Torchwood's U.S. roots

Julie Gardner, executive producer of the BBC series Torchwood and head of drama development for BBC Wales, tells SCI-FI WIRE that Torchwood's roots lie in a fascination with American science fiction shows - particularly those in the boom of the 1990s.She talks about an early series she and Russell T Davies developed called Excalibur which centered around a paranormal investigation team."It was a kind of [an] urban-landscape, present-day series," Gardner said. "And the scene that Russell in his two-page pitch described was the scene where there was this sexy group of investigators in an alleyway at night, it's raining, a corpse is on the ground, and one of them brings out a glove and is able to bring the corpse back to life, which is, of course, the central first scene in Episode 1 of what became Torchwood."