September 7th, 2017
60 comments
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Doctor Who Spin off Class Officially Cancelled
Doctor Who spin off Class has been officially cancelled by the BBC.
The news was confirmed by BBC Three controller Damian Kavanagh speaking today at a Broadcasting Press Guild.
No, [we’re not bringing it back]. There was nothing wrong with it – I thought Patrick did a great job, he explored an amazing world.
In honesty, it just didn’t really land for us on BBC Three. Things sometimes don’t, and I’ve got to make decisions about what we’re going to do from a drama point of view.
There are always times when you do something and you have to decide that it’s not going to come back. Class is just one of those things.
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The Outcast
December 25th, 2017 - 12:20pmIt was more than a fair trial. Most TV Series get a Pilot episode to test the waters before deciding on doing a full Series. This got a full eight episodes right off the bat… and was in my opinion the most utter garbage spin-off ever produced.
What do you think is a fair trial? 2 Series? Nope, I think that is rather unfair. One is a good fair number, not two. Especially not for this garbage.
Joel Seber
December 24th, 2017 - 4:04pmI think Class had a lot of potential that should be explored. Occasional interactions with The Doctor would be a ratings boost, if that was a concern. As was posted earlier, one series wasn’t a fair trial.
Anonymous
November 6th, 2017 - 11:12pmplease dont cancel class we really need one of the doctor who spin off shows to work thank you
whovian
October 10th, 2017 - 3:12pmIm sad that Class is not coming back, butin a way, also not surprised.
Like the other shows, it had its main enemy in the Shadowkin, but they were featured very heavily. In DW the Daleks are the main, Torchwood had the Weevils and SJA had the Trickster, but they werent constantly in the shows.
I personally didnt feel it was a good idea to have the characters being intimate on screen, as it had nothing to do with tge story whatsoever.
And the intro didnt really work. As with the parent show and other spin offs, they all have instrumental theme tunes, Torchwood just had a creepy voice saying Torchwood. Class’ theme was Up All Night by Alex Claire, for me, it just didnt seem right.
I just hope in the future that somehow there is some sort of closure to what the Weeping Angels were up too, or maybe hopefully when Doctor Who returns next year, the Doctor finds out and that she puts a stop to the Angel’s plans.
whovian
October 10th, 2017 - 3:00pmTime Lady spin off? Must have missed that announcement
The Outcast
October 10th, 2017 - 11:54amI agree.
Cheesypie
October 9th, 2017 - 6:26pmThank goodness
Doctor Stu
October 5th, 2017 - 11:38amOne series is not enough to determine whether to cancel something or not in my opinion, torchwood series 1 example A, it got so much better each series imagine the episodes we’d have lost if they decided to cancel it after series 1. I feel like we needed a Doctor Who monster or two in there to bridge the gap which of course we would have been getting in series 2. But like you said loose ends are just so annoying because there was so much in the finale that could have been explored
whyyyyy
October 5th, 2017 - 2:50amUrghhhhhh
Absolutely hate it when networks cancel shows without closure! So many loose ends. As cheesy as it sounds, I thought it had potential. I mean, (unpopular opinion) I liked it; don’t confuse it with “loved” it, though.
I enjoyed that it was part of the Whoniverse, with characters who weren’t so affiliated to the Doctor as other spin-offs like SJA or Torchwood was.
Anonymous
September 29th, 2017 - 9:45pmno it wont scare the bbc off from spin offs class failed due to being online and being shown on aMonday night at about 11 o clock
Doctor Stu
September 25th, 2017 - 9:57pmI’m gonna miss Charlie and matteusz, that was the most interesting thing about it tbh and Quill obviously
Jordan Scott
September 25th, 2017 - 8:09pmYeah I agree with your statement here, especially about the Daleks too
The Drums The Never Ending Drum Beat
September 25th, 2017 - 7:13pmI don’t think class was as bad as everybody said it was to be entirely honest it was not as good as some way of expected however when I first tuned I thought it was good so this is kind of put a damper on my day only that the community of Doctor Who have gotten a little bit out of hand recently they don’t give anything a chance like with the paradigm Daleks everybody complains how multicoloured they were but if they have just give them a chance they wouldn’t have minded it wasn’t a big change and the same with class if we’d have just stayed in the second series then we would have probably been able to judge you if everyone thought it was as bad as the first one then fair enough it should have been cancelled but it could have been better and that is why we need to have a more open mind as a community
Adam
September 16th, 2017 - 1:18pmI dipped into the series and thought it was awful! Like a lot of new who it was let down by poor writing and characterisation. Maybe next years new time lady spin off will fare better..
Anonymous
September 15th, 2017 - 12:40pmThe invisible ink is working well!!!
Borg
September 14th, 2017 - 1:38pmYay!!!
Also, as a young adult myself, I heard about it fairly early, was excited, but then episode one comes along… It left me speechless. Not in a god way.
