I also think Buffy (which I think is a fair comparison) worked by having a very clear central protagonist at the start, with the more ensemble feel of the show developing over time. I think it was the same for Torchwood and TSJA.

I think Class has tried too hard to be an ensemble piece from the start, and the end result has been a bit messy (I think).

I also think some of the stories have been a bit rushed - did we really need to revisit the April/Shadow King mid-season? It could have been a nice slow-burn as she gradually developed new powers and learnt how to use them.

The lack of consequence, also, has been annoying.

I do think there is still plenty there to improve upon for season 2 but as others have alluded to, I'm not entirely sure it will get there.

Episode 7 appeared to perform even worse than last week. It remained out of the top-40 all day again before appearing just inside the top-30 by 11pm. That was an improvement on last week, which was the same except it only scraped into the top-40 at that point.

Episode 7 then rose slowly overnight but failed to reach the top-20, let alone the top-10. Then it spent most of Monday slowly sinking back down into the top-30 before disappearing from the top-40 all together by the evening.

There have been a few issues with this show although the show being completely online was a big mistake in my eyes. I'm in my 20s and even I find it hard to keep up with these online-only shows. These things only work if you have very expensive advertising (The Grand Tour on Amazon) or if you release the entire series in one go (Netflix). A weekly show on BBC Three just doesn't keep people reminded about it.

This should have aired on BBC Three on Saturdays, followed by airing on BBC Two on TV on a weekday, and subsequently aired around the same time in the US (a bit like what they've done with Doctor Who recently) - airing the show in multiple countries around the same time also helps with online free advertising (hashtags etc).

The advertising has been very minor, they seem to be relying entirely on the Doctor Who fandom to keep this show afoot, rather than trying to draw in new viewers (I know a lot of people who started just watching Torchwood and SJA and had never seen Doctor Who). Social media advertising seems to be very slim, as an example the official Doctor Who page has posted two things regarding Class since it premiered. I know Class isn't Doctor Who, although given the 5 million 'likes' on Facebook this page should have been used to promote the show constantly every week.

I've really enjoyed Class, there are some issues here and there but the show has potential and I think the show would benefit from a 10-13 episode second series to start to pad out the characters and the world they live in. This series has suffered a lot from 8 episodes, entirely new characters (no links like Sarah Jane for SJA or Captain Jack for Torchwood) and a story arc that had to be set up, explained and resolved very quickly. I really think 10-13 episodes would have helped this show far more.

I'd be surprised if a second series is commissioned, although if BBC Three's highest rated show during the weeks of Class was 247,000, then Class' 185,000 might just be OK. Hopefully they get this aired on TV soon.

It fell in the trap of wanting to be too much like Buffy when the show is nothing like it. Don't go in a school if you don't intend to actually do anything at a school. Problem 2 is they focused on the individual plot of the episode and nothing else, which means dodgy development, no consequences and everything becomes insular. But on the positive side there are some good ideas and potential however you need more than ideas for something to work.

Except, those figures compare two episodes of Class to one episode of something else. Also, it covers the first two episodes of Class, both of which did considerably better in the iPlayer top-40 chart than subsequent episodes.

The first one made the top-10 and hung around the chart for a few days whilst episode 7 only made the top-30 almost a day after it was released and was out of the chart less than a day after that. The chart positions appear to suggest it's mostly watched in the early hours of Sunday morning, with very few people watching on Saturday.

I think the show would have worked better and made the characters more engaging if they followed the Skins model and had each episode revolve around the live of one character. We'd get to see their home life, social life, school life and then their interaction with the alien-fighting people. This would have led to good character development all around, something I think that's been rather lacking for most of the characters.

Forget Buffy, the much more recent 'Stranger Things' only had 8 episodes.

