The following is a list of minor characters in the BBC science fiction television series Torchwood, including supporting characters, and important human villains.
A
PC Andy
PC Andy, played by Tom Price, is Gwen Cooper's former partner in the police force, first appearing in Everything Changes. He finds glamourous police programmes like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation ridiculous and also seemed to be somewhat put out by Gwen's more inquisitive nature. After Gwen joins Torchwood, she meets him again outside a nightclub where a man was killed by a "sex monster"-possessed host (Day One). Like Gwen's boyfriend Rhys, he believes that she has been promoted to "Special Ops".
PC Andy returns in End of Days, requesting Gwen's help after a Roman soldier has fallen through time only to murder two men and subsequently be arrested. Jack and Gwen talk very frankly about what has happened in front of him.
C
Suzie Costello
Suzie Costello, portrayed by Indira Varma, was a principal character in the first episode, Everything Changes. The second-in-command of Torchwood Three, the Cardiff-based wing of the Torchwood Institute, she has been researching a piece of alien technology, a glove which has the ability to resurrect creatures that have recently died, but only for a short period of time. It is revealed later in the episode that she has been murdering people in order to create test subjects for the Glove, having become obsessed with trying to make it work permanently.
While confessing her crimes to Gwen Cooper, Suzie expresses how much she loves her job, how nothing could ever measure up to what she has been doing, and her regret at having to run. She is about to shoot Gwen in order to cover up her crimes when Jack Harkness, the team leader, arrives. Suzie shoots Jack in the head, but he rises again due to his inability to die, and she commits suicide by placing the muzzle beneath her chin and shooting herself instead. Jack places Suzie's body in the cold storage facility in the Torchwood Hub, in a drawer labelled "006".
In They Keep Killing Suzie, the Torchwood team brings her back to life using the Resurrection Gauntlet (wielded by Gwen) and the "Life Knife". Unknown to the team, this was part of a plan that Suzie set up months before her death. She appears to be resurrected permanently and unable to be killed. However, this is because the gauntlet is continuing to transfer life energy between her and Gwen. Suzie feels inferior to and resents Gwen for "replacing" her in all areas, including having a relationship with Owen Harper.
Suzie manipulates Gwen into freeing her from the base and subsequently murders her own father. Expressing regret over Gwen's impending death but still willing to sacrifice her to remain alive, Suzie continues draining Gwen's life energy until Toshiko Sato destroys the gauntlet, breaking the energy transfer and finally killing Suzie once more. Jack tells Ianto Jones to record the multiple causes of death as "Death by Torchwood".
While her death at the end of They Keep Killing Suzie seems fairly permanent, Ianto notes that gloves "come in pairs", suggesting that there may be another such gauntlet somewhere in the universe.
H
Lisa Hallett
Lisa Hallett, played by Caroline Chikezie, was a 26-year-old employee of Torchwood One in London and girlfriend of Ianto Jones. During the "Battle of Canary Wharf" (Army of Ghosts/Doomsday) the Cybermen needed more troops fast and began directly converting people rather than transplanting their brains into Cyberman shells. Lisa was in the midst of this conversion when Ianto rescued her, taking her and part of a conversion unit as a support system to Torchwood Three where he kept her in a basement until he could restore her humanity (Cyberwoman).
However, once freed from the unit, her Cyberman personality asserted itself and she attempted to take over the Hub in order to use it as a base for a new Cyberman army. Seeing how far Ianto had gone to protect her, she transplanted her brain into the body of a pizza delivery girl so they could be together. Clearly insane, and still claiming they both could be upgraded, her new body was shot and killed by the rest of the Torchwood team.
What appeared to be Lisa's spirit reappeared in End of Days, urging Ianto to open the Rift.
Captain Jack Harkness
Captain Jack Harkness, played by Matt Rippy (credited as Matt Rippey on screen), was seen in the episode Captain Jack Harkness. When Torchwood's Jack Harkness fell back in time to 1941 he met him, the real Captain Jack Harkness.
Captain Jack was revealed to be gay and trapped in a heterosexual relationship and upset that his girlfriend was in love with him. He eventually danced with the other Jack, who was under the assumed name of Captain James Harper, in front of a party of soldiers and their guests after the other Jack had hinted that these were his last moments alive. Before the other Jack left to return to the present, the two kissed, leaving both teary. The next day, Captain Jack Harkness died fighting German bombers.
