Class (Doctor Who spin-off) series 1

[Norton Canes]

Class is due to be released on the BBC Three channel next weekend

Right, I'm taking the plunge and starting a dedicated thread.

Selected pictures from the first episode:









That last one looks satisfyingly visceral. More pictures at www.doctorwhonews.net

[BritishHobo]

Is it a bulk thing? Like Netflix releasing a full season in one go?

[Small Man Big Horse]

From what I can gather the first two episodes are online on the 22nd of October, the third is the 29th, and it's presumably one a week from that point onwards.

[purlieu]

Putting things online an episode a week seems totally baffling to me. They hardly need the overnights, do they?

I'm bizarrely unknowledgeable on Who spinoffs. I've seen most of the first series of SJA and no Torchwood. Am I going to watch this? Probably, in about five years.

[Serge]

I've never really watched any of the spin-offs either - I tried getting into 'Torchwood', but found it a bit tiresome without the presence of The Doctor - but the fact that Katherine Kelly is in this makes me want to give it a go. And it'll be our only chance to see Capaldi as The Doctor until December....

[Replies From View]

Putting things online an episode a week seems totally baffling to me. They hardly need the overnights, do they?

Probably want to spread the release out so that it gains maximum coverage and publicity or something equally unfathomable.

[Alberon]

If you're going to try Torchwood then watch the first episode, skip to the Children of Earth miniseries and then quit while you're ahead.

The BBC don't do bulk releases of new material on the iPlayer. Even with the other stuff pretending to be from a BBC Three that still exists they release it one a week. In time all channels will move to a Netflix style approach, I'd guess.

[purlieu]

Yeah, I'm aware of Torchwood's reputation, which is one reason I've given it a wide berth so far. I'll probably pick the DVDs up on Amazon Marketplace for a few pennies one day and slog through it all knowing me though.

[Malcy]

Nothing wrong with Torchwood. Great series. SJA was great too. This? I dunno. I'm nit excited in the least for it. Will be good to see Capaldi after there being no Who this year but i can't see myself watching past the first episode. And i've seen everything Who. Just think there were so many better spin off ideas than this. Setting it in Coal Hill, good. No Ian Chesterton? Bad. I know he will no doubt be referenced because Barbara & Clara are but would it be so hard to give him a tiny cameo?

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Nothing wrong with Torchwood?! Children of Earth aside, it was utterly appalling. Botched concept, terrible writing, charmless characters - Gwen and Jack aside, although they somehow managed to turn the latter into a bore - and its attempts at being (ooh) sexy and (grrr) edgy were excruciating.

There were a couple of decent episodes as far as I recall, but the whole thing was an embarrassment for the most part.

Class looks better simply by dint of not being Torchwood.

[Replies From View]

Nothing wrong with Torchwood?! Children of Earth aside, it was utterly appalling. Botched concept, terrible writing, charmless characters - Gwen and Jack aside, although they somehow managed to turn the latter into a bore - and its attempts at being (ooh) sexy and (grrr) edgy were excruciating.

There were a couple of decent episodes as far as I recall, but the whole thing was an embarrassment for the most part.

Class looks better simply by dint of not being Torchwood.

And, lest we forget, the head writer of Torchwood while it was shite was none other than the next Doctor Who showrunner.

The dedicated Moffat haters are about to chow down on so much humble shit.

[Alberon]

Nothing wrong with Torchwood.

[purlieu]

ffs what's that

[Alberon]

That is from an episode called Cyberwoman, written by Chinballs by the way. And it is as crap as it looks.

[BritishHobo]

Nothing wrong with Torchwood?! Children of Earth aside, it was utterly appalling. Botched concept, terrible writing, charmless characters - Gwen and Jack aside, although they somehow managed to turn the latter into a bore - and its attempts at being (ooh) sexy and (grrr) edgy were excruciating.

There were a couple of decent episodes as far as I recall, but the whole thing was an embarrassment for the most part.

Class looks better simply by dint of not being Torchwood.

I'd say Gwen was the most charmless of them all. I can't understand why RTD expected us to like her - the way she treated Rhys was fucking hateful. Although I suppose it was just a more explicit copy of Rose's treatment of Mickey, which was equally nasty.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

I'm sure you're right - her mistreatment of Rhys certainly rings a bell - but for obvious reasons I haven't watched Torchwood since it went out. Eve Myles is an innately charming actress, so that probably made Gwen seem nicer than she was.

In any case, there's no way Gwen was more hateful than gurning date rapist Owen. What a bizarrely repugnant character he was.

Also, I don't think we should blame RTD for Gwen's characterisation, he only wrote the pilot (and Children of Earth). Chinballs was responsible for everything else. It was all his fault.

[purlieu]

Maybe I should watch Torchwood to understand why everyone hates Chibnall so much. Certainly that Cyberwoman picture has made me more worried for the future of Who.

[BritishHobo]

Hey purlieu, when was the last time you came so hard and so long you forgot where you are?

[imitationleather]

ffs what's that

Looks like it is of about the production value level of those porn parodies you get of sci-fi shows.

[biggytitbo]

Chinballs has insisted his exciting Cyberwoman concept was completly sabotaged by piss poor production design, although having watched that episode the costume is actually be far the most professional hing about it.


Chinballs did write one of the best Torchwood episode outside of the Children of Earth series, in fairness (the one with the missing people) but that's not saying much.

[Mister Six]

I'd say Gwen was the most charmless of them all. I can't understand why RTD expected us to like her

Gwen was brilliant in the first half of season four, when she was written and played as someone who had seen way more weird shit than anyone can handle and was perpetually on the verge of going completely mental.

Then she became drippy and useless in the second half. God, Miracle Day was shit.

Chinballs has insisted his exciting Cyberwoman concept was completly sabotaged by piss poor production design, although having watched that episode the costume is actually be far the most professional hing about it.

As the showrunner, surely he surely had some kind of input in the production design?

Oh well, as you say - unless the production designers were also free to just hack up the script into a load of absolute shite, he's got no room to complain.

[Spoon of Ploff]

I'd assumed the design was deliberately this crap so that Hajime Sorayama would take pity and not sue.

[Norton Canes]

That is from an episode called Cyberwoman, written by Chinballs by the way. And it is as crap as it looks

Another way of looking at Cyberwoman is that only Chibnall really understood how tacky and licentious the show intrinsically was, and tailored his episode appositely. 

[Thomas]

It was also his responsibility to consider the canon of the parent show. Cyberwoman implies that, at some point, the Cybermen decided to very carefully preserve human breasts during their personally tailored upgrades.

Seeing as this was supposed to have taken place during the events of Doomsday, the Doctor could feasibly have stumbled upon that very scene.

[Replies From View]

And not visible in that picture, they gave the Cyberwoman a deeply useful pair of high heels, too.

The Cybermen, who wanted to obliterate all human differences, remember.

[phantom_power]

If I remember right the first series of Torchwood was utter gash but the second got better as it went on. I remember it being genuinely not bad when it got to the bit where Owen was killed but not killed. Then there was the excellent Children of Earth and the ambitious but ultimately a bit crap final mini series.

I will give Class a watch. Might be quite good

[The Roofdog]

Oh God, reading this thread I suddenly remembered the end of 'Cyberwoman' but then doubted my own sanity, so I looked up the synopsis on wikipedia and yes this really happened in the "adult" spin-off from the long-running television programme Doctor Who:

Spoiler alert

Jack sprays Lisa with a special "barbecue sauce" that summons the pet pterodactyl; as it attacks her, the team escapes by the invisible lift. Ianto punches Jack for his actions, uttering he is "the biggest monster of them all."

[close]

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Oh God, reading this thread I suddenly remembered the end of 'Cyberwoman' but then doubted my own sanity, so I looked up the synopsis on wikipedia and yes this really happened in the "adult" spin-off from the long-running television programme Doctor Who:

Spoiler alert

Jack sprays Lisa with a special "barbecue sauce" that summons the pet pterodactyl; as it attacks her, the team escapes by the invisible lift. Ianto punches Jack for his actions, uttering he is "the biggest monster of them all."

[close]

Chris Chibnall, folks. The new caretaker of Doctor Who.

[biggytitbo]

It was nowhere near as good as that synopsis suggests though.

[Replies From View]

the excellent Children of Earth and the ambitious but ultimately a bit crap final mini series.

Neither of which had anything to do with Chibnall, of course.

Weird to think that Chibnall is planning his first series at this very moment.  I was going to finish this post with the idea of a shit thing he might do, but I can't think of anything shit enough.