I didn’t know what to call it this thread and then Tanya called their hellmouth “the bunghole of time” in episode 2 
I’m currently rewatching Class because even though I saw it on transmission and repeated it once since, I never rated the episodes on the website and I want the badge!
So here’s a thread to discuss all things Class on TV. After this I may delve into the audios as well, but that will be a separate thread!
Episode 1:
I quite enjoyed the first episode - as pilots go it was very good at setting up the premise and introducing the characters. The Twelfth Doctor makes a cameo appearance at the end and explains the plot, this is basically Buffy but in the Whoniverse.
I love Miss Quill. She is amazing.
I like that Charlie is gay. And I love Matteusz!
Not a fan of the Shadowkin though, they are just not the kind of monster I enjoy. Did anyone watch the first season of Star Trek: Discovery? They remind me of the Klingons in that series.
The show is basically a cross between The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood in that it has a specific target audience - this time young adults rather than children - and there’s some gore and a bit of nudity.
So far, so good.
Episode 2
This was Ram’s episode and I remember not really enjoying it the first time but this time I did, it has a typical monster-of-the-week format but really gives us time to learn more about the characters, mostly Ram, and I enjoy it.
Miss Quill continues to be epic.
And the coach is a looker, several shower scenes, they know exactly what they are doing here
It’s still setting up the premise of the show, as the whole gang haven’t got together yet but by the end they are all connected with their group trauma.
I still am really concerned that the Doctor just left them here to get on with it, with no protection. Pretty irresponsible!
Well they had protection… sort of
I haven’t rewatched this since broadcast and literally only just got the DVD for my birthday a week or so ago. It does need a require a rewatch and a dive into the audios.
Class really is a lot of fun, it’s just a shame the second and third episodes (especially that second) come when they do, the rest of the series is more connected and the monster of the week stuff really takes away from it.
Honestly I think it’d’ve been a much better series at 6 episodes (or even 7, I do quite like nightvisiting) rather than the 8 they got. That said don’t think it’d save it, the BBC didn’t promote it at all, and it felt like they didn’t know what they really wanted to do with the series which is a real shame.
I’ve listened to all the audios and mostly they’re pretty meh, they’re limited by having to take place during the events of the season (explicitly having to be after episode 1 as well so backstory stuff was harder), so most of them just end up being more mediocre monster of the week fare, but there is some really good stuff in there:
Volume 1’s Tell Me You Love Me is possibly my favourite take on a semi-sound based monster, and it’s an excellent character piece for Charlie, Quill, and Matteusz, one of my less than 15 favourite stories on the guide.
Volume 2’s In Remembrance is just some solid fun, but how can it not be with Ace and direct ties to Remembrance of the Daleks. A dalek from that story getting pulled through the portal to modern day Coal Hill? Sign me up!
Volume 3 doesn’t really have anything to write home about from what I remember, but Volume 4 has Queen of Rhodia which explores Quill’s backstory a lot more in a unique way that’s just a lot of silly fun.
And the special release Secret Diary of a Rhodian Prince is probably the most important to listen to if you’re going to listen to any, it’s a single release so it’s a lot cheaper, and there’s an ‘epilogue’ that takes place directly after the events of The Lost. They mention in the interviews that they’re now allowed to do stories after the series, so I can’t wait for Volume 5 whenever that ends up coming (or whatever they do instead).
I haven’t read the three books, but I do want to, if nothing else than to be able to say I’ve ‘completed’ Class.
I still need to even buy the books!
Oh so do I to be fair.
The first one is written by James Goss too, so it’s got to be good
I watched Class earlier this year (or was it late last year?) but it was a little while before I found this site and I felt I wasn’t familiar enough with the stories to rate them without a rewatch.
Oh, that perfectly exemplifies my problems with them. Great parallel, Shauny!
So pleased to see this thread. I’m really rather fond of ‘Class’.
I know exactly what you mean. Their threat is nowhere near as abstract as it should have been and, as a result, they feel way too generic. Dare I say, boring?
Yes. I’ll say it loud and proud.
The Shadowkin are BORING! The most boring thing in the series for me.
