The final two seasons of Torchwood are unlike anything I have ever watched. For both of them, it feels like an entire two seasons of a show being dedicated to one (or in this case, two) of those discussions we always seem to have in LA/ GP, about ethics, morality, science, and humanity.
In the third season of Torchwood, "Children of Earth", an alien species, called the 456, descends onto Earth (England's Thames House, to be specific), and then threatens for 10% of the world's children to be given to them. Later in the season, we find out that this is because to the aliens, the children produce some kind of fluids that are like drugs to the aliens. This, in turn, sparks a flurry of politics and debates, of countries (England, to be specific) hiding secrets from the rest, of the government hiding secrets from the public.
We see the politicians start to label the nation's children, to classify them such that they are able to give the lowest-ranking, lowest-performing, "worst" children to the aliens. Of course, there were some politicians who argued that they should just pick the unfortunate 10% at random, something which reminded me very much of The Hunger Games. But other politicians then demanded that their own children be taken out of the "lucky draw", so in the end, they decided to label the children by their backgrounds and their schools and their future prospects.
In the fourth series of Torchwood, "Miracle Day", a seeming "miracle" has happened overnight. Everyone (all of the human race) on earth can't die. Even if they have a heart attack, or jump off 45 storeys, or are in the centre of an explosion - they can't die. This leads to a series of problems, including the lack of hospital facilities, because people who should have died continue living. They take up the hospital space, the medicine, the facilities, everything. So, the governments of the world decided to create categories. Category 3 means you're normal. Category 2 means you're injured, but conscious. Category 1 means you should have died. And since the hospitals are overflowing and everything, what do they do with the people in Categories 1 and 2? They send them to "Overflow Camps", which are really more like concentration camps than "field hospitals".
Later in the show, we find out just what they do with those in Category 1. They send them to huge ovens to get burned to ash. And this, of course, triggers a lot of questions about humanity. This power to decide who lives and who dies. The categorising of people, because as one character very aptly put it, "people don't just fit into one category".
In all, Torchwood has been a simply amazing 4 seasons. The first 2 were great and heart-breaking, and the last 2 really approached a lot of major themes and topics, from those mentioned above, to really omnipresent, ongoing ones, like homosexuality.
The TV shows I've watched have never made me question so much about humanity before. And I guess, that's the amazing part of this whole show. Although it's a show largely centred around aliens, it relates so much to our own planet and to our own human nature, and that's why I really enjoy it.