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.

In Children of Earth (2009) and Miracle Day (2011), 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.

[10] In the series finale, Gwen's leadership skills allow her to co-ordinate Cardiff during the chaos caused by Captain John Hart (James Marsters) and Jack's younger brother Gray (Lachlan Nieboer).

[17] When Ianto is killed fighting the 4-5-6,[18] 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.

[20][21] In "The Categories of Life" and "The Middle Men" Gwen returns to Wales to rescue her ailing father Geraint (William Thomas), who survived a fatal heart attack on "Miracle Day", from a facility where the critically injured are incinerated.

[24] After Gwen is deported by senior CIA official Allen Shapiro (John De Lancie) because of her dissidence she focusses on protecting her father from the authorities; enclosing him in her mother Mary's (Sharon Morgan) cellar and supplying him with palliative medicine.

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.

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.

[43] 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 Torchwood's headquarters and the technology left behind.

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.

[48] Throughout both series one and two, the interactive websites co-written by James Goss featured electronic literature content (such as fictitious internet messaging conversations and letters) which depict aspects of Gwen and the other Torchwood characters' work and personal lives.

Set after the events of the 2008 series, Gwen and the team make their first international adventure in CERN in Geneva, as part of Radio 4's special celebration of the switching on of the Large Hadron Collider.

The special radio episode's plot focuses both on the Large Hadron Collider's activation and the doomsday scenario some warned it might cause, and the team's mourning of Toshiko and Owen's recent deaths.

Titled "The Devil and Miss Carew", "Submission" and "House of the Dead", these plays fill narrative gaps between "Exit Wounds" and Miracle Day and feature the voices of Myles, Barrowman and David-Lloyd.

[69] Lead writer and executive producer Russell T Davies initially had the idea of an unnamed policewoman stumbling across a team of alien investigators in an alley as a premise, before Torchwood or the 2005 revival of Doctor Who were commissioned.

"[75] Discussing the international co-production behind series four, executive producer Julie Gardner commented that Myles' continued involvement helped ensure that the "flavour of Wales" remained evident.

Executive producer Russell T Davies explains that the episode "Countrycide" was deliberately structured in order to make the affair seem inevitable as Gwen struggles to cope with Torchwood life.

[85] Linnie Blake felt that Gwen's had a passive role in her own affair; as with her lesbian clinch with an alien and her forceable impregnation; she argues that the Gothic situations in Torchwood continually parallels in the "invasion" of her sexuality.

[93] Valerie Estelle Frankel argued that Gwen finds "the missing side of herself" with her immersion into the world of Torchwood, represented by "affairs and homosexuality and the threat of death" rather than her ordinary domestic life with Rhys.

[100] Anders felt that later episodes in the fourth series continued to illuminate flaws in Gwen's character, describing her as someone with an "addictive personality" who "treats her Torchwood adventures like a drug that she craves" though she knows they "ruin her relationships with her husband and child".

[72][80] Stephen James Walker quotes the firing range sequence in 2006 episode "Ghost Machine" as an example of romantic tension between the pair as well as the scene where Jack discovers Gwen engagement.

[96] A press release ahead of the 2011 series stated that though Gwen retreats to a rural idyll with her family, she still retains feelings for Jack and misses the exciting life she once led alongside him.

[14] Daniel Martin of The Guardian opines that her characterisation in the serial "shows just how far she's come",[119] whilst Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times feels that she is a "soulful leather-jacketed action heroine".

[97] Her horrific experiences turn her into "a biting cynic";[97] when both government and army betray the British people, Gwen claims to understand finally why the Doctor does not save humanity from world crises.

"[123] Reviewing the opening episodes of Miracle Day Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times identified "the dark humor" of the sequence as representative of "the top notes of the British Torchwood".

Commenting on the first episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day Den of Geek's Simon Brew states that "whoever Hollywood producers cast in the planned reboot of the Tomb Raider movie franchise, I'm fully confident that Myles could kick their ass.

[133] Shortly after Torchwood's premiere, Conservative MP Michael Gove described Gwen Cooper as a "Celtic Rosselini" and an example of Welsh sensuality,[134] while in 2006, Wales on Sunday named Myles as its "Bachelorette of the Year".

[139] Jan Ravens played a parody version of Gwen in the impressionist television series Dead Ringers, in which she displays a badge labelling her with what Jon Culshaw's Captain Jack describes as her sole characteristic: Welsh.

"[141] A plot development that saw Gwen respond to the advances of an alien sex-gas in another woman's body was described by Karman Kregloe of AfterEllen as characterising "nearly every negative lesbian stereotype imaginable".

Gavin Fuller of The Daily Telegraph felt Myles "took the acting honours with a bravura performance",[149] whilst Charlie Jane Anders stated Gwen to have the strongest moments in the finale which led to "a new appreciation for her character".