"Torchwood" Finally Goes Where Sci-Fi Hasn't Gone

Captain Jack is a breakthrough character in several respects. In his role as the leader of Torchwood, he is a man in charge of a team that goes about saving the world on a day-to-day basis. He's an intensely passionate man who cares for his team while still trying to have something of a “normal” life. Through the course of the first season, Jack is shown in many different lights – heroic, aloof, brusque – even getting to be hopelessly romantic in an episode that depicts love at first sight between two men instead of a man and a woman.

Jack is also just a guy looking for love, and Barrowman hopes that sooner or later the writers will have Jack settle down. “Captain Jack might settle down with a nice man in series two,” explains the actor. “But which man that will be I can't tell you.”

Not only is Captain Jack Harkness an openly gay character on Torchwood, but his entire team is open to whatever kind of love and affection crosses their paths as well. All of the women have lesbian encounters in the first season, in some form or another, and the men have their share of same-sex flings as well. Homosexuality and bisexuality are never really an issue on the series; they are simply accepted facets of the people that make up the Torchwood crew.

What follows is a little taste of what you can expect from the first season of Torchwood, but be warned: spoilers follow, so be careful what you read from this point on.

Last seen in the far-flung future, Captain Jack now works with Torchwood policing alien activity on earth while also looking for answers to his own supposed immortality. Since Torchwood is the first and last line of defense against alien invasion and against subversive alien activities already taking place hidden within our culture, it affords Jack the opportunity to seek information.

You can expect to see Captain Jack be flirtatious with several women – including his leading lady Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles), but he also flirts with the group's secretary/front man Ianto (Gareth David-Lloyd). Indeed, he only seems to have relationships with men in this first season.

Gay fans will probably most enjoy the season finale “Captain Jack Harkness”, where Jack ends up back in time facing the man whose identity and name he took in World War II. The catch is that Jack took the real Captain Jack's identity after the man was shot down on a mission. Seeing him face-to-face, Jack falls in love with his namesake and has to deal with knowing that the next day the man is supposed to die. There is a very touching slow dance and when the episode ends, there will not be a dry eye in the house.

That it is a same-sex relationship at the heart of the episode only speaks to how groundbreaking Torchwood truly is.