History Owen Harper was born February 14, 1980. He had family problems growing up, and his mother who never liked him informed him on his tenth birthday that she did not have to like him, only love him. He was never close to his father, and both of his parents were still alive at the time of Owen's death. Owen was in his early twenties when he became a doctor. He also became engaged to Katie Russell. It was unknown to both of them, but Katie had an alien parasite nested within her brain which appeared to cause a degenerative neurological condition. Owen continued to fight for Katie to be operated on, and finally the doctor's had agreed. While waiting for hours, Owen became impatient and heard strange noises coming from inside the room. It was at this point that Jack Harkness appeared, and apologized to Owen, informing him that he should prepare for the worst. Jack then goes inside, only to reveal there was an alien parasite inside of Katie's head that killed her and the team of surgeons. Despite Owen's protests, Jack left with Katie's body after knocking Owen out. When Owen wakes up, he's admitted to a mental hospital and dismissed from his job because of his unbelievable story about the aliens. Later, Jack finds his way back into Owen's life, only to be attacked. Once Owen is done, Jack offers him a job in Torchwood. Owen reluctantly accepts.
On his first day on the job, Owen is so hungover that he can't help the UNIT investigation of the space pig, to which the younger version of Jack Harkness and the 9th Doctor, along with Rose Tyler, are looking into. Instead, Toshiko fills in for him for the day, pretending to know what she's doing.
After the age of 27, Owen's personal life began to revolve mostly around the pursuit of casual sex, which he was happy to use alien tech to facilitate. He had an affair with Gwen Cooper that had lasted several months, and he appeared to enjoy it very much. Eventually, though, he got tired of Gwen and eventually let her go.
The closest thing he ever appeared to have as a serious relationship since Katie was with the lost Diane Holmes. She was a pilot from 1953 whose airplane had fallen through the Cardiff Rift. But eventually, she wanted to continue traveling, leaving Owen behind, and his personality shifting back into that of hatred and casual sex.
At one point, a memory based alien turned Owen's, and the rest of the teams, memories strange, causing Owen to become a shy, sheltered nerd who was madly in love with Tosh. Though none of them remember, or can ever remember the incident, Tosh haltingly asked Owen out on a date, despite his flirting with Martha Jones. But everything that happened after that had prevented the date from ever occurring.
Owen was shot and killed by Aaron Copley while trying to protect Martha from being shot. Jack quickly shot him afterwards, though hesitant, which cost Owen his life. Out of his guilt and remorse, Jack used the second resurrection gauntlet to bring Owen back to life so he could say goodbye to everyone. It was assumed Owen would only be conscious for two minutes, but for unknown reasons, Owen remained conscious, having returned to a state of partial life.
A consequence of Owen's resurrection was the manifestation of an old entity known as "Duroc", which Owen vanquished. Owen remained conscious after this, but found he had very limited body functions. His wounds did not heal, and he could not breathe or blow air. He also couldn't sleep. He could swallow liquids and food, but he had no sense of taste and did not digest food. It had to be removed or somehow expelled from his body. He unsuccessfully attempted to get drunk only to pee himself, and eventually flip himself upside down to remove the rest. He also found out that the lack of blood flow made erections impossible.
Owen was encouraged to maintain regular physical exercise to prevent rigor mortis from setting in. Painful stimuli did not appear to hurt Owen as he'd injured his left hand twice by cutting it, and then intentionally breaking a finger. These injuries never healed, and he had a wear a bandage/splint on his hand after that which permanently limited his dexterity. At one point, he had to have Rhys Williams, Gwen's boyfriend, use the singularity scalpel because he could not adjust it properly without both hands.
Because he is unable to heal, Jack was hesitant in allowing Owen to take part in regular operations, and demoted him to 'tea boy', but soon after, Owen was back out in the field. His lack of breathing and other bodily functions proved useful to the team when he was able to avoid a heat-based alarm system, and suffered no harm at the hands of rift creatures who found him unpalatable and confusing.
When a dying man needed CPR, Owen became incredibly depressed that he could not perform it because he, himself, could not breathe. Yet, by telling his story to a suicidal woman, he was able to prevent her from killing herself. Owen coped with his self-pity and ended up pulling himself back together enough to go back to work and carry on. It included deeper friendship with Toshiko. Martha had indicated to Owen that the energy used to keep him 'alive' began to dissipate after the defeat of the Durac, but considered it impossible to predict when it would run out, and his final death would occur. She told Owen it could take anywhere from thirty seconds, to thirty years. Owen's original response to his change in life status and in Torchwood led to him alienating his colleagues, and at least once he tried to kill himself by drowning, only to find he couldn't drown because he couldn't breathe. To a degree, Jack, who himself is accustomed to immortality, tried to help Owen, but was at first rebuffed given that Jack's immortality didn't prevent him from enjoying pleasures such as food and sex.
Several weeks after his death, Owen attempted to stop a nuclear reactor near Cardiff from going into meltdown because of the bombs that Jack's brother, Gray, had set off in an attempt to destroy Jack's life. Once there, Owen had been on the communicator with Tosh, and was unaware that she had been fatally shot by Gray. She tried to keep this secret from him as she attempted to give him a chance to escape while she locked the whole building down, but an unpredictable power surge forced an automatic lockdown, sealing Owen inside. Owen quickly became defiant and angry, and shouted that he would not die quietly. This only upset Tosh, who herself was dying. After Owen heard her crying, Tosh admitted that he was breaking her heart, and he stopped shouting, and started asking her what was going to happen. She explained how he would die because of the radiation, and Owen accepted it quietly, knowing that he couldn't feel pain. He'd just watch his body fall apart. The two of them spoke about their past, and the date that never happened. Tosh even brought up the space pig incident. Owen reassured Tosh quietly that it was alright, and everything was going to be okay. He did not appear to have any hard feelings for her as the room began to fill with radiation, and Owen died.