So, Day Two of Torchwood’s residency in BBC1’s prime 9pm slot, and things are still looking good.  This is by far the best Torchwood I’ve seen, a fast-paced drama with a sense of real urgency that comes across like Spooks with a domestic twist.  The car chases and gun action are in the same territory as the spy drama, but there are touches like Gwen and her husband turning up at a London cafe having got there in the back of a lorry full of potatoes from Cardiff.  He is famished, and the pair of them tuck into steak pie and chips, and it’s a moment that sums up the difference between British and American science fiction.

In fact, science fiction was low on the agenda tonight.  Sure, there’s some sort of alien presence due to arrive in tomorrow’s show,which speaks through the world’s children — and that’s creepy when it happens.  But it’s cleverly undercut by the response of the kids themselves, who take their role as mouthpieces in their stride — the two daughters of a politician send up their role as heralds and ask their dad for a pony in the same style.  It’s a cute humanising beat that isn’t necessary in plot terms, but says a lot about the tone of the show: this isn’t programming for geeks, it’s something for people who enjoy soaps and want to see recognisable people on tv.

That’s the sort of point that will piss off hardcore genre fans, but it’s attention to such details that gives Dr Who its massive popular audience, while Battlestar Galactica remains fare for people who get unironically excited about spaceships and androids.  Let’s hope that Torchwood can follow in its progenitor’s footsteps: last night’s episode got 5.9 million viewers, and here’s hoping tonight’s, written by John Fay, attracted at least that many.

Torchwood has, in essence, grown up.  When it started, the show was tiresome in its supposedly shocking references to sex and drugs.  Now, there are still allusions to sexual shenanigans, but in a low key fashion that doesn’t overemphasise them in a juvenile manner.   The difference makes all the difference.

Looked at this way, Torchwood is mainstream drama with a science fiction twist, and that’s a distinctly different proposition from true genre shows.  It’s notable that two upcoming remakes, V and Alien Nation, could be described in similar fashion.  Part of me welcomes any inventive new drama to television, and I hope that describes those reinventions, but I worry if we’re losing some edgier material in the process…does the world really need another remake of Day of the Triffids?

There’s a paradox at work here.  Science fiction should be about novel concepts, but much of what reaches television screens is a rehash of tried and tested ideas.  Star Trek has undergone countless iterations now, and though the new film version is excellent, audiences have had to put up with a lot of pap while waiting.  And the fad for reinventing shows can only go so far, though I have it on good authority that an attempt has even been made to resurrect Sapphire & Steel, a show incomprehensible even to its fans.

Torchwood finally seems to have struck the right balance, assuming the rest of the week lives up to the promise laid out in the first two episodes of this five parter.  Let’s hope that the BBC decides to commission more well written and directed science fiction in the future, preferably without feeling the necessity to relate it to the touchstone of Dr Who.