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 for a post-CoE Jack... why would he be working for Torchwood in the past?


 * 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.