I think you're setting the bar a bit too high now

Really interesting reading about the Buffy comparisons and Class on this thread . I haven't watched Buffy in a very long time but I watched the first couple of episodes again last night. What I liked about it was that most of the first episode is from Buffy's point of view as the newcomer to the school and although Willow and Xander become her close friends there isn't any attempt made to go into their back histories yet. Angel who is her love interest is also kept as a hopefully benign but mysterious figure for the first few episodes. You are told who the big bad is going to be very clearly and you get a sense of where the series will be going to.

So whilst I'm not saying that Class should be entirely like Buffy I think there are some things that worked to make it enjoyable and intriguing that Class could learn from .
As Mullet says perhaps it needed a more central protagonist to bring everyone else together. The obvious choice would have been to make Charlie as the alien , stronger and pair him with April who keeps her connection to the Shadow kin until the finale.
After all if it wasn't for him being at Coal Hill School the shadow Kin wouldn't have been there looking for the cabinet. . The contempt between Charlie and Quill is there already so justifies all these aspects coming together

Also Buffy does give you the side characters like Jessie who is converted to a vampire but least we get to know him a little bit. We never got to know Ram's girlfriend at all so couldn't really care about her when she died.
I didn't really enjoy the episode with the coach with the Dragon Tattoo or the back story with April's dad ( too soon to bring him in and Tanya's ) so would have happily swapped those aspects and stories for a bit of work creating a realistic world around the teenagers being at Coal hill.

While the plan was always to repeat original BBC3 content including Class on either BBC1 or 2 there was never a dedicated slot put aside for this, however this might be changing at some point.

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-...3-hour-on-bbc2

It remains to be seen if Class will get a TV showing before this BBC3 Hour gets going or if they are planning to wait for it.

Just watched the finale, what a mess of an episode. They are super confident of a 2nd season and decided to make this the most convoluted story i've ever seen just in the name of a cliffhanger.

And what is with the deaths and no one caring for more than 5 minutes?? If you are going to kill everyone at least make them have some emotional consequences and why isn't Charlie dead? Didn't the Shadow Kin leader die.

Since when can you become an elite fighter with 5 minutes of training, what is with this constant character development problems, stop changing them up every 10 minutes. The logic in the show is genuinely we need another good fighter, lets make the 14 year old clever kid with no fighting experience kick ass of an entire army with 5 minutes training. Lets turn her into a fighter, these issues of speeding up characters development has plagued the show. Speeding up i mean skipped since there hasn't been any.

And lastly it is alright taking inspiration from Buffy, but now they are legitimately copying every aspect, literally the guardians are exactly the same as Watchers. Have some imagination of your own.

So my season review will contain positives, negatives and likelihood of a 2nd season.

Positives
Some good individual episodes in ep 6 and 7 shows the potential of this show and what it can do when it gets it right. I haven't found any of the episodes boring even if they weren't good which is always a good thing, nothing worse than boring.

Quill is a fantastic character and is carrying the show, been developed excellently throughout. Other characters have their moments too and the acting for the most part has been quite good.

Negatives
Where to start with this. Episode quality, inconsistent and can get quite poor at times. The world building in this show has been diabolical, 8 episodes in and we haven't seen anything, absolutely anything to do with the outside world. Or the shows setting the school, why set it in a school if you don't intend to do anything in a school.

Then we have character development, incredibly inconsistent and is just all over the place. From one episode to the next they are different people. The characters have also not been developed naturally through the episodes of the show, the only development we get is in an episode where they decide to drop some secrets and past about the characters. But that doesn't mean we know them, their quirks, what they are like, how they react, their emotional state etc etc should continually change and we should continually learn every episode however subtle it may be in some episodes. Then we have half the characters completely sidelined for an episode making it harder to know them.

Then comes the consequences or i should say lack of. Doesn't anyone care that people are dying after about 5 minutes? Constant emotional resets and also since the show is so insular there are no consequences to the nearby community because we know nothing about it.

The seasonal arc was quite the mess, absolutely all over the place without stop. I'll just focus on the finale since it is on the top of my head, how'd the shadow kin person escape the prison? Why are they all listening to him, he isn't king, how did he kill those people in the sunlight? Wasn't it established in the first episode that light = bad. It is stuff like this throughout their entire arc just makes it a convoluted mess.

