Gwen Cooper


Gwen Elizabeth Cooper is a fictional character portrayed by Welsh actress Eve Myles in the BBC science-fiction television programme Torchwood, a spin-off of the long-running series Doctor Who. The lead female character, Gwen featured in every episode of the show's 2006–2011 run, as well as two 2008 crossover episodes of Doctor Who. Gwen appears in Expanded Universe material such as the Torchwood novels and audiobooks, comic books and radio plays.
Within the series narrative, Gwen is a South Wales Police officer who discovers the mysterious Torchwood Institute, into which she is recruited by Jack Harkness. Gwen initially operates as a field agent, bringing a humane and rounded approach to the team's investigations of the extraterrestrial. Gwen's work begins to take a toll on her personal life in the first series, but her marriage to Rhys keeps her grounded, even as her responsibilities increase in Series 2. In Children of Earth and Miracle Day, after Torchwood is destroyed to conceal a government conspiracy, a much hardened Gwen operates under her own mandate as the world undergoes crises linked with unprecedented alien threats.
Gwen is introduced as an audience surrogate, in the mould of the "girl next door" archetype, much like the perennial "companion" character in Doctor Who. However, as the series progressed, the production team chose to emphasise contradictory aspects to her character by having Gwen make ethically dubious decisions. As the show progresses, and even after becoming a mother, Gwen evolves into a more militant action heroine and finds herself willing to make tough decisions to protect those closest to her.
Reviewers have generally responded positively to the complexity of Gwen's character and Eve Myles' portrayal, though critics found fault with her more prosaic characterisation earlier on. Eve Myles' portrayal of Gwen has been cited as effective in both promoting the country of Wales and combating a perceived prejudice against the Welsh accent. Myles received a Welsh BAFTA for the first series of the show and was nominated for several other acting awards across each of Torchwoods four series'.

