Apparently he's said elsewhere that this is a story he's always wanted to tell. Which, O.K., I get that, I could even tell that by the fact that he's already told bits of it in other episodes of both Torchwood and Doctor Who, but I feel about as underwhelmed by angsty!Jack as I did Tinkerbell!Jesus!Doctor. Especially as it meant all of the other characters got pushed to the side--Ianto essentially got fridged, Stephen got no development whatsoever (even Frobisher's kids got more--even his wife got more!), Alice was defined by her relationship to Jack, we never did find out what happened to Lois--the important thing for each of them was to be in the right place to help Jack get to the next angst-point. Which, after the AWESOMETASTICNESS of all the characters in the first three episodes, was something of a let-down. "Oh, we're back to RTD's Marty Stu storyline, aren't we."