Cardiff. Night. A little old lady is trying to cross the street when a sporty red convertible speeds up to the intersection. Sitting behind the wheel is a fish. That’s right, a fish, gills and all. I don’t know if it bodes well for this season that they’re kicking off with an alien who’s about as scary as, well, a fish. He’s basically Charlie the Tuna on crack. What’s next? An attack from the Puppy Planet?

Charlie zooms away. Almost immediately, the Torchwood van pulls up and Gwen starts grilling the poor woman about the whereabouts of the fish. Not getting any intel from her, they speed off.

Old Woman: Bloody Torchwood.

Clearly this woman has been watching Season 1. Like all of us, she’s become exhausted by careening between loving and hating it — and disgusted that all those promised sex scenes proved to be of the hetero or girl-on-girl variety.

I had pretty much given up on this show around the time of the killer fairies. But then those steamy pictures of James Marsters started showing up in previews for Season 2, and there was no way I was going to miss that. Because I love me some Spike! Even on Buffy’s goofy final two seasons. Even when he showed up on Angel and all those fair-weather Buffy fans started hating him with the intensity of a thousand hellmouths.

Team Torchwood takes off in hot pursuit of the Fish on wheels. It’s a sign of how generally ill-equipped they are for intergalactic battle that the aliens get to drive around in flashy sports cars while they’re stuck patrolling the streets in a clunky SUV like carpooling soccer moms.

They decide to pass the time during the boring car chase by bitching about how Jack’s not around, like they’re worried he’s gone to some management training seminar and will come back with all sorts of touchy-feely ideas and trust exercises.

From the looks of it, they did take advantage of his absence to dip into the space-time Rift and journey to the Makeover Galaxy. Because they’ve all come back with new hair. With Ianto and Tosh, the new look has made them even sexier, while with Owen and Gwen, it’s made them look even more like twins. I swear sometimes I think they’re played by the same pasty, androgynous actor.