December with the Doctor: Spin-Offs

A couple of brief thoughts:

• "The Sarah Jane Adventures" is a far better show than "Torchwood." Maybe it's because "Torchwood" rarely feels like it fits comfortably in the Whoniverse, maybe it's because the tone of "SJA" is closer to the tone of the parent series, all I know is that it's just a shame that a great character like Captain Jack has to headline the inferior show. Not that Sarah Jane should be headlining an inferior show; I'd just like "Torchwood" to be better.
  
• And I don't have much hope that the forthcoming 13-episode series of "Torchwood" (is it the third or fourth season? Does "Children of Earth" count as a season?) will be much of an improvement. I mean, the actual Torchwood Three team is down to two members, one of whom is in the family way. Either the season is going to have to have a recruitment drive--which might be interesting, since Gwen started out as the POV character for the uninitiated audience and would now be playing the veteran--or it's going to have a very small pool of people left to kill off in the finale.
  
  Perhaps I'm just a little bitter, but Tosh and Ianto were my favorite non-Jack characters on the show, and I'd really like them not to be dead.
  
• Which is not to say that I can't think of any way for the series to improve. Maybe they could begin the show with finding (and absorbing the members of) the lost Torchwood Four, maybe Martha and Mickey could join up, maybe the larger Torchwood body could demote Jack (for frequently going AWOL and getting the vast majority of his team killed, not to mention allowing a civilian to participate in classified activities) and bring in someone to take charge and create drama (in my dreams, it'd be UNIT transfer from the old series--Mike Yates, Liz Shaw, Jo Grant, or Sgt. Benton). Maybe we could get a sense that there is a larger Torchwood organization, because that really hasn't been present in the series so far.
  
• Seriously, if "SJA" ends without someone--anyone!--making reference to the fact that a main character's name is Rani, I'm going to go nuts. I don't necessarily think that she should turn out to be the Rani, but I definitely think that the name shouldn't go unnoticed. It'd be like naming a character "Cy Lurian" or "Mac Ra." Letting it hang is just frustrating.
  
• I have no desire to watch the new "K-9" series, although I hope it doesn't mean the absence/rumored death of K-9 from the next season of "SJA."

What are your thoughts?