Just call 'Torchwood' indescribably delicious

A dark and splendid "Dr. Who" spinoff with overtones of "Men in Black" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Torchwood" (premiering tonight on BBC America) concerns a super-secret organization "outside the government, beyond the police" whose job it is to keep an eye on visiting aliens and, when possible, steal their stuff. Specifically, it concerns the Cardiff branch -- Torchwood Three, out of four. (The main branch has been destroyed, and another has just gone missing.)

As to why Cardiff, one might as well have asked, "Why Sunnydale?" As with that city's pesky Hellmouth, there is a pan-dimensional rift running through the city, and all manner of things come through it. So there you go.

Of course, it might also have something to do with the fact that Russell T. Davies, who revived the "Dr. Who" franchise in 2005 and created "Torchwood," is from Wales, just as there might be some connection between his earlier having thought up "Queer as Folk" and the fact that the heroes of "Torchwood" are unusually elastic in their sexuality. (This is not a kiddie show -- the alien in next week's episode feeds off of human orgasms.) Indeed, as opposed to the vaguely sinister, wholly corporate and patriotically misguided, London-based Torchwood One featured in last season's "Dr. Who," the Scooby Gang of Torchwood Three is an able if not always stable crew whose personal issues drive the stories as much as do troublesome extraterrestrials or strange beasties. (Although they do keep a nasty thing called a Weevil locked up in the basement, Hannibal Lecter-style, and a pterodactyl has the run of their fortuitously high-ceilinged underground headquarters.)

"The 21st century is when it all changes," says mysterious team leader Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), and he should know, being that he comes from the 51st. (This is not clearly spelled out in "Torchwood" but was established in the first season of the Davies "Dr. Who," in which the character first appeared.) Barrowman, who is adventure-hero handsome, has a background in musical comedy, and there is something in the way the part is written and played and even the way he's dressed that seems purposely big and stylized and Old Hollywood. For reasons I won't explain here, even if I understood them, he doesn't sleep and he can't die, which is great for getting work done. But he seems less than happy about it.