I feel really sad that this series never really got the chance to develop past season 1. It had its issues, but also such promise!
And, yes, Miss Quill is outstanding!
Episode 3: Nightvisiting
This is one I remember pretty well, I remembered the setting and the monster, and I actually really like it!
It’s such a great design, so creepy and organic, and whilst temptation monster has been done before, it was done pretty well, and the climax was good!
Speaking of climax… Charlie and Matteusz have that scene and… wow! 
I knew I rewatched this for a reason 
I did feel sorry for Miss Quill at the end, she saved the day but no-one even thanked her. I love her!
I slightly disagree @JayPea, I think if the show had been all monster-of-the-week I may have enjoyed it more. As soon as I saw Shadowkin in the Next Time trailer my eyes rolled. I just want more madcap adventures of these teens, and Miss Quill of course!
What started out as me watching these just so I could tick the boxes, has become something I really enjoy!
I really think the best shows balance ‘monster of the week’ with arcs. Doctor Who is, after all, the ultimate ‘monster of the week’ show and it’s been ever so slightly successful. I’ve always preferred shows which had the structure of Doctor Who’s ‘new adventure every week’ such as Quantum Leap or Blakes 7 or Farscape or TNG and tended not to be able to get into shows which focussed more on long running story arcs across a season like Babylon 5 or DS9. Long form stories can engage me if the story is engaging such as the utterly superb Orphan Black but those series which balance both structures well are more likely to become my favourites like Supernatural, Buffy or the modern continuation of Quantum Leap (which, for my money, balanced ‘adventure of the week’ with ‘overarching plot’ extremely well and it is criminal that its been cancelled with so much potential still left).
I think they should’ve picked one and stuck with it rather than a mix of both, the best shows do do a good mix, but I don’t think the first couple monster of the week stories were really all that strong for advancing the plot or characterisation (again I think coach with the dragon tattoo is much worse than nightvisiting, but haven’t seen either in a while.
It’s more just I think that they could probably have cut those two episodes and not really lost all that much overall
Ahh, but Blake’s 7 (can’t not use the apostrophe - it will ever bother me!) And Farscape both also had pretty well developed arcs. They both did one-off stories regularly and well, yet both also gradually developed ongoing arcs. Granted, B7 series C was very arc light, but I actually think that harms the overall sense of real stakes for that season. I love several individual stories in B7 Series C but am much more invested in series A, B and D as a whole.
Personally, getting the balance right between one-off stories and arc relevant stories is tricky but makes for the most compelling TV of all (for my tastes, at least). For this reason, although clear arcs are less prevalent in classic DW (anomalies like season 16 aside), I love spotting season long themes as it scratches the same mental itch for me.
Apologies for the digression. Back to Class.
I love Nightvisiting. You are right that it’s a well worn trope, but you’re also right that it’s done very well here.
This is one of the episodes (unlike a good deal of the Shadowkin stuff) that actually feels entirely in keeping with DW (kind of important for a Who spinoff) and, also, of a kind with 'Torchwood.
After looking at the wiki for the never-produced season 2, I will forever be bitter that we never saw it televised, as there were plans to get Juno Dawson (whose work has impressed me from what I have seen so far), and Derek Landy (writer of the Skulduggery Pleasant books, which I absolutely adore) in to do episodes, which I would love to have seen
Agreed. Such a shame. I know Class had its issues as a Doctor Who spinoff, but it deserved so much better than it got. There were excellent ideas aplenty, there was a strong young cast led with real charisma by the outstanding Katherine Kelly and there was such heart to it all. It deserved the opportunity to show more diversity and develop its core themes/unveil the overriding plot through a second season at the very least.
Things I didn’t like:
The Shadowkin: They should have been much more abstract and unknowable to feel like a real extradimensional threat. In the end, they were just very generic warlike aliens.
Coal Hill Academy: I love that it’s set in Coal Hill School, but I really don’t like the fact that the school bears no resemblance to what we see on screen in DW series 8. I’m happy enough for the Sixth Form to be in a new build, but even occasional glimpses of the Coal Hill School that had featured on the main show so recently would have helped visually ground Class in the establishd DW universe. It would have been an easy way to visually link the shows together that could have transcended Capaldi’s Ep 1 cameo. A missed opportunity.
