Torchwood (team)


 * For the television show, see Torchwood. For the original organization, see Torchwood Institute.

The Torchwood team is a group of surviving members of Torchwood Three and their affiliates that continued to operate after the destruction of the Torchwood Institute in 2009.

Torchwood ceased to exist between 2010 and 2011, before reasserting itself in the wake of Miracle Day with surviving members of Torchwood Three rejoining. (TW: Children of Earth: Day Five, Dead of Night) That year, Torchwood became defunct as Gwen was deported to the United Kingdom while Jack recovered from a bullet wound, but reformed two months later in the search for the Blessing. (TW: End of the Road, The Gathering)

History
After the defeat of The 456, the Torchwood Institute was left with only two active operatives: Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper, the latter pregnant. Torchwood's activities immediately following the incident are unknown, but six months later Harkness, having spent an unknown amount of time travelling the world on his own, made the decision to leave Earth, leaving Cooper -- now heavily pregnant -- as the last known Torchwood operative. It was at this point that the Institute disbanded (TW: The New World)

Jack returned to Earth when the word "Torchwood" was emailed across the world, coinciding with the start of the Miracle Day phenomenon. He used malware to expunge evidence of Torchwood from the Internet, and went to the CIA hard copy records to clear the last of the information. In Wales, Rex Matheson of the CIA extradited Jack and Gwen to the United States. (TW: The New World) It turned out that the CIA had decided to hunt down everyone with knowledge of Torchwood, including Rex and his colleague Esther Drummond, (TW: Rendition) Rex and Esther had no choice but to become members of the new Torchwood team. They were initially based in Washington, D.C., (TW: Dead of Night) then moved west to Venice Beach in Los Angeles. (TW: Escape to LA)

When the CIA discovered a null field generator that allowed Angelo Colasanto to die (the only death recorded during the Miracle), Gwen was deported to the United Kingdom by Allen Shapiro after Jack initially refused to tell Shapiro what it was. Jack and Esther went on the run as they escaped with the generator, which Jack considered too dangerous for humanity to use, and Rex rejoined the CIA. (TW: End of the Road) In Swansea, two months later, Oswald Danes demanded to see Jack after Danes had new leads on the Miracle. The Torchwood team reformed and were led to Buenos Aires and Shanghai, where the Blessing lay. (TW: The Gathering)