Class Series 1 (2016) - Review

Starring: Greg Austin, Fady Elsayed, Sophie Hopkins, Vivian Oparah & Katherine Kelly

Written By: Patrick Ness

Directed By: Ed Bazalgette, Phillippa Langdale, Wayne Yip & Julian Holmes

Certificate: 15

 

2011 wasn't a good year, especially if you were a Doctor Who fan. Not only did we get what is in my opinion, the weakest series of the show, it also saw the end of spin-offs The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood. While each show had its own reasons for coming to an end, the world of Doctor Who has since been feeling smaller and not as vast as it used to be. That is until 2016, and while we may not be getting a full series of the show this year, the Whoniverse could be set to expand with its new spin-off Class. Coming from author Patrick Ness, who specializes in young adult fiction, Class is sold as a British version of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and aimed at a teen/young adult audience. For me personally, it's quite a rarity as for once I'm slap bang in the middle of its target audience, and just like its main characters, I'm also in the middle of my A-Levels at the time of writing. So can Class successfully widen the Whoniverse and paint an accurate picture of late teenage life?

 

Coal Hill School has been at the centre of a huge amount of time travel over the last fifty years. The travels of a Time Lord known as the Doctor have gradually weakened the boundaries of time around the local area, allowing aliens and monsters from across the universe to travel through cracks in time and arrive at the school. When a deadly race known as the Shadow Kin arrive on Earth, followed by even more alien threats, a group of isolated sixth formers have to come together to defend the world, with the help of their mysterious physics teacher Miss Quill.

 

I'm pleased to say that Class was able to establish itself and stand on its own two feet relatively quickly. Compared to other spin-offs Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, Class feels the most distant from its parent show. A big part of this is down to the fact that there's no familiar face leading the show, unlike Doctor Who regulars Captain Jack and Sarah Jane Smith, and the series instead relies on a familiar setting with Coal Hill. The result is a show that feels like an amalgamation of many different things, dealing with Torchwood-esque themes but in a Sarah Jane Adventures setting. Though Class may be the most distant, Patrick Ness does an effective job of balancing independence with continuity. There are many new characters and alien threats introduced, but there are also plenty of Easter eggs to be found that the majority of fans will pick up on. The series even ends on a note that should get most Doctor Who fans really eager to see what's left in store.

 

For the most part, the series also recreates the late teenage years well. As I said earlier, I'm someone at the exact same age as most of the Sixth Formers in the series, and most of the things the series explores to do with this time of life are convincingly done. Feeling social pressures, the difficulty in making new friends, the stress of getting things like homework done on time, university applications, romantic relationships etc. All of these are brilliantly understood and brought to the screen by Patrick Ness, as is the sense of newfound independence at this age. Like writers such as Frank Cottrell Boyce, regardless of the quality of the story he's telling, Patrick Ness at the very least always understands his characters. Representing teenagers is done ten times better here than in several other shows (HIM springs to mind). It's not always a perfect representation, and I have the occasional nitpick, such as the fact that each classroom still features a chalkboard, even though I've never been in any school that still makes use of these (that's probably the pickiest nit I've ever picked). However, the show still does an admirable job overall and already shows impressive diversity among the main cast as far as race, gender and sexuality is concerned.

 

Class is further bolstered by the fact that each of its main characters are multi-layered and evolve well over the course of the series. Part of what makes each of the characters so detailed is that Patrick Ness has given each of them their own episode putting the most focus on them. For example, Charlie gets most focus in the opening episode For Tonight We Might Die, before the focus shifts to Ram in The Coach With The Dragon Tattoo. The focus then shifts again to Tanya in Nightvisiting, before moving again to April in the two-part Co-Owner Of A Lonely Heart and Brave-Ish Heart. This then finishes with the character in need of the most focus: Miss Quill in The Metaphysical Engine, Or What Quill Did. All this character building crosses over to give us one of the series' best character pieces and episodes in general with Detained.

 

Each of the characters benefits hugely from having their own episodes, especially Ram who becomes much more engaging and believable once he's toned down from the overly-cocky football player he was before. While you'll find plenty of cocky people like that in school, very few are quite that stereotypical. Tanya shows great promise right from the start, even though you'll never get me to believe that she is 14, but Nightvisiting sees her at her peak, having to overcome one of the hardest challenges anyone will ever face: temptation. April, and to some extent Charlie, were characters I found myself best relating to, and April in particular makes for someone very kind but also strong-natured. As I've said, of all the main characters, Ms Quill was the one in the most desperate need of development – something she eventually got. While she started out enjoyable to watch, and “Leave us, we are decorating!” may be one of my favourite lines ever, she was dangerously close to becoming one of the Whoniverse's copied and pasted “strong women”, just like Madame Kovarian, Missy, Mrs Delphox and to some extent River Song. But I was thankfully proven wrong and by the end of the series, I really came to love Katherine Kelly's character. In fact, every one of the main cast, from familiar faces like Katherine Kelly to newcomers like Vivian Oparah, impress with their performances, and Patrick Ness is entirely right in saying that he's working with one of the most talented young casts on TV.

 

Inevitably, several of our main characters end up getting romantically involved with each other, but just how believable some of the relationships are is a matter of debate. For me, the pairing of Charlie and Matteusz felt the strongest and most convincing. While there's not enough time in the series to see this relationship grow and prosper all that much, what we get to see is very well written and acted out. The two characters make for a great pairing and Greg Austin and Jordan Renzo make the romance between them feel genuine. Less strong is April and Ram's relationship. This pairing near enough shot itself in the foot from the start, as the way it began felt like a very out of character moment for the both of them. Though Sophie Hopkins and Fady Elsayed do their best with what their given, the romance never really took off for me.

 

Something much more successful than the romance is the balance between a prominent story arc involving the Shadow Kin, and individual stand-alone stories. Rather than the “Monster of the Week” approach I'd expected, Class is more akin to one single series-long story. The Shadow Kin themselves appear in half of the eight episodes, and not without good reason as they're a great creation and brought to life by a complex story arc. They're even well-suited to Class, not being quite family-friendly enough for Doctor Who. Patrick Ness still takes the opportunity to show some creative talent and imagination away from the Shadow Kin. These include creations such as a dragon bound to a PE teacher's skin as a tattoo (and from my experience, all PE teachers are evil), an alien shapeshifter that can masquerade as lost loved ones, petals that replicate after biting someone etc. Not all of these creations impress anywhere near as much as the Shadow Kin and they don't leave as much of an impact, but you can't deny their ambition and creativity.

 

Unfortunately, Class's huge ambition can sometimes lead to one of its biggest problems – its inconsistent pacing. While Patrick Ness tells plenty of individual entertaining stories and has created a great mix of multi-layered characters, the pacing and the way the overall plot moves over eight episodes is very inconsistent. It's hard to escape the feeling that at times the show has bitten off more than it can chew, and some things end up glossed over as a consequence. At no point is this better seen than in the opening episode, For Tonight We Might Die. This is an episode with a lot to do in terms of establishing many new characters, enemies and relationships, and it doesn't always succeed. One of the things this episode had to do was set up the plot point of April having to share her heart with Corakinus. For me, because of how rushed it was, it took several watches before I even understood what had happened in that particular scene. Even when I did understand what had happened, it still felt very contrived. Now this wouldn't be so much of a problem, but when you have another seven episodes that are born out of this scene, it doesn't bode well.

 

If there's one consistent quality that runs throughout Class, it's that it always well-made and looks brilliant. Being set nearly entirely in Coal Hill (though with the occasional voyage to another world), the show doesn't require anywhere near as much variety as Doctor Who and so more of the budget is put towards things like set-design, make-up and CGI. The show's production values look great, especially when we remember that this is a show that started life as an online-only series. The sets, whether it be the revamped Coal Hill or each of our characters' houses, look really good, the CGI is top-notch and the make-up and prosthetic work is amazing. Seriously, the work done on transforming Paul Marc Davis into the Shadow King, Corakinus is astounding work that I simply can't fault. Both familiar and new directors to the Whoniverse get to work on the show, and each brings their unique visual take to it. The Whoniverse also welcomes a new music composer with Blair Mowat, and while I wasn't too keen on the music for the opening titles, or the title sequence in general really, the rest of the music is brilliant and well-suited to Class's darker tones.

 

In conclusion, I won't deny that I was hesitant about Class in the run-up to its premiere, but I soon found it to be a welcome breath of fresh air. It isn't perfect, but it lays some very solid groundwork for a series that has the potential for multiple series and to grow and improve. Sadly, I have serious doubts whether Class will ever get to see a second series, as the BBC have shown zero faith in the show and just don't seem to care about it. It speaks volumes when just two trailers for the show get released a fortnight before the premiere – it honestly felt like someone at the BBC woke up and said “Oh ****, I forgot about that”. Even when it got to TV, it got put in a terrible slot and received pitiful ratings. I would really love to see where a second series would take Class, but I don't know if I ever will. But still, for what it is, Class did a good job and its worth watching whether you're a Doctor Who fan or not.

Class



8/10