Torchwood
BBC America has been showing the Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood for the last several weeks. After seeing early reviews that panned the show, I really didn't expect much, but I've been pleasantly surprised.
I've watched Doctor Who for decades, and let's face it -- it's never been high drama. It's always been melodramatic sci-fi at its silliest, sometimes by design, with cheesy special effects. Though the current series with David Tennant as the Doctor is pleasant enough, Russell T. Davies and company haven't moved the needle too much from what made Doctor Who so recognizable in the first place.
Torchwood (an anagram of Doctor Who) uses the character of Captain Jack Harkness, a sort of swashbuckling, oversexed time traveler that made some guest appearances in Doctor Who, Davies has built a new show around the premise that the British Government has a clandestine special operations team that researches extraterrestrial and supernatural happenings near Cardiff in Wales. So it's an ensemble cast, though the stories unfold through the POV of Gwen Cooper (the very easy-on-the-eyes Welsh actress Eve Myles), a Cardiff cop who's been recruited into the Torchwood team by Captain Jack.
The show is darker, grittier and sexier than Doctor Who. Apparently, the seeds that germinated the show's concept in Davies' mind were Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, Joss Whedon's awesome sci fi action shows. There's no question there's some influence, though I don't put Torchwood in that league, at least not yet.