Appearances

Television

Gwen is introduced in the first episode of Torchwood, in which she—a Cardiff police officer— witnesses Captain Jack Harkness and his team interrogating a dead man in an alley. After investigating the Torchwood team, she locates the Torchwood Institute's Cardiff branch, home to a team of alien hunters. Though Jack wipes her memories, they are later triggered by reports of murders committed with exotic weaponry. Torchwood's own Suzie Costello is the serial killer. Gwen is present at Suzie's attempt to kill Jack, and Suzie's ensuing suicide. Jack reveals that he cannot die and offers Gwen a job in Torchwood. Jack and Gwen's relationship takes on a romantic hue, despite her long-standing relationship with boyfriend Rhys. Gwen falls into a short-lived destructive affair with colleague Owen, after a particularly traumatic experience with cannibals, which she cannot share with Rhys. Shortly afterwards, Gwen is targeted and almost killed by a vengeful undead Suzie. In their conversations, Gwen is shocked to realise the extent to which Torchwood neglected Suzie's emotional welfare, and Suzie is resentful towards Gwen, who has replaced her both professionally, and as Owen's lover. Wracked with guilt, Gwen confesses her affair with Owen after it ends in "Combat", but she drugs Rhys with an amnesia pill so he will not remember her confession. In the series one finale, her desire to resurrect a murdered Rhys motivates her to mutiny against Jack by opening the rift in time and space which Torchwood monitors. After Jack sacrifices himself to the released supernatural demon, Gwen maintains a vigil, certain that he will resurrect. As she loses hope, giving Jack a parting kiss, he awakens and thanks her. Shortly afterwards, Jack abandons Torchwood to reunite with the mysterious "Doctor" from his past.
In 2008, as series two begins, Gwen has replaced Jack as team leader. When Jack returns to lead Torchwood, Gwen displays anger towards him for abandoning the team, and surprises him with the news she has become engaged. In a later episode she is forced to tell Rhys about her job at Torchwood when he assumes she is having an affair with Jack. After Rhys takes a bullet for her Gwen defies Jack by refusing to wipe Rhys' memories, feeling humbled by her partner's loyalty and bravery. In "Something Borrowed", despite being pregnant to an alien Nostrovite, Gwen refuses to postpone the wedding to Rhys. Her marriage makes Jack remember an earlier marriage of his own. In "Adrift" Rhys continues to push Gwen to unburden herself from her traumatic experiences, after her attempt to re-unite families with missing children stolen by the rift goes horribly wrong. In the series finale, Gwen's leadership skills allow her to co-ordinate Cardiff during the chaos caused by Captain John Hart and Jack's younger brother Gray. When Gray kills Gwen's teammates Toshiko and Owen, Gwen is desolate. The character makes a crossover appearance in Doctor Who alongside Jack and Ianto in its 2008 series' two-part finale, in which Torchwood help contact series protagonist the Doctor during an invasion of the psychopathic mutant Daleks, and later must defend their headquarters from the attacking aliens. The Doctor suggests a connection to Gwyneth, a separate character portrayed by Eve Myles in the 2005 Doctor Who episode "The Unquiet Dead". She was also mentioned in the alternate universe created in the Doctor Who episode "Turn Left" when Rose Tyler mentioned that she and Ianto were killed in the attempt to stop the Sontarans' invasion of Earth with ATMOs devices, whilst Jack is imprisoned on their homeworld.
In Children of Earth, a five-part serial broadcast in 2009, Gwen is a more militant heroine shaped by the increased responsibilities and pressures of her job. In part one, aliens called the 4-5-6 communicate to the world by taking possession of its children and a middle-aged man, Clem McDonald. Gwen investigates by visiting Clem, who—being possessed of psychic abilities—announces to her she is pregnant, which she later confirms using technology at the Torchwood Hub. Gwen is forced to defend herself from assassins after the Hub is destroyed to conceal a government conspiracy, taking Rhys on the run with her, and re-establishing Torchwood Three in a London warehouse. By making contact with government PA Lois Habiba, Gwen discovers her fugitive status and is able to survey cabinet meetings. When Ianto is killed fighting the 4-5-6, Gwen and Rhys return to Cardiff to protect his niece and nephew from the armed forces, ordered by the government to sacrifice a percentage of the country's children as appeasement. She feels she now understands the Doctor's periodic absence during various crises in Earth's history; believing him to sometimes "look at this planet, and turn away in shame". In the dénouement of the final part, Gwen is six months pregnant when she returns Jack's vortex manipulator to him. She insists he stay; he leaves her behind and abandons Earth.
Fourth series Miracle Day, an American co-production, re-establishes Gwen, Rhys and their daughter Anwen living reclusively in rural Wales. CIA agent Rex Matheson renditions Gwen to the United States, believing a worldwide phenomenon wherein no one can die to be connected to Torchwood and she becomes part of a new Torchwood team alongside Jack, Rex and former CIA analyst Esther Drummond. In "The Categories of Life" and "The Middle Men" Gwen returns to Wales to rescue her ailing father Geraint, who survived a fatal heart attack on "Miracle Day", from a facility where the critically injured are incinerated. Upon her return to America her family are kidnapped as leverage to make her surrender Jack. Gwen tells Jack, now ostensibly mortal, that she would allow him to be killed to save Anwen. After Gwen is deported by senior CIA official Allen Shapiro because of her dissidence she focusses on protecting her father from the authorities; enclosing him in her mother Mary's cellar and supplying him with palliative medicine. The concluding episode, "The Blood Line" opens with Gwen eulogising her father as the kindest man she has ever known, before stating that she is about to kill him. When the power and profit driven conspirators behind Miracle Day try to thwart her resolve by wounding Esther, Gwen declares she will sacrifice her entire Torchwood team to restore order. She shoots Jack through the heart, allowing his unique blood to prompt an ancient phenomenon to reset the human morphic field. As Geraint and other "Miracle Day" survivors pass away peacefully, Jack's immortality is restored. Gwen is shocked to discover at Esther's funeral that Rex is now immortal too.
In the 2021 New Year's Special "Revolution of the Daleks," Jack departs the TARDIS to reconnect with Gwen. Jack tells the Thirteenth Doctor that Gwen fought off a Dalek with a moped and her son's boxing gloves during the recent invasion, revealing that she has had another child in the years that have passed since the end of Miracle Day.

