In the Dr Who spin-off, Torchwood, the immortal - and impossibly handsome - Captain Jack Harkness suddenly becomes mortal on Miracle Day, while the other 7 billion people on earth stop dying and begin existing in the nightmare of Tithonus, condemned to live forever, but not to have eternal youth.
We know Captain Jack will save the day because he lives on for another 5 million years to become the Face of Boe in Dr Who.
Grumpy dystopians - among whom I count myself - will maunder on forever about the Icarusian perils of Botox, boob jobs and broccoli. But, think about it: immortality could present some very interesting investment opportunities.
Torchwood's central evil character, Oswald Danes (sleazily played to perfection by Bill Pullman), nails it when he asks: "Has anyone paid attention to the profits the drug companies are making with all those drugs we have to take?" Convicted paedophile Danes has miraculously escaped death by lethal injection and so becomes a media celebrity on talk shows.
While being a fictional character only, the creepy, slithering Danes is onto something ... that there's money to be made from people living for much, much longer than three score years and 10.
In theory, drug companies' stocks should boom. For example, cholesterol-lowering drug use by the over-50s has grown sixfold since 1995, according to the January issue of the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA), while anti-depressant use has trebled.
And alternative therapies manufacturers look set to flourish. The same issue of the MJA reports that fish oil for heart disease prevention and glucosamine for arthritis are now used as much as the most popular prescription drugs.
Meanwhile, back in TorchwoodLand, the team fights desperately to save the world. While Captain Jack is swashing and buckling all over the US, his wondrously feisty offsider, Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles), is in Wales, trying to rescue her father from an 'overflow camp'. One of the minor characters remarks that the camps cannot accommodate all the people who keep arriving for triage into one of three categories.
Gradually, another Torchwood operative Ben Matheson (Mekhi Phifer) uncovers the ghastly truth: the solution to too many people who age but will not die is immolation in fire chambers.
While I'm not suggesting that overflow camps are part of a diversified asset allocation strategy in the future, the issue of accommodation and care for the grey tsunami bears thinking on, as do the investment possibilities.
However, making longevity return a dividend is challenging, both in the present and in the Torchwood-envisioned future. Olivia Colasanto (Nana Visitor) is the granddaughter of Angelo Colasanto, one of Captain Jack's lovers from one of his past lives.
Olivia explains to Captain Jack that her bedridden, comatose grandfather has managed to live for 120 years by eating very little and living in a climate-controlled environment. "Prolonging life is simple," the enigmatic granddaughter grimaces coolly, "except that no-one's worked out how to make a profit out of it."
One day ... no one dies ... for a long time.
The next day ... no one dies ... for a long time.
And the next ... the profits begin.
And the next ... the dividends flow.
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