Ep 2 - The Coach With the Dragon Tattoo: An episode that made the same mistake of Day One in Torchwood by trying way too hard to be adult and edgy but not having a sufficiently worthwhile plot to make it feel deserved. Plus, the dragons were so cheesy and so very tonally different from the gore that they caused. It’s not awful but I don’t think it matches the heights of other episodes from the series. I do agree with @shauny, though, that it does the character stuff well and works hard to develop Ram further.
The things I do like are much more numerous.
For now, I’ll comment on:
Ep 1 - For Tonight We Might Die: Yes, despite the Shadowkin, I actually thought this was a very solid opener. The principal cast were introduced well, especially given the number of characters that needed to be established quickly. The key story beats were set up and ready to recur throughout the season. All that and we got a cameo from the Doctor himself!
Ep 3 - Nightvisiting: As I said in an earlier post, I really enjoyed this episode. The trope may be well worn, but the creature was really nicely realised and quite disturbing. The scenes at night, with tendrils across the city, were quite eerie. Following on from the focus on Ram just the episode before, we get to learn much more about Tanya. Yup, this was great fun. This was the episode where I knew I’d be strapped in for the rest of the season.
That’s it from me for now, but there was much better still to come!
I agree about the Shadowkin, they are just “generic monster” and they feature in half of the episodes… That’s a lot.
And it was probably a mistake that all the episodes were written by the same person, it got to feel very “same-y”.
This show feels like it could be something really good, but entirely too much time is spent on teen angst to develop an actual plot in most episodes. (I will never watch Detained again…) If teen angst in storytelling is something you enjoy on the other hand then I could imagine people liking this sort of thing. And the best of the bunch of the teens, Matteusz, seems relegated to secondary character for a lot of the episodes.
Miss Quill is the best thing about this show by lightyears! Her exasperation at having to deal with these teens is delightful, and when she gets to stretch her legs so to speak in the final two episodes she gets even better.
Something like the Arn that sits in Quill’s head preventing violent action except to protect her sworn enemy as a punishment is a fantastic concept, but the focus always is placed on Charlie when it gets brought up.
If this was just the Quill show I would be so happy!
This show sits just above the K9 show, and just below K-9 & Company in my arbitrary ranking of Doctor Who TV spinoffs. I want to like it, but it is just not for me.
Got home from husband’s birthday celebrations, feeling tired and just want to chill, so I put on Class and ended up watching it all afternoon.
Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart + Brave-ish Heart
This two-parter is really where the show goes downhill for me. Two episodes dedicated to a really annoying story that I don’t like. April being “badass” is just cringe. The Shadowkin are the worst Doctor Who monster I can think of, they don’t even seem like Doctor Who monsters, as I said before they are like Klingons from Star Trek Discovery. Ugh.
The best bit about the 2 episodes are the ‘carnivorous plants’ subplot - I really thought it would go somewhere interesting and that there would be a cool twist but nah the ending of it was bad. And all the Quill stuff was great. The rest, bleh.
Detained
I must have remembered this wrong, or it doesn’t hold up to repeat viewings, because I thought that I enjoyed the bottle episode last time I saw the series but instead I just found it derivative, predictable, and boring.
Teenagers saying “I love you more than you love me” after only seeing each other for like a month is… okay it’s not unrealistic because I do remember being a teenager and thinking after 5 minutes that I would die if my crush didn’t text back straight away but… it does not exactly make for good drama. And it was the same cut and paste drama with April & Ram as with Charlie & Matteusz (mostly).
Basically the best thing about the entire episode was the bit at the very end where Quill comes back, with a new haircut and a scar, and totally scares everyone silly. I actually think the excitement of finding out what happens next is what makes you leave this episode on a high.
Right, onto the next one!
The Metaphysical Engine, or What Quill Did
Brilliant episode. Miss Quill is the best thing about this show.
Can she please come back to Doctor Who?
So much fun!
I rather enjoyed Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart and Brave-ish Heart, I thought it was a fairly strong story that just managed to be let down by some particularly dodgy vfx (a problem I find plagues most of the series)