Theory:Torchwood television discontinuity and plot holes/Immortal Sins


 * How does Jack know that he is a fixed point in space and time. In Jack's personal timeline, Utopia was still a long way away, and he didn't find out until that episode.
 * Do we actually know for sure that the flashbacks take place for Jack between Parting of the Ways and Everything Changes? It seems like he thinks his vortex manipulator is functional, he's well over 700 years old, he's wearing his WWII jacket, etc.—maybe none of these are discontinuities, and they all imply that this is Jack post-Children of Earth?
 * On futher thought, this could also be Jack from the middle of seasons 2-4, or Jack from an alternate timeline (or just Jack from later in the 20th century, which explains all of the other questions, but not this one…).
 * It looks like writer error for a good speech.
 * Jack's time line from from the flashback in "Fragments" through to the end of Children of Earth is fairly tight. Yes, there are 2 of him from ~1880 to 2008, 3 of him for a a couple of stretches in the 1940s, the 2nd Jack, the post "Utopia" on, is in cryo at the time of this flashback. It is possible that he was pulled out for a "special assignment", but that would be a guess.
 * As for a post-CoE Jack... why would he be working for Torchwood in the past?
 * As mentioned on the talk page for Jack's article, there are a variety of different places in Jack's timeline for this to fit in—but all of them have problems. However, since the most obvious one (pre-EC) has the most problems, and they're all problems that can't easily by a surprise revelation later this season, I don't know we can assume it's the one RTD intended.
 * The Jack in this episode has knowledge of how the Brainspawn parasite is used in an alternate timeline (one where the US loses WW2) and happens to have a small bottle of liquid that will dissolve the contents of the large box with the parasite... This suggests to me that he had specific knowledge of this event, and was possibly sent here (in time) to fix it - was there a time when he was time-hopping to fix Trickster's Brigade plots? If he wasn't time-hopping, why did he wait so long to visit Angelo Colasanto again (a year later).
 * Angelo was in prison in the interim, which is the most obvious explanation for why Jack didn't visit him before that. As referenced above, we can't say with certainty when this happened in Jack's timeline. It is also possible of course that Jack really was indeed time-hopping, and there was much more than a year (in Jack's timeline) between the first meeting with Angelo, and when Angelo gets out of prison. Since it's during the post-prison scenes that Jack mentions being a fixed point in time, it's hypothetically possible that "Utopia" actually occurred somewhere between when he left Angelo and when he came back. However, that's just one of the several possibilities, and doesn't fully explain the 'mystery' of the WWII coat.
 * That's a good point, as is the one you were responding to. (It's also possible that Jack immediately hopped a year into the future, so it was only a few minutes for him…)
 * Anyway, I think Talk:Jack_Harkness lists all of the possibilities (except for the "one part of timeline before Angelo went to prison, a later part afterward) and all of the serious problems with each one, and anything anyone has to add should probably go there rather than here, so it can be used to improve the article.
 * That is just a way of describing his condition; he can't be erased, and he defies time by never letting it kill him. That's not the mystery Jack didn't know before talking to the Doctor; he could have told you that himself, especially having as much knowledge as he does about time travel and such. What Jack didn't know was HOW he came to be this way. That's what he asks the Doctor in Utopia - not to elaborate on what he is, but to explain what happened to make him that way. That's the only question he asks regarding that in Utopia; he is not phased by the Doctor's calling him a fixed point. So I guess the only real mystery is how he happened to use the same exact words, as if he was quoting the Doctor, but that can just be chalked up to coincidence, or perhaps it is a common expression in temporal talk.
 * Anyway, I think Talk:Jack_Harkness lists all of the possibilities (except for the "one part of timeline before Angelo went to prison, a later part afterward) and all of the serious problems with each one, and anything anyone has to add should probably go there rather than here, so it can be used to improve the article.
 * That is just a way of describing his condition; he can't be erased, and he defies time by never letting it kill him. That's not the mystery Jack didn't know before talking to the Doctor; he could have told you that himself, especially having as much knowledge as he does about time travel and such. What Jack didn't know was HOW he came to be this way. That's what he asks the Doctor in Utopia - not to elaborate on what he is, but to explain what happened to make him that way. That's the only question he asks regarding that in Utopia; he is not phased by the Doctor's calling him a fixed point. So I guess the only real mystery is how he happened to use the same exact words, as if he was quoting the Doctor, but that can just be chalked up to coincidence, or perhaps it is a common expression in temporal talk.
 * That is just a way of describing his condition; he can't be erased, and he defies time by never letting it kill him. That's not the mystery Jack didn't know before talking to the Doctor; he could have told you that himself, especially having as much knowledge as he does about time travel and such. What Jack didn't know was HOW he came to be this way. That's what he asks the Doctor in Utopia - not to elaborate on what he is, but to explain what happened to make him that way. That's the only question he asks regarding that in Utopia; he is not phased by the Doctor's calling him a fixed point. So I guess the only real mystery is how he happened to use the same exact words, as if he was quoting the Doctor, but that can just be chalked up to coincidence, or perhaps it is a common expression in temporal talk.


 * Jack says that he hasn't been to a confession in 700 years. Jack wasn't nearly that old until he was buried.
 * It's possible he was simply joking.
 * Or referring to something that happened when he was a time agent - not necessarily age but maybe temporal distance. Something in either the 13th or 27th centuries.


 * Where did Jack get a World War II coat? He didn't have one with him in Parting of the Ways, so it is unlikely that he would be able to obtain one until WWII.
 * He could have had it specially made.
 * Really wish I had the time to check, but in the flashback scenes in series 1 & 2, those that pre-date 1940, did all of them have him in something other than the USAAF overcoat?
 * He had a similarly long coat in Fragments, but it wasn't the WWII coat. In Small Worlds he was wearing the same uniform as everyone else on the train.
 * Jack's coat is what we think of as a World War II era Royal Air Force greatcoat. However, the RAF existed before WWII (it was founded in 1918), and I think their greatcoats did, too. I found a portrait of Hugh Trenchard, RAF Marshal and "Father of the Royal Air Force," online (at http://www.gac.culture.gov.uk/work.aspx?obj=16156 ) that is a COPY commissioned in 1959 of an ORIGINAL from 1930. Notice his coat in that portrait looks very similar to Jack's. So, if Trenchard had a coat like that in 1930, I wouldn't put it outside the realm of possibility for Jack to be wearing his greatcoat in 1927-1928.