Does anyone know when Class is actually being shown on tv?

I ask because whilst it very much doesn't seem to have been noticed much outside of fans so far, I don't think we'll really know how much of a success or failure it will be until it goes on tv, and more of the casual audience get to see it.

I expected they would be showing the episodes on tv maybe a week or two delay from their online premiere, but most of the episodes are now online and I haven't heard a thing about when they might air on tv.

P.s About the show itself, I got around to watching episode 1 over a week ago, and posted (in the episodes 1 and 2 thread) that whilst it was better than I thought, I wasn't exactly desperate to watch episode 2. Fast forward to now and I still vaguely intend to watch episode 2, but after a week and a half since watching episode 1, in all that time, I simply haven't had the urge to. I'm still happy to admit that I enjoyed episode 1 more than i thought I would whilst watching it, but it was kind of forgettable and unimportant in my mind after it was over and I had posted my comments.

Of course that's just me, and I haven't completely written it off just yet, as, like I say, I still have a vague notion of trying episode 2 at some point, but what I will say, is that, after the first episode of Torchwood I absolutely wanted to see what happened next (though happily for me they showed the first 2 on the same night), and was waiting to watch on the night of first broadcast throughout the series. Not trying to compare the two for the sake of it, but just simply pointing out that you know when something grabs your attention from the start, or if it feels a bit so-so, and so far, Class for me is the latter.

In 5 episodes we have learnt they have dealt with everything which comes through the rift and in very similar fashion to UNIT will save the Earth by any means necessary. For instance forcing Charlie to use the box by force.

Not everything needs to be fully explained immediately. For instance these cracks in space and time make no sense after a few episodes, bad writing!

I hope we meet these governers, what do they get out of all of this, are they aliens, are they linked to an organization that specialises in dealing with alien threats?

I'm waiting for the reveal that Ian Chesterson is the head of the governors.

We were told the Governors only took over after the school became an academy which to me suggests Ian isn't part of them.


Could still surprise me I suppose.

The news email this week from the BBC is all about the Christmas special, the Power of the Daleks DVD release and the Doctor Who Legacy game special offer. Not a mention of Class. As for DWM magazine, advertised at the bottom of the email, the cover is as you said, given over to Torchwood. You'd think a new show set in the DW universe would make a more exciting cover than a one cancelled 5 years ago.

Is the BBC's promotion and advertising department secretly working for ITV?

Unless Class does remarkably well when it actually gets broadcast, I don't expect it will be renewed for a second season. In the target demo, the YAs, many watch on mobile devices via iPlayer, not on traditional TVs via broadcasts.

I just can't see where a big improvement in audience size could come from. It's not quality enough. SJA was more entertaining and more hooked into the Doctor Who universe.

Despite being slightly outside the target demographic, , I will watch it through to the end.

Patrick Ness said a couple of days ago that it's all being sorted out, but that he doesn't know when it'll be yet.

Maybe they'll align it with the eventual US broadcast or something? Closer to the release of Series 10 of Doctor Who, gets people talking again. Just speculation.

Given that Being Human used to start on BBC3 in late January/early February, Class might start on BBC2 then. That would lead into the start of Doctor Who.

What about Class going out on Fridays around 11pm on BBC2 from 3rd February, followed by Doctor Who on 1st April.

It's hard to see when they'll schedule this for weekly broadcast as there's not a lot of time before the Blu ray disc is released. It's up on Amazon for pre-order. Due out on 2nd January, 2017. As mentioned in Theophile's release thread too.

Possibly. It's hard to know who they quite intend to target with a TV audience. Many young adults (though not all) tend to make the most of Friday and Saturday nights for socialising - anything they want to watch they can do so on catch-up. I guess it depends on whether they hope to catch the eye of more people within that demographic, or whether they intend to branch out to a wider audience. They could do what they did with Torchwood's second series and air a version that cuts the gore/swearing/sex scenes back a bit to enable an earlier timeslot. I don't know if that'd be workable though.


I wouldn't be surprised to see the weekly broadcast coming after the Blu ray release to be honest. Again considering who their target audience is going to be for a TV broadcast, it's not likely to be the kind of people who buy the box sets - who are also likely to have already watched the show online.

If the Doctor left it to the kids and Quill knowing the Governors would be there, then that at least makes some sense but nothing to that effect has been said, which makes the decision to leave it just to them rather pathetic on the Doctor's behalf.

It's these things that bug me and to me they equate to poor writing. You introduce an organisation that deals with alien invasions to aid our main characters but they're so weakly introduced and explained they feel nothingy. We're over halfway through the series, it's not as if they've got loads of time left to explain things.

That's poor writing in my books.

Tbh I don't think The Doctor cares, in Episode 1 he looked like he couldn't wait to leave and just brushed off everything that happened under the carpet. But I guess thats who he is never thinking about the consequences.

He should care though. I can see other Doctor's caring, but to me the way it was handled was just atypical for Peter's Doctor.

I get the consequences and lack of thinking about them (that's a Doctor thing) but kind as you say just brushing it all under the carpet seemed very off for the character if you ask me.

You'd have thought there would have been some sort of pre-planning for this sort of thing.


Sounds like they way overestimated how many people would watch it online. Apart from the odd, much talked about, extremely well advertised series, I think that in general people are still more likely to discover a show through seeing it on tv than by having to purposely seek it out online (especially if the show in question is so under advertised that a lot of people won't even know it exists to be tempted to seek it out online in the first place).

