In its defence there were still a small handful of stories I very much enjoyed in Series 1 and 2 that were handled very well. I felt that Out of Time in Series 1 was very good - no alien threat, no impending doom, just three ordinary people who fell out of the 1950's and landed in the present day. It was a great human drama which played out very well. Series 2's Adrift was also very human - just an ordinary teenager who was swept up by the rift and then spat back out, left insane after being sent to a burning world where he looked into the heart of a Dark Star. I looked into it after being somewhat surprised it was a Chibnall script (I don't usually rate them that highly) and it was produced after only a second draft, and was what essentially paved the way for Series 3 - more human stories, dealing with morality and loss. Fragments wasn't too bad either for very similar reasons.

It seems, to me at least, Torchwood was at its best when it was at its bleakest too

I wonder if the show will be closer to SJA, in terms of tone or closer to Torchwood. That will definitely decide what its audience will be, and i have no clue what is in plan for the show. Which is a massive problem, people need to know more about this show.

Yes it was. It was the same Sarah from the Third and Fourth Doctor's times, but older obviously, as it was 2007.

Something that has been playing on my mind on/off for a few days; I was watching The Five Doctors on DVD about a week ago. Sarah was there, and we got a glimpse of K9 just before she got taken by Borussa to The Death Zone on Gallifrey. Sarah doesn't remember any of this, does she? That part would have been wiped by the Time Lords after she went back to England and K9 in 1983. Am I right?

I'm not sure, but it's a reasonable idea and makes sense, so I'm going with that. :P

I think The Five Doctors often gets glossed over in Who continuity. The Eight Doctors picked up on it quite a bit, also written by Terrance Dicks, but if I remember right just raised a bunch of new plot holes of its own.

Alice in Wonderland
Huckleberry Finn
Lord of the Flies
The Hobbit
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Pinocchio
Gulliver's Travels
Ender's Game

There were the occasional episodes that told some pretty good stories, like the ones you mentioned. If I remember right, though, Out of Time was another one where the sex was a little on the excessive side.

I looked up what the writers were for SJA, not having seen it in a while, and it seems most of my favourite episodes from the show were done by Phil Ford. Which makes sense, as I've adored the two episodes he's worked on for Doctor Who (The Waters of Mars and Into the Dalek).

If it wasent for older adults the kids wouldnt see it in the first place. Only reason they watch who is parents forcing them to watch it and then they enjoy the show.

Speaking as a huge fan of Patrick Ness' work, I think that there's a vast difference between young adult drama and the likes of SJA that was aimed predominantly at children. Young adult drama tends to be very intelligent and thought provoking whilst picking up on a variety of interesting themes and people writing off Class before they know anything about it clearly look down on the genre for their own reasons, when it's produced some exceptional literary material like Harry Potter and Hunger Games, not to mention other classics previously mentioned.

Maybe we will see a young Chesterton.

Class announcements to come after Easter.

- Ness

Girly Letters is speculating at least two cast members - Fady Elsayed and Greg Austin.

Some of the things both guys have tweeted recently are a little suspect. Patrick Ness is also following them ....

https://twitter.com/GirlyLetters?ref...Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Not really. Season 1 started with good ratings but went downhill once people started seeing how bad it was. The show was given a second chance and a bit of a re-tool bringing in James Masters in an attempt to improve ratings. This helped to begin with but some episodes in the ratings slipped again. For Children of Earth RTD took the budget for the 13 episodes planned and used it to make five episodes. With the obvious epic scale to the whole thing and with RTD behind it BBC moved it to BBC1 where it was shown primetime and did great. It really didn't do well the first few seasons and factual evidence will tell you this.

My comment wasn't an opinion, I was commenting on 'factual evidence'.

Series 1 - lowest viewing figure of any episode was 830,000,
series 2 - lowest viewing figure was 3.13 million
series 3 - lowest viewing figure - 6.14 million

So, like I said, the viewing figures went up substantially every series for the first three.

Series 1 was on BBC 3, series 2 on BBC 2 and series 3 on BBC 1, so no surprise there.

Another indicator of it being a success that it was bumped up each time.

News of a cast member for 'class' for those interested.

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-...spin-off-class

Not an official announcement, but the article has a screen grab of an online profile of his where it says 'currently shooting a series regular role in 'Class', the new doctor who spinoff series for bbc3', so as close to official as you can get really.

We're getting an announcement on Monday for the show, so we'll know then who has been cast.

Everyone snoozing?


http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/lat...016/class-cast

"Class is dark and sexy..."

Oh... I heard that one before. :P

Katherine Kelly was unexpected.

Bit of a shame they didn't give us some character names. Odd too actually but other than that, intrigued and Katherine Kelly is great casting.

Don't really watch the soaps, not since the Nineties, but see bits when visiting the folks. Last time I watched regularly off my own bat was Corrie, because I'd seen and been impressed by Katherine Kelly. Lost interest after she left, but have seen her in other things and been impressed. I think she's a fine actor.

I was always going to give this a look anyway, but am most pleased with this casting.

I'm not convinced by what else I've seen and heard about this series so far, but Katherine Kelly is astounding casting and completely out of left field. I don't think anyone could have predicted an actress - who is so in demand at the moment - of her calibre taking the lead adult role.

Her work on the final series of Mr Selfridge blew me away and I loved her presence in The Night Manager and Happy Valley, playing entirely different characters. If she is be relatively prominent then I'll be certain now to tune in.

Coincidentally, Class is not the first supernatural drama series she will be starring in this year:

http://www.itv.com/presscentre/press...whitehead-star

On an related note, it's a bit surreal that Greg Austin is playing a 6th form pupil considering Gordon was around 30 years old in the last series of Mr Selfridge, heavily involved in his father's business and with two children and a wife.

I had some reservations and it could still go either way but the casting has given me more confidence in it.

BIB: Supernatural? Really? One thing that Doctor Who has never had is anything truly supernatural. There have been things that appeared to be supernatural at first but they've always turned out to have a scientific explanation. If it is going to have "real" ghosts it doesn't belong in the Doctor Who universe.