Class - Episodes 1 & 2 are available on to study now!
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Looks like the are on the iPlayer slightly earlier than planned! - Annoyed I can't watch them till this evening!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p048h1s0/class-series-1-1-for-tonight-we-might-die
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p048h1s0/class-series-1-1-for-tonight-we-might-die
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8/10
K
Peter Capaldi was great as usual. I wouldn't complain if he stayed on as their Giles.
A good start IMO.
Seconded. More like The Inbetweeners than anything.
Well that doesn't take much does it?
Oooh burn.
Anyone who hasn't seen it or is undecided to watch it, i reccomend.
I thought there was some good character stuff in there but for the most part the episode was flat, and the production/directing were poor..
Capaldi was easily the best thing about it, and it may of been a mistake to have him in it, maybe they should of kept him for the finale and only had the Tardis bit in this episode because he takes all attention away from the characters they are trying to build up, I didn't go away from this episode thinking about the new characters I just thought about The Doctor and how I wanted more from him and DW to be back, he completely steals the show. If they instead waited to have Capaldi for some big finale then the characters they have would have had a chance to shine and for the audience to get to know them and appreciate them even love them so then they are not so easily overshadowed, meaning instead it would be exciting to see our characters meet The Doctor, but build up to it rather than blowing the load straight away which negates any dramatic weight and audience excitement there could of been in having the characters meet the Doctor...
The Doctors line about Ikea was golden, that made me laugh, easily the best moment in a otherwise meh first episode...
First episodes can be tricky though, many great shows have clunky beginnings (though DW's first episode, both classic and new DW both started brilliantly) so I am going to give the second and perhaps third episode a chance, but if those leave me with a similar impression as the first then I will conclude the show is just not for me...
This is just all my opinion, Glad others liked it..
Tonally, it was all over the place much like DW has been the last two years and I struggled to connect with anyone in it. I didn't find it likeable and the whole premise just seemed really odd, even for something in the whoniverse it didn't seem right.
The brief bit of swearing and the violence seemed so odd as well and it comes across to me like it doesn't know what it wants to be. As I say, all over the place.
Even Capaldi didn't do it for me, but then again I don't like his Doctor. I agree with another poster that him being there actually takes away from it. For Class to stand on its own two feet, it needed to stay away from the Doctor, but it didn't. It feels like its going to be heavily reliant on him.
I can't actually see much variety in the kind of story that can be told either. The next time trailer didn't offer much different to what I'd just seen.
I may go ahead with episode 2, but I don't feel that bowled over by it for sure...
I've only watched Episode 1 but I agree the next time trailer seemed like the same episode in another guise. I will see if the 2nd one works out that way when I watch it tomorrow.
As for Capaldi being in it, I think his appearance was limited enough for him to not to make too much of an impact on the story. I agree the series should stand on it's own two feet and maybe keeping The Doctor out if for a couple of series at least so it can do that.
Also feel it was very Buffyesque in places, especially with the Hellmouth comment.
Wasn't overly impressed with it, it was just the opening episode but it wasn't awful by any means.
The Coach With The Dragon Tattoo - 7/10
It can be extremely tricky to get any kind of pilot off the ground. Spin-offs are far easier, though Class straddles the two somewhat - it's a spin-off no doubt, but it depends heavily on original characters, concepts, ideas and even someone whose never written for Doctor Who running the whole thing. In that respect, Peter Capaldi showing up as the Doctor in the pilot of Class is a welcome treat, but beyond that Class really has to sell itself on its own merits.
As it happens, The Doctor was perhaps the biggest anachronism going in a story that involved shadow monsters, warring alien races and Coal Hill Academy. Capaldi's Doctor is always welcome to show up in anything, and here his appearance which amounts to only around 15 minutes is well utilised and serves the purpose of definitely tying the events down in the Doctor Who universe - including a poignant nod to Clara (and Danny Pink as well) in a brief scene that somewhat plays up the 'dead' aspect of her character a lot more than Doctor Who ended up doing. He gets a fantastic line about Ikea, helps save the day, bigs up the new cast and is then off whizzing about once again... and that's about it from him. We get a fantastic new rendition of the Doctor's theme, and there was something about the lingering sounds of the TARDIS disappearing at the end that made his character more wonderous... something lacking in Doctor Who for a while (no fault of Capaldi who again, is fantastic)... but beyond that everything else about Class - good or bad - was down to Class.
Fortunately then, it was all rather good. The biggest strength of the first two episodes was its characters. Nearly all the characters get their moments - Charlie and April stand out in particular in the first episode, whilst Ram does in the second. Miss Quill gets some stellar moments in both and heads up a great ensemble not too far removed from the groups seen in Buffy. The banter is very similar to that seen in the vampire-slaying show, and it helps to both flesh out the main characters quickly...and making them rather likeable. The parallels to Buffy don't stop there - the monster in the second episode wasn't too different from one seen in Buffy, though the effects are obviously far better in Class (in fact the CGI monster in the second episode was extremely well done). The head of the school gets eaten in his office, as another parallel. The show itself opens at night in a school corridor, playing the role reversal of a girl saving a guy... whilst Buffy opens at night in a school corridor, playing the role reversal of the damsel in distress turning out to be the vampire. Then the term hellmouth even gets dropped in for good measure too. There are definitely worse shows you can be drawing deliberate comparisons to than Buffy!
It wasn't perfect by any means. The exposition dump in the first episode was pretty jarring and quick, not leaving you much time to catch your breath in figuring it all out. You're getting the backstory for two characters at once who aren't who they claim to be, eventhough we've only just been introduced to who they claim to be as well. And then they drop in a Tardis cameo in the same sequence and it's all a bit much for a few minutes. It leaves plenty of time after to make sense of it all, and it essentially sets up the playing field so you know what kind of show you're getting here rather quickly... but it could have maybe used a few more minutes. Another minor criticism is the scene where April tries to get everyone out of the prom hall... which was perhaps the only misjudged scene in the two episodes as everyone failed to listen to her... straining at credibility that nobody was that interested in taking her seriously, or indeed caring that much when she was having palpitations on the floor.
Apart from that though both episodes were very strong - the pilot whilst not perfect did a good job at balancing all of its characters. It has some brilliant comical moments too - Capaldi's Ikea line, and my favourite being Matteusz's "You hired a band?" when the Shadow Kin came marching down the corridor - and wasn't afraid to venture into darker territory without coming across as try-hard like Torchwood did a lot of the time. It generally speaking managed to write younger characters as people, rather than as walking clichés, it had a few subtle nods to the parent show with even Capaldi's treat of an appearance being refined and scaled back. Class proved it could stand on its own two feet quite quickly, and is interesting enough, with enough going on. It is of a high enough quality to not feel like a sci-fi Waterloo Road, and it is distinct enough to not feel like a placeholder for Doctor Who. In doing so it seems to have a definite niche for itself, and I hope it goes from one strength to the next.
Worthy of praise were both the music used in the show - Blair Mowat's score was a refreshing and (pun not intended) classy alternative to Murray Gold's more 'Hollywood' approach. It fit the show well, including a nice piano piece near the end of the first episode and also the new rendition of the Doctor's Theme.
And the opening credits of the show...I really liked them. Torchwood's were nice and simple, The Sarah Jane Adventure's felt to have a cheap version of the Doctor Who one that didn't fit the character at all. The credits to Class were colourful and energetic - amounting to more than the quite dark tone of the show, in tone with the fact it was quite fun in places too. The song used again differentiates it from Doctor Who, but visually it's trippy in its own way and so felt quite familiar. It was more exciting than the opening credits have been visually for Doctor Who in a long while.
When do they get repeated on BBC1/2?
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-10-22/did-you-spot-this-doctor-who-legends-cameo-in-class