Class: