Don't miss: Torchwood - Miracle Day

If you haven't discovered Torchwood yet (a spinoff and anagram of BBC's Doctor Who), the timing is terrific to jump into the new season of this fascinating, superbly written UK sci-fi saga. Season Three of the series, Children of Earth involved the investigation of a global outbreak of hypnotic chanting by the world's children and an invading alien species that threatens to destroy the human race unless they're given 10% of the Earth's children. Children of Earth was my first exposure to Torchwood and it was superb - phenomenally well written science fiction with terrific characters. Torchwood features the mysterious Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), a man whose history seems to stretch back for centuries.

Season Four, Miracle Day, finds the show's characters relocated to America and includes guest appearances by Bill Pullman, Mekhi Phifer and Lauren Ambrose. In Miracle Day, we learn what happens when all deaths on Earth suddenly stop occurring: One day, nobody dies. All across the world, nobody dies. And then the next day, and the next, and the next, people keep aging – they get hurt and sick – but they never die.


The result: a population boom, overnight. With all the extra people, resources are finite. It’s said that in four months’ time, the human race will cease to be viable. But this can’t be a natural event – someone’s got to be behind it...a threat that will change what it means to be human, forever.

Torchwood: Miracle Day premieres this Friday night on the Starz network for 10 episodes and promises to be some of the smartest, most suspenseful science fiction we'll see this year.