And nearly forgot to mention the pacing, absolutely awful.

So that is the review done, probably forgot some more negatives but what are the chances of a 2nd season? None if they judge it on quality and ratings, if they are desperate for a Doctor Who spinoff. Then it has a chance still as it did have a couple of redeeming moments.

No Ian Chesterton after all.

I knew it was a long shot, but all the talk about the Governors did make me think/hope he might be back.

However, what a nice surprise to see THOSE monsters, albiet briefly! Don't even want to put it in spoilers, in case anyone is on here who hasn't watched yet.

Now *that* I didn't see coming!

I liked Dorothea's "I have a positive vision!" Management speak BS to the end!

Thought it was enjoyable nonsense, basically. As someone hardly in the supposed 'demographic' I've been quite happy to see this through. The series kept me engaged, which tbh is more than the first series of Torchwood managed. I had a vague feeling that Quill would the one to 'buy it' as the (brilliant, main selling point for me) Ms Kelly is a pretty in demand actress, but called it wrong obviously...

Be nice to have another series, but I don't know.....no terrestrial broadcast imminent despite the DVD being out next month, not on BBC America until the Spring; there doesn't seem to be much momentum here. We'll see. It's been good, well made fun and I've liked the actors, so I'd certainly give a second series a look to see where they go with it.

I have found it much easier to follow since i turned on the subtitles!

I think there's potential for a second series but there's lots of things that need fixing. Some of the acting is great (April and lately, Tanya) some not so (Ram, Charlie and Mattheus). Quill was consistently good as well.

The main baddies were good as a concept, pretty good in execution, but poor in consistency/dialogue (although that aspect was helped by the subtitles!)

As Sam has said above, the episodes were inconsistent, and the finale was a mess albeit having a good cliffhanger. Quill's pregnancy didn't have any "payoff" and just seemed to be there as part of the setup for a s2.

The reveal of the Governers was a disappointment (they could have been used to explain the lack of police involvement, for example), with the "arrival" seemingly thrown in at the last minute, although the "arrivers" were a welcome surprise!

Another thing that was mentioned but never followed up were UNIT. Tanya was shown trying to hack into their computers and they got a brief mention in the dialogue but that was all.

Perhaps it was all too much for one person to write and a team of writers headed by Patrick Ness should be considered for a future series if only for some "fresh eyes" to hone the storylines and scripts before being filmed.

K

Well in spite of the overly negative vibes on this forum, I'm going to say that I absolutely loved the series. Was it perfect? By no means. Did it have some major problems? Yes. Were they enough to ruin the things it had going for it? Not remotely.

- Eight episodes. I still stand by my opinion that eight episodes is a really awkward number to work with. If you have less you can craft a miniseries out of it, if you have more you become an episodic drama. Class really felt like it was somewhere between the two. The first three episodes largely stand on their own, but are then followed by a two-parter, then two linked episodes and then a finale that involves elements from all the episodes before it. And whilst it's wholly possible to build a populated world in eight episodes as a show like Buffy did, it's harder to do it when you do only have eight episodes to work with - when you have to have a beginning, middle and end whilst also affiming ties to a parent show because you're a spin-off.

- Ties to Doctor Who. More or less worked as I would have hoped. The Doctor comes in during the first story, and whilst I love Capaldi's Doctor to pieces he was the biggest anachronism about the whole thing. Class very quickly became its own show in that sense. Some will then use it as an argument to say that Class would be better off as a non-Who related show entirely, but the pay-off is so worth it to me at least when you get the odd Zygon reference six episodes in, and then the reveal of the Angels in the final episode.