Literature

Gwen appears in all Torchwood novels published by BBC Books to date. The first wave, Another Life, Border Princes, and Slow Decay, set between the series one episodes of Torchwood, were published in January 2007. These novels expand on the difficult period in Gwen and Rhys' relationship. In Border Princes she engages in an affair with the mysterious James Mayer, while Rhys is endangering himself for her in Slow Decay by taking an alien diet pill to impress her. Published in March 2008, and tying in with the concurrently airing second series of Torchwood, Gwen appears in the novels Trace Memory, The Twilight Streets, and Something in the Water. Gwen's first day with Andy Davidson as her beat partner is portrayed in a flashback in Trace Memory. In The Twilight Streets an alternate-future Torchwood is depicted; headed by Gwen and Rhys, after the demise of Tosh, Owen, Ianto and Jack. Three more Torchwood books were released in October 2008: Pack Animals, SkyPoint, and Almost Perfect. These novels maintain the series chronology: Pack Animals depicts Gwen attempting to plan for her wedding alongside her Torchwood mission. SkyPoint, in which Gwen and Rhys discover an alien threat whilst flathunting, is set soon after their wedding in "Something Borrowed". Gwen's continued use of her maiden name is not specifically addressed in the TV show, but SkyPoint sees her consciously reject the name "Mrs Williams", after the unfamiliarity and awkwardness of hearing Jack address her this way. The novel Almost Perfect is the first to be set after the episode Exit Wounds in which Tosh and Owen are killed; Gwen becomes concerned at Rhys' increasing role in her investigations. The May 2009 wave of books consisted of Into the Silence, Bay of the Dead, and The House that Jack Built. Later novels published in October 2009 include Risk Assessment, The Undertaker's Gift, and Consequences, all set between "Exit Wounds" and Children of Earth. Gwen appears in three Torchwood: Miracle Day prequel novels released in Summer 2011. In First Born Gwen and Rhys encounter sinister forces in rural Wales whilst adjusting to parenthood and life in hiding. Gwen appears briefly in flashback material in Long Time Dead and The Men Who Sold the World, novels which explore the aftermath of the destruction of Torchwoods headquarters and the technology left behind. Written by John and Carole Barrowman and published in September 2012, the novel Exodus Code unites Gwen and Jack in a transatlantic mission following the events of Miracle Day.
First published in January 2008, the monthly Torchwood Magazine included Torchwood comic strips in which Gwen appeared. Gareth David-Lloyd's comic, "Shrouded", includes a scene set after Children in Earth, which shows Gwen cradling her young child. As Gwen is busy, Rhys is required to team up with Captain John Hart to save the timeline. During series two, the Torchwood website hosted an interactive online game written by series writer Phil Ford. Eve Myles makes a brief appearance as Gwen towards the end of the game, alongside Gareth David-Lloyd, when her character and Ianto shut down a broadcast from the fictitious Dark Talk studio. Throughout both series one and two, the interactive websites co-written by James Goss featured electronic literature content which depict aspects of Gwen and the other Torchwood characters' work and personal lives. The Torchwood Archives by Gary Russell — an insider's look into Torchwood — collects much of this ancillary online literature in hardback form, along with new material, some of which expands on Gwen's background and life before Torchwood. Details are given of Gwen's university attendance, a previous boyfriend named Bruce, and her time with Andy in the police force. Photographs are provided of Gwen and Rhys, which were used as set dressing in the TV series, and fictitious in-universe documents such as Gwen's personnel form and her Torchwood case reports. In a similar vein to The Torchwood Archives, from a real-world perspective, Gary Russell's The Torchwood Encyclopedia expands on "every fact and figure" for Gwen and the Torchwood world.