Class episode 3: Nightvisiting (29/10/2016)

‘Do you have love where you come from?’ This one reminded me of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Seven episode Conversations with Dead People, in which a malevolent force came to the characters in the night in the guise of their dear departed for its own nefarious purposes. Here, a malevolent force comes to the characters in the night in the guise of their… well, you get the idea.

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Class episode 2: The Coach with the Dragon Tattoo (22/10/2016)

‘He’s from Ofsted. Of course he’s evil.’ This is much better than the first episode, while being essentially the sequel to it as the characters (and specifically Ram) deal with the fall-out of events. It helps that the story is much more focused and disciplined, with the main plot exploring the consequences of Ram losing his leg and a lot of his self-confidence, distancing himself from the freaky friendships he started to make at the school disco and falling back on the relationships he has with the authority figures at home and on the sports field.

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Class episode 1: For Tonight We Might Die (22/10/2016)

‘It’s like the Hellmouth.’ 13 years after Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended, Doctor Who gets round to its own version, even channelling Welcome to the Hellmouth for the opening scenes of the Darla-esque Quill and a male student racing through dark school corridors – and the male student coming to a sticky end. And throughout the episode, writer Patrick Ness puts his cards on the table – within the opening five minutes there have been statements on race, class, gender and sexuality. This is a show that knows both its influences and its target demographic.

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Doctor Who episode 842: The Husbands of River Song (25/12/2015)

‘Hello sweetie.’ The final River Song episode parks all the complicated timey-wimey flowchart stuff, the Inception elements of Last Christmas and even the Christmas Carol pastiche to tell perhaps Moffat’s simplest and most direct story. River Song’s nearly-full diary makes the point that, like Hell Bent, it’s about endings. Unlike Hell Bent, it doesn’t rage against them: ‘Times end, River, because they have to.’ There’s a sense of completion and closure, and, if not quite ‘happily ever after’, that the Doctor and River have found contentment together (with the final joke that their last night will last 24 years).

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Doctor Who episode 841: Hell Bent (5/12/2015)

‘I can’t be the Doctor all the time.’ Another expectation-confounding Moffat finale. Once again, the series’ “arc” turns out to be a shaggy dog story: no-one died at Lake Silencio; the Impossible Girl wasn’t, and the Doctor never became the Valeyard at Trenzalore. In fact, the Hybrid – if it is the Doctor/Clara – does stand in the ruins of Gallifrey (assuming that’s where Ashildr is waiting), and threatens to unravel the Web of Time. And in the end, none of it really matters because the true arc of Series Nine was the discovery that, ‘This has to stop. One of us has to go.’

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Doctor Who episode 840: Heaven Sent (28/11/2015)

‘How long can I keep doing this, Clara? Burning the old me, to make a new one?’ A dry run for Twice Upon a Time, touching on many of the same themes – this Doctor’s weariness, wondering why it’s never someone else’s turn and he isn’t allowed to lose just once; dealing with the grief of losing Clara, of being the last one standing on the battlefield, and of having to take the long way round. It’s also a bit of a party piece for Capaldi, marrying Moffat’s love of an unconventional narrative with the chance to write what’s mostly a monologue (although in reality a lot of it is dialogue with a largely absent Clara).

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Doctor Who episode 839: Face the Raven (21/11/2015)

‘So, this is your life, then? Just bouncing around time, saving people?’ The theme of Clara becoming reckless like she imagines the Doctor to be comes to an inevitable conclusion as she discovers despite everything she’s learned, she she’s not immortal – or at least, not yet anyway. Rigsy’s return, which prompts the tragedy that follows, draws a link between this and Flatline – the first story where Clara took on the Doctor’s role. Since then, she’s tried to convince the Cybermen and the Mire she’s got what it takes to be the last of the Time Lords. Instead, she’s left having to imitate the other man in her life, hoping that she can ‘die right’ like Danny Pink.

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Doctor Who episode 838: Sleep No More (14/11/2015)

‘You must not watch this. I’m warning you. You can never unsee it.’ Mark Gatiss steers away from classic Doctor Who homage to do something more like an episode of Inside No. 9 – an impression unavoidably suggested by the presence of his fellow Gentleman Reece Shearsmith. It’s a pastiche of found footage horrors with a very No. 9 twist. And that’s about all there is to it.

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Doctor Who episode 837: The Zygon Inversion (7/11/2015)

‘Everybody does what they were always going to have to do from the very beginning. Sit down and talk!’ Cold Blood with Zygons. On the surface this looks and sounds profound, with the Doctor giving impassioned speeches about war and dead children, and the importance of forgiveness (I could really have done without the Hughie Green impression, but I can let that slide. I’m more dubious about whether it’s actually in the Doctor’s gift to forgive Bonnie rather than, say, the families of the aircraft crew she killed or the people her followers have slaughtered). It’s all very punch the air stuff, until you think about it for more than half a minute and realise that it entirely hinges on the Zygonists having no ideology and no aims, Bonnie realising what a silly girl she’s been and the Zygons all going back to their quiet, hidden lives.

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