- Tie to The Sarah Jane Adventures? So the Governors were a pretty interesting and background presence throughout the show. A shame to see the end of Dorothea as she's a brilliant character I never saw coming. But interestingly the 'head governor' guy was played by Cyril Nri... who played the mysterious shopkeeper in The Sarah Jane Adventures fourth and fifth series. His character was never quite explored as much as RTD wanted them to, though recalling correctly Neil Gaiman once said that RTD liked the idea that The Corsair (mentioned in The Doctor's Wife) was who this shopkeeper really was. Whilst it's likely to just be a brand new character, it'd certainly be fascinating if they took this route and there was a Timelord working amongst the Governors...more specifically the Corsair.

- Pacing. The one thing that has been somewhat off with the show, largely down to episode count again. For the most part the writing competently works around it - emotional moments are given their due time arguably better than in Moffat's Doctor Who, the problem is that the stories have had to fit so much in that a character may well go from one mood to the next and back again in the space of a single story and it's a bit distracting. With a few extra episodes, individual episodes might have been able to better focus on specific characters and refine those mood swings a bit more effectively.

- Effects. These were good throughout, like seriously good. Given the likely limited budget of the show as well, they stood up as decently as anything from Doctor Who, better at times quite possibly, and certainly better than what the other spin-offs were capable of at the time. Part of this is down to good direction though. It's promising that Wayne Yip is working on Series 10 of Doctor Who, hopefully he'll get a spot in a second series of Class.

- The finale. Felt like a finale, and even if I think it had a little too much to do for its runtime, that in turn maybe upped the ante a bit. There were genuine consequences here. Characters died and it isn't being undone. It's a harsh reality dealt upon genuinely good, heroic characters - and the series as a whole has managed to paint all of the characters in both good and bad lights. Perhaps the only real negative is that the high stakes that these characters were put through was utterly validated by the high consequences here... it did reach the point where you ask why the hell is someone like the Doctor not intervening. The abrupt and quickfire nature of the threat here means you can easily do away with the likes of UNIT...there wasn't a threat prolonged enough to justify their presence, and it seems the show may play a long game in terms of their involvement...if Tanya's hacking of their databases is anything to go by (in other words UNIT's been mentioned, they've not been forgotten... that's good enough for now). But the Doctor whilst not a miracle worker could have been of some use here - not to say he would have fit or even been appropriate in a very busy finale that had the confidence to let the show do its own thing, but it does raise the question of why he hasn't safeguarded these students more somehow. The 'life is unfair' message is very clear, but the main characters of Class are being given some more-than-average unfair consequences to work with. With that in mind, I guess I would hope Series 2 is somehow a little nicer to them. Series 1 hits hard and fast and is impactful...maybe scale back some of the shock and intensity for more character development next time.

- Series 2. I don't imagine there'll be a lot of people here calling for it... this is the forum that wrote the show off as soon as it was announced because people were throwing their toys out of the pram that it wasn't a Paternoster spin-off or a Torchwood revival (both sound terrible as far as I'm concerned, personal opinion). But I'm remaining positive...I was open to liking the show when it was announced, and then liked it a lot more than I thought I would. I fully well hope they give it a second series, and work on some of the teething problems (call it a first series, but eight episodes is still in the range of 'teething problems' I think). Firstly the main cast... add Matteusz to that main cast straight away. And make sure if there's more to April's shadow story that it doesn't engulf the second series... the Shadow Kin worked well enough as a threat in the first series, but it'd be good for a show like this to ensure it builds different threats each time, be they threats from Doctor Who or wholly original. With that in mind, I'd love to see the Angels set up as the over-arching threat in the second series. Wishful thinking that The Corsair is involved in the Governors, and that cameo from Ian Chesterton could still well be on the cards if they get a move on with it! With the angels being there, and the constant possibility that the Doctor could drop in for another story, or indeed a companion for that matter (Martha and Mickey? Maybe a bit too "fanfiction") I like the balance the show has going for it. And I cannot wait to find out where it's supposed to go next!

I do wish it hadn''t ended on a cliffhanger TBH. If there is a second series, great. But if not, it would at least have been a solid, standalone series with a proper ending. Unless of course Doctor Who itself picks up on the Governor's / Weeping Angels story line in series 10. So little was revealed about it in Class, I think in theory it could be done.