Con man Jack Harkness (real name unknown), who served during World War Two had assumed Captain Jack Harkness' identity after his death, prior to his first appearance in the Doctor Who episode The Empty Child. At this time in his personal timeline, he had not met the real Captain Jack or joined Torchwood. Hence, he knew Captain Jack Harkness's fate before he met him but did not know what he looked like.
Toshiko Sato told the Jack in the present that the the original Captain Jack would be proud that he took his name, using it to save the world.
Diane Holmes
Diane Holmes, played by Louise Delamere is a character who first appears in Out of Time. She is a pilot and early feminist from 1953 who had become stranded in 2007 due to the Cardiff Rift. She enters a relationship with Owen, where he feels he is in love for the first time. One day she suddenly leaves, feeling the Rift will open again for her, saying farewell to a distraught Owen. Her leaving causes Owen to enter a terrible depression, culminating in his attempts to allow himself to die at the hand of Weevil and even open the Rift in Captain Jack Harkness.
Diane was seen in flashback clips in Combat and Captain Jack Harkness. She reappears briefly to Owen, possibly as a vision or through a "fracture in time" in End of Days, insisting he do whatever he can to save her. The encounter left him in tears.
M
Bilis Manger
Bilis Manger, played by Murray Melvin, is a character in the episodes Captain Jack Harkness and End of Days.
Bilis has the innate ability to walk through time and teleport at will, manipulating the Torchwood staff into a situation where they would have to completely open the Rift and release the deity he worships.
In Captain Jack Harkness, he is shown to be in charge of a 1941 dance hall, and co-operates with Gwen when she visits the dance hall searching for Jack and Toshiko. However, he scuppered Toshiko's plans to send the second half of the equations needed to bring her and Jack back, by scratching away the last part of the equation. In End of Days, he reappears, first as an apparition to Gwen, then, in his shop Stitches in Time, where he reveals that he is able to travel through times, between eras at will. He then infiltrates the Torchwood base, stabbing Rhys, spurring Gwen to open the rift to save everyone's lives, however, she unwittingly releases Abaddon. Moments later, he is found outside by the members of the team, but only notes that his plan all along was to release Abaddon, which had been "chained under the rift", before vanishing again.
In the episode Captain Jack Harkness, the fluttering of fairy wings is heard in the dance hall, this could mean that Bilis Manger is one of the "fairies" or at least something similar, with evidence that supports this includes his ability to travel through time and disappear at will. Being an apparent Cardiff resident, he could also be like Gwyneth from The Unquiet Dead an ordinary Welshman who had developed psychic powers, allowing him to know all of existence and learn of Abaddon. His vast knowledge of demonology could also imply he himself is demonic, or perhaps alien.
The Torchwood website hints that Bilis had already been involved with the Torchwood Institute at least once, drugging Owen with sodium pentathol and Retcon in order to get information about the intstitute.[1]
W
Rhys Williams
Rhys Williams, played by Kai Owen, is Gwen Cooper's live-in boyfriend. He is a transport manager and unaware of the true nature of Gwen's job at the Torchwood Institute, believing she is working in "Special Ops" and that any alleged alien interference with Earth over the past two years were actually mass hallucinations induced by terrorists putting psychotropic drugs in the water supply. When Gwen puts this theory to Jack he derides Rhys as stupid. Before she dated Rhys, Gwen was going out with someone named Bruce, and Owen speculates that she simply settled for Rhys[2].
Over the course of the first series Rhys shows increasing irritation with Gwen's evasiveness and long hours. In Ghost Machine he and Gwen have a slight argument when she misses dinner due to her work at Torchwood, and in Out of Time he becomes angry with Gwen when he discovers that Gwen has been lying to him about the nature of a girl Gwen took in who was actually related to her job at the Institute. He states displeasure at Gwen's ease and readiness to lie to him.
Unknown to Rhys, Gwen establishes a sexual relationship with Owen at the end of Countrycide to help herself deal with her two lives at home and at work. She confesses the affair after it ends in Combat but also slips Rhys an amnesia pill so he will not remember her confession. In End of Days Rhys is stabbed by Bilis Manger and dies, however when the Torchwood Team open the Rift this event is erased from history, bringing Rhys back to life again.
References
See also
- List of Doctor Who monsters and aliens
- List of Torchwood monsters and aliens
- List of Torchwood items
- List of Doctor Who villains