I am – Hercules!!

Scramble up the words “Doctor Who” and you get “Torchwood.”

A TV show, it sounds like “Men in Black” with Britishers and a much smaller budget. Like “Who,” it’s scripted by “Queer As Folk” mastermind Russell Davies.

Here’s “Jerome Crustacean”:

Hi,
Longtime reader, etc.

Last night there was a special advance screening of Torchwood, the new Doctor Who spin-off, in Manchester and I was there.

The basic premise of the show is that there is a secret organisation, Torchwood, who work outside the Government protecting against alien threats and scavenging any technology left behind. They are led by Captain Jack from Series 1/27 of Doctor Who, whom we last saw being resurrected by a superpowered Rose and abandoned in the 50th century.

The episode we saw last night was the first one and it did all the jobs a pilot should do - introduced the set-up and the characters and added enough mystery to make you want to keep watching.

The action in the episode is all from the POV of Gwen, a WPC in the Cardiff Police Force who witnesses Torchwood briefly resurrect a murder victim one night and then becomes obsessed with them and tries tracking them down, to eventually be recruited into their ranks.

The cast are all very good and Davies' script is full of his trademark humour and is more adult in nature than Who. There's more blood and swearing and the teaser for future episodes implies more sex too, so much more like Davies' other adult dramas.

My one criticism would be the music which, although good, does become repetitive and intrusive. Every time someone does some running the same music blasts from the soundtrack and almost drowns out any dialogue.

I'm trying to keep this spoiler-free, but I will say that there is a revelation about Jack which should make things interesting and there are some nice visual and dialogue references to Who which some may spot.

9 p.m. Sunday. BBC3.

Defenders of the Earth Vol. 1

$17.49 Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut!!