In promotional material (copyright 2007 BBC Worldwide) for the new series Torchwood , creator, lead writer, and executive producer Russell T Davies provided this view [reproduced here as provided] of the series, which will begin Sept. 8 on BBC America:

The Torchwood team is a small group of cops and investigators who use alien technology in a very real world. All the bits of future technology that fall to Earth are captured, scavenged, plundered by the Government, and Torchwood finds ways to use them. A very British operation, away from the prying eyes of America and the UN.

Everyone who works for Torchwood is young, under 35. Some say that's because it's a new science. Others say it's because they die young.

It's bleak, brutally funny, full of all the sex and swearing that usually gets cut from sci-fi. And the sci-fi is very 'real'. Few alien creatures in themselves - though if they appear, they're not the Moxx of Balhoon, they're nightmarish and savage and profoundly strange.

There's minimal CGI, with the occasional blow-out to take people by surprise. But it should feel different to the usual sci-fi stuff - this show doesn't need gorgeous spaceships, it needs to manipulate the texture of the picture, as Jacob's Ladder once did, to frighten in all sorts of new ways.

The whole show picks up that feel - rough, wild, with a hefty dose of Shameless. And with that show's sense of humor! Reflected in the scripts as well - The X Files meets This Life.

The series consists of one-off stories - using alien tech to investigate human crimes; to investigate alien happenings amongst ordinary people; and to research new alien devices in themselves. But stories about the central characters are continuous throughout - affairs between team members, traitors, sinister bosses, the misuse of their powers, and then even more affairs - so that the 13 episodes have a shape and an arc.

The Torchwood team first appear in Doctor Who, and spin off into this series - though the link isn't too heavy, since this is for a very different audience.

A dark, clever, wild, crime/sci-fi paranoid thriller cop-show. What else is television for?!