Torchwood is a BBC production which is being shown on the Starz premium cable/sat channels. I got home late tonight but had set it up to record so I was able to watch it. This is, apparently, season four, the previous three seasons running on the BBC.
Premise: People simultaneously stop dying all over the world...why? And how much time does the human race have if children continue to be born and no one dies anymore? How long before the planet is over run with non-dead people? Who or what is causing this phenomenon?
The CIA have a computer file pop up on all of their computer screens with the word, "Torchwood." Investigation ensues. Mysterious assassins appear. One assassin goes as far as setting off a suicide bomb vest in an attempt to kill one of the main characters. This leads to a rather graphic and grizzly "autopsy" scene in which the fried remains of the assassin are examined. The non-corpse's crispy body still has signs of life, mainly one still animated eyeball. The examiners cut what little remains of the spinal cord and neck only to find that the toasted skull's eyeball keeps moving.
A team of sorts is pushed together by circumstance (they are attacked by black helicopter gunship) and that about ends the first episode. I believe that there are to be nine more.
Worth a watch if you enjoy this sort of thing and have Starz.
Here is a
UK Guardian blog site on the show.
The series demonstrates yet again that there are most definitely alternatives to leftwing American PC programs. That said, the wikipedia entry on the show indicates that previous seasons of Torchwood had same-sex scenes of one kind or another running in them. Hopefully that will not be the case with a Starz funded production.