People have been criticizing the series for not having that great ratings. Which is true, but then you have to consider what the BBC were actually expecting it to get. It could be that it's been more or less on target. So IMO it's very hard to tell what it's chances of a second series are.

There should have been more episode related to the crack in time. Too many 'event episodes' focussing on the same characters and villains. Few mention of A-levels The two parter was wrongly placed in the series..

It doesn't feel like they're a team fighting aliens while trying to pass their exams (this was basically the initial description of the show?)I was hoping to see some sort of base or some sort of strategy by the end. They haven't gained much knowledge on the time crack at all. I would've just had series 1 as a world building series, and introduced big villains and story-arcs in the second.

Guys did anyone else noticed The Governer we saw at he end that told the headmistress she wont be seeing the arrival is the man from the shop in The Sarah Jane Adventures with the parrot that had the ability to open Time Windows, now hes working with The Weeping Angels for what? The Arrival of some Angel God?

Urgh where is The Doctor when hes needed!

Also the Cliffhanger and Governer storyline itself I think was far more superior than the Shadow Kin focus we got throughout the Series, which I think shouldn't have been dragged really. It had great things going on it was just that the execution could've been better.

Completely agree with this They based Series 1 too much around The Shadow Kin when they really should've been a one off villian, and April and Rams relationship and some of the Character writing seemed to have moved too fast to actually believe it.

Series 1 really should've been world building and focused around the Crack and find out ways to close it completely which could've branched into more interesting storylines, aswell as The Governers and episodes itself, instead it was too much teen drama crammed into 8 episodes. The Problem is its a really character orientated show so if The Characters aren't likeable/beliveable than they can't really carry the show then it fails, I think the show should've taken a slower pace But let the main focus be on the main danger while the character building happened on the sidelines.

I only saw the pilot episode and the David and Matt episodes of SJA.....but I like the sound of a parrot who is able to open Time Windows!

Yeah I watched it way back when it was broadcast on TV and I recongnised the man when I first heard his voice, Basically in some episode in Series 4 He had a parrot who was his master or who he worked for and so had the ability to open them Time WIndows, but they were very eratic and unstabe like Time Fissures from Series 2 of The Sarah Jane Adventures the ones that the Trickster and The Converter could open. (Except I think Time Fissures only leads to one Time Period and can randomly close and open and become unactive and active and are less flexible then Time Windows)

I think Time Windows are an alternative to Time Travel instead of having to use a Vessel such as The TARDIS.

Basically he had this sort of Shop and summoned Sarah Jane and Gang to go through the Time Windows and get these important artifacts somewhere in the past that had been misplaced and weren't supposed to be in those TIme Periods, because if not it would destory the earth (forgot how).

Anyways we never found out who he was in the end or his Parrot. Although I think he said something about serving time or being a time servant and being wherever hes needed or whatever forgot.

Yep! This was my immediate thought when Cyril Nri started talking. The moment I heard and saw him, I was like "OMG, it's the Shopkeeper from The Sarah Jane Adventures!" Although, no appearance from the Captain (the parrot) which leads to me thinking he's probably playing a different character here. It would be interesting if it was really him though. He was forbidden to travel through time as stated in the Lost In Time episode where he sent Sarah Jane, Clyde and Rani back in time. Last time he appeared was in Sky (The series 5 opener of SJA). The Shopkeeper and the parrot were due to return in The Battle Of Bannerman Road (Series 5 finale) but sadly that story never got to be made.

He was credited as "Chair" for this finale episode, so I'm assuming that it's a different character and not the shopkeeper? Paul Marc Davis also appeared in this series which means he's been appeared in all three spin offs and the main show itself.

I kinda thought the finale episode was a bit messy which is a shame because it's a step down from last week. Episode 6 and 7 were the best episodes for me. I feel like those episodes stood out as the strongest while the rest felt a bit too erratic and confused. I still don't really care for the Shadow Kin so I wasn't thrilled in seeing them return for the final. I really do like Quill and Tanya. I've grown to them. I think they're my favourite characters at the moment. There was a bit too much crammed in but there were some good moments and the WA appearance was quite a surprise too. The cliffhanger was also good. I wouldn't mind a second series but there a lot of issues that need to be improved on such as the pacing and inconsistencies of certain things.

I felt like Tanya and Ram didn't have enough time to grieve or react for no more than a few minutes or so after witnessing family being killed right infront of them. Despite knowing small bits of their backgrounds and history, I still don't feel like I know some of the characters well enough (with a few exceptions). I do agree that more focus on world building was needed for this series. Some things in general just didn't flow or develop naturally which is a shame. But if there is a second series on the way then they at least have the chance to improve on it.

But yeah, that's my take on it. Episode 6 and 7 were the strongest episodes. The finale episode was messy but had slices of good bits whereas the other episodes just didn't do it for me mainly because at the time I felt confused about what the show wanted to be.

I think my favourite part of the finale was Ram being dialled up to 11 for the entire running time while everyone else was remarkably chill about the whole potential apocalypse. Jeez that kid's had a hard few months. If basically everyone else in his life hadn't died recently I'd have pushed for keeping April dead. She's just so wet and bland and the show would only be improved by focusing on any other character.

so just caught up on the finale of Class and it certainly crammed a lot in. I did actually jump when Tanya's mum was killed certainly didn't see that coming. I did like the development of seeing the governor's and those enemies. although I did also think "oh Moffat! "

yes I did like it and it did run like a finale. but I still found some of it emotionally unsatisfying to say I thought it was a great series.
The love stories between Ram and April and Charlie and Matthiasfelt so painfully underdeveloped that I couldn't believe when they said they loved each other. That was all a bit cringey and how did Tanya become such a good fighter in about 5 minutes as someone asked up thread ?

Anyway the series has filled a gap which has been a blessing with so little new Who so I am grateful for that. is it comes back for another series I hope they concentrate on making the the characters feel more likeable.

II say that because thinking about it, all of them come across as either weak (Charlie) , stroppy or argumentative ( Tanya and ram) or a bit wet at times (April). There is mostly angst there between them and little charm or plain fun to make it pleasurable where we root for them as an audience.

Well that was quite a bad finale in my opinion. It had too much going on and then to be fair it just whimpered out into nothing.

Quite simply, there's not been enough care and attention on the characters to care for them and their losses. Did we even know the names of Ram's dad and Tanya's mum? There was no connection with them so their deaths meant nothing at all. Coupled with the barely any grieving, it just makes Class come across as superficial.

The use of the Shadow Kin again was painful to watch. They've been badly written as villains and their storyline has been so condensed that understanding their motives etc in the midst of the April control has got too muddied up for me. Still struggling to understand the Shadow Kin as well isn't helpful either.

None of the characters were that likeable either. Charlie became an idiot while Tanya's involvement in the gang explains her behaviour a little, it just again feels too sudden a development. The characters change so often in Class that you just can't believe them.

April and Ram were still unbelievable as a couple and Charlie and Matteusz to that matter as well. There was not enough time building them up as characters before pairing them off. That's just plain bad writing, no matter what some on here keep telling me.

The excuse that 8 episode isn't enough keep being trotted out again and that just irks me. 8 episodes is more than enough but when you lose one episode to Quill in a forest, the gang still had 7 episodes to develop in. They simply didn't. 7 episodes is more than enough time.

7 episodes was more than enough time to build up the world of Class - it never did. 7 episode was more than enough time to make the characters progress naturally and work as a team - that never happened.

That is bad writing. Simple.

And the fact, the finale had the gall to end of a cliffhanger said it all to me. It simply doesn't warrant a second series. It was a mess from start to finish. They were glimmers of something there, but too many problems from the get-go have been its downfall.

If it doesn't come back, I won't miss it.