10 Doctor Who Characters Who Came Back From The Dead

1. Captain Jack Harkness (The Parting Of The Ways)

Doctor Who The Big Bang Amy Pond
BBC Studios

Although Captain Jack Harkness is an immortal being, this wasn't always the case, and funnily enough, he only gained this power after paying for it with his life.

This happened during Series 1 finale The Parting of the Ways, where Jack died. Like, he really died. He was cornered by a trio of Daleks and exterminated, zapped at point-blank range with a deadly laser. Very few people face the Daleks and live to tell the tale, so there's no way that Jack could return after suffering a fate like that. Right?

Well, normally, no. But in this case, Rose Tyler had recently looked into the heart of the TARDIS, turning her into a near-omnipotent being: the Bad Wolf. This allowed her to bring Jack back to life at the end of the episode, and as an added bonus, she also inadvertently made him immortal. Talk about a happy accident.

Throughout his many subsequent appearances in the Whoniverse, Jack has sustained a number of injuries that would easily kill a normal man, but his immortality has kept him alive. Hell, in an episode of Torchwood, he was shot in the forehead at close range, and then got back up like it was nothing.

Captain Jack Harkness Torchwood headshot
BBC

What a badass.

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Know of any other Doctor Who characters who came back from the dead? Let us know in the comments section!

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.