"Excuse me, have you seen a blowfish driving a sports car?"

Don't believe the hype about nothing being on during the strike. Sure, we miss Heroes and 24 as much as the next guy, but for ALL of February, we'll have new episodes of Lost and Torchwood. It may be getting there, but it's not dark yet. If you're not familiar, Torchwood is about an underground special ops group in Cardiff, which is kind of like Sunnydale in Buffy the Vampire Slayer in that it's the center of all kinds of activity where us mere mortals could use a little help. Enter the new "Men and Women in Black," a team of experts at dealing with aliens, futuristic weapons, and everything else that scares you when you hear a bump in the night. It's one of the best shows on TV, a consistently entertaining series that is better paced and written than most sci-fi movies and it's a cult hit waiting to explode into a bigger phenomenon in the States (it's already the number one show on BBC America). With fewer options, the time seems right for everyone to take a trip to Torchwood.

The season premiere of season two, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," features a fantastic guest turn by James Marsters (Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer), playing a character very similar to the one that turned him into a TV star, not that we're complaining. Marsters brings back the British accent to play Captain John Hart, a fellow time agent to Torchwood head Captain Jack Harkness. It turns out that the two Jacks were not only partners in the professional sense but in the personal one too. When they first encounter each other again in the present day, what follows is an amazing sequence that starts with a kiss, moves on to some incredibly well-choreographed fighting, and ends with these two genre icons pointing guns at each other. It turns out that Captain Hart is not a good guy (didn't the casting give that away?) and he's out to rip apart the Torchwood team, possibly by killing every single one of them.

Marsters and Barrowman provide such a jolt of energy to Torchwood that it seems like something that will be hard to top in episode two. According to the BBC, the second season of Torchwood will be "Bigger, Sexier, Deadlier," and, based on the premiere, we actually believe them. The notes state that the Torchwood team will journey to the 51st Century and back to World War I and possibly even face Death itself. The season will also see the return of Marsters and a guest arc by Doctor Who's Martha Jones (Freema Agymen). After the excellence of season one and the strong start to season two, we wouldn't think of missing where Torchwood goes from here and, if you call yourself any kind of sci-fi fan, you need to clear your schedule for Saturday nights. Who needs writers? We've got Torchwood.