A new TV addiction

I’m not a big fan of television. I find most of the shows insipid. I’ve rarely seen The Simpsons save for The Treehouse of Horror! There is, I believe, someone named Snooki but that is the extent of my knowledge. I followed Game of Thrones for a while until I discovered there was no happy ending for anybody.

But I’ve recently discovered Torchwood, and I am loving it. It’s a sort of a British version of The X-Files, sort of. It’s also a spin-off of Doctor Who. One of the characters in Torchwood appeared on that show.

The premise is that at the end of the 19th Century Queen Victoria founded the Torchwood Institute to deal with supernatural, extraterrestrial and extra-dimensional threats. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

Oddly enough, I started in the middle of the series. This season was entitled Children of Earth. No spoilers but, damn, are the writers imaginative. Much of the time I had no idea what was happening and when I was I wished I didn’t because, man, was it creepy.

I’m almost through the fourth season which is called Miracle Day. The central event of the season is that one day, nobody dies. They can get hurt. They can be sick. They can get old. But they can’t die. Yeah, let that sink in and see how creepy that is.

There are a lot of familiar faces in season four as much of it took place in the US. Bill Pullman is his usual excellent self. C. Thomas Howell plays one of those human monsters he’s so good at playing. Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters 1&2, The Crow), Nana Visitor (Deep Space Nine) and John de Lancie (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager) all make appearances.

So, if you haven’t caught Torchwood yet, please do so. It’s one hell of a fine show.