Anonymous
September 12th, 2017 - 5:30pm😉
Lol Hayden
September 11th, 2017 - 10:39pmPeople I knew just couldn’t be bothered to watch it :/ I loved it though 🙁
12th Doctor Fan
September 10th, 2017 - 8:47pmI’d avoid like the plague can’t stand River
The Moffat Paradox
September 10th, 2017 - 4:03pmWas underwhelming.
100,000BC
September 9th, 2017 - 12:47pmI think the problem is, as a spin-off of Doctor Who, it needed to appeal to a much larger section of the fanbase.
While in theory non-fans would have enjoyed it, I can imagine they were put off by the promotion of it as a who spin-off, or the appearance of the Doctor in episode 1. If they had chosen to create a spin-off with a Doctor Who character as a lead, then this would have been less of a problem as there would be less need to reinforce the fact of it being a spin-off (in order to appeal to the fan audience) all over the promotional material and in episode 1.
It’s a shame as it was a nice spin-off and a great show in its own right; non-fans could have easily got into it.
Jordan Scott
September 9th, 2017 - 11:55amIndeed it didn’t booboo.
booboo
September 9th, 2017 - 10:51amWe knew from day 1 this was produced for the new BBC3 digital platform with a budget to match that would certainly not stretch to additional filming for youtube behind the scenes etc.
It was promoted via social media by the official sites and many others with a reach of millions.
As far as i can see It was in effect and experiment that did not work.
booboo
September 9th, 2017 - 10:09amThe whole point was though this was supposed to be viewed and promoted via digital platforms for a new generation and it clearly didn’t work big time.
Hatman
September 9th, 2017 - 9:53amI really liked Class, and I would’ve liked to see a second series, even if that was the last one just to tie things up, BUT Class suffered from multiple things:
1) Pre show advertising – there was very little of this, most people I know weren’t aware it was happening at all. There should have been more build up, probably some advertising on the tv.
2) Post show advertising – after an episode aired there was almost nothing. On YouTube after an episode of Doctor Who airs we get the next time trailer, and multiple behind-the-scenes videos. This is the same for many tv shows these days. For Class, all we got was ‘Classmates’: a bunch of youtuber fans, most of which I’m guessing people didn’t know who they were (I only knew one of them), giving their very brief reviews on the episode.
3) Online only – This wasn’t too much of an issue, but it did make it seem that maybe it “wasn’t good enough” for tv and was banished to the online realm. This opinion, which I did see floating around quite a lot, was backed up by the fact there was barely any advertising.
4) Doctor Who? – If this had been a standalone sci-fi series on it’s own, it probably would have been okay. HOWEVER, it was labeled a spin off from Doctor Who. That meant it had to appeal to DW fans, by including things from the show. But apart from a brief appearance from The Doctor in episode 1, and a Weeping Angel cameo at the end, there was nothing.
Torchwood had a Cyber-Woman in episode 4, and SJA had the Slitheen in multiple epispdes, and a Graske in series 1, with other familiar monsters appearing in later series.
Plus both of these had a major character from DW in the leading role. SJA also had appearances from K9, and in later series of both, other characters made apperances, such as Martha (TW), the Brigadier (SJA). Even the Doctor appeared in SJA, but not until series 3, giving the show to grow on it’s own.
If Class had had more DW elements, it probably would’ve won over more fans. Alternatively, if it had not been connected to DW at all, it would probably be fine as it wouldn’t have this pressure to be good.
Class had a lot of potential, but really wasn’t handled well enough.
Doctor Stu
September 9th, 2017 - 1:15amI’d love a spin off with RiverSong where she’s reading bed time stories to Donnas’ children in the library computer from her diary and then we get to see the adventure unfold with river and eleven. Perfect opportunity to get more river song, more Matt smith who clearly still wants to be the Doctor and maybe throw a few more Doctors in, 8 or 10. Or see what her and 12 got up to on Darillium.
Anonymous
September 8th, 2017 - 10:49pmYes, But most whovians are still rather lay compared to the likes of whovians on forums such as this. Very few young adults are following the bbc and doctor who related forums 24-7, atleast not as a priority. The show DESPERATELY needed to be advertised on TV in my opinion. I watch bbc 1 and 2 quite regularly pre and post watershed and never seen a thing class related. Then again, maybe it was just me.
Jordan Scott
September 8th, 2017 - 10:48pmIt was constantly posted about on Twitter from what I saw, however I think it just wasn’t enough to post about it on pretty much only Dr Who accounts – (also bearing in mind only a portion of followers are actually the target audience).
The Surgeon
September 8th, 2017 - 10:31pmThe show itself was excellent, but I think it was marketed wrong. The spin-off hole was left by SJA, not Torchwood in my opinion. Also alienated a ton of people due to the awkward scheduling, but the writing and acting was genuinely really really good
The Temporal Jelly Baby
September 8th, 2017 - 9:55pmI didn’t know that booboo, thanks. But yeah, if he’s said that then I guess all we can hope for is releasing a series 2 plan or something. I think someone mentioned Big Finish – that’s a good idea.
And a Weeping Angel civil war? Wow, that does sound interesting. Maybe the idea could be used in series 11 of Doctor Who instead.