns out to be the Face of Boe.

In the end, Jack’s actual departure in The Parting of the Ways is one that I consider another in the category of “not especially enjoyable but not particularly disappointing”, mainly because it really occurs at the start of Jack’s long tenure as a character in Doctor Who and its spin-offs and there is so much more character development and incident which occurs long after he leaves the TARDIS. So into the middle of the pack it goes.

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