Can't see their being a huge amount of early sales of the DVD/Blu Ray if it hasn't been shown on tv by the time of it's release. I suspect that sales will only rise, if they do at all, once it's been on tv. Those disc sales in turn, along with ratings data of course, will obviously be involved in the decision as to whether there will be a second series or not, so the show will not at all be helped by it not having had a tv broadcast by the time of the DVD/Blu Ray release.

I personally am neither backing the show or against it at the moment, but if I was Patrick Ness, or anyone who has a personal interest in seeing the show succeed, I think I'd be badgering the bbc to get it on tv as soon as possible.

Maybe, maybe not. The Governors stuff is obviously being used as part of a series arc so I'm holding fire until it plays out before making a judgement about whether it's "poor writing" or not. Personally, I rather like the fact that although the splendidly played Dorothea has mentioned UNIT and made some pretty enigmatic statements, what The Governors actually are remains an almost complete mystery. Nowt wrong with a bit of mystery. Took us six series before we knew much about The Doctor! (Admittedly, 'Class' is very unlikely to last that long, so am guessing this will all play out in the coming weeks...)

I agree with Brandon - the Doctor was presented very badly in the 1st episode imo. But maybe I was too quick to blame Peter; maybe, as Nelson says, it was the writing. I hope so.

So you want the story arc solved in 1 episode for you then? No offence to Sarah Jane either but no way would I let the universe be in the hands of her and some very young kids. You are getting caught up in meaningless beauracracy, the show has many, many problems and this is not one of them.

No. Where on earth do you get that idea from? Considering there are eight episodes, I would have imagined that Patrick Ness would have planned his writing in terms of introducing things and then explaining them etc. It feels all lob-sided with too much being left to the end. That's not good writing.

It's not meaningless beauracracy either. It's trying to add a bit of logic to the decision of the Doctor leaving this all in their hands.

With Sarah Jane, the Doctor trusts her and has built that up over many years and adventures. He knows she'll pick wisely with who to have at her side and can always rely on UNIT is needs be.

What did the Doctor do with Charlie and Quill? Save them, that's all and puts them in charge of this. There's no logic in it and that's my problem.

You don't seem to get my point.

Imo, I don't find it anymore absurd than the idea that the Doctor takes all these young men and women away from their homes and families to travel through time and space and fight killer robots, and frequently trusts them with the fate of a planet or two.

They have been key components of episodes 2 and 4-5, we learn more about them everyday. We just don't know who they really are, but that is what it is building up towards.

As for Sarah many years and adventures of him saving the day not Sarah, he likes her attitude. Much like how he liked how selfless the group was. The Doctor is also known for trusting people and having a soft spot for those who are the last of their species.

Also i imagine he'd realise that someone had been cleaning the mess from the rift since it didn't just appear in the first episode so the group wouldn't be on their own.

But even regardless it is meaningless bureaucracy, you are calling it bad writing because someone from another show is out of character when the only reason he is there is to get the group together.

Someone is out of character. That is bad writing. Why do you seem to take offence to that? The Doctor hasn't behaved like the Doctor.

You seem to take it personally that I find the writing bad. I don't get why. I'm making valid point. You can disagree with them if you want, but it won't change my view.

Whether the Doctor is "out of character" or not and this aspect is bad writing is debatable. The jury is still out in my opinion.

If you consider that, as a Timelord, the Doctor has some knowledge of the future of Earth, Coal Hill and the YA "team" and that elsewhere he's probably got something larger on his plate he needs to urgently deal with, his behaviour is easily explained and he still retains his "caring" status.

He helps protect more than just Earth and us humans in the 21st century. It may seem like we're special to him, and we may be, but he deals with threats and evil all over spacetime when he's off screen.

It's unknown as yet but it's possible the governors may be revealed as benign and part of the protection the Doctor has arranged for Earth. They may even be an arm of Torchwood or UNIT. If that turns out to be true, it's safe to assume the Doctor knew that and used that knowledge to assess the risk to the YAs in particular and to 21st century Earth in general.

As I've said, if he knows of the Governors true purpose etc then I don't have an issue. It's the fact to me its been done so sloppily that he's just saved two people and then entrusted them and a few other people with keeping everyone safe that irks me.

To me, that's not what the Doctor would do. He would ensure things are in safe hands etc, not just hand it over to them and hope for the best. That's how it comes across to me.

It wasn't this sloppily done in Torchwood or SJA and that's what's got me the most. How poorly done it's been done in that regard.

I remember people here complaining "Why doesn't the Doctor come back and save the Earth" during certain Torchwood stories. In the real world that's necessary as drama to avoid it becoming another episode of Doctor Who. It undermines the Torchwood crew as dramatic heroes and therefore the series itself, if they can call him up anytime they need help. In-verse its explainable that a) the Doctor is busy elsewhere b) he knows they can cope with anything that comes up. I think similar comments were made about TSJA too.

The reasons for the Doctor's confidence in this team have not (yet) been established in Class, but I don't think the governors turning out to be benign is actually needed to explain the Doctor's behaviour. My first two points on their own are sufficient, but they've not been made explicit in the show itself.

I'm not saying I want the Doctor to appear and help save the day etc. I get he has off-screen adventures, I fully understand that. It's the weak way that this set-up has been presented that's the issue. It's just there....

Five episodes into a series of eight episodes to me means more about this simple plot point should have been explained by now. Instead of having that two-parter there (it felt like it was trying to be a finale if I'm honest), an episode exploring these issues (without the Doctot even appearing) would have better. It would have immersed the show into the Whoniverse far better anyway.

It still feels very detached from the Doctor Who world even though it's part of it. Things like this in my opinion would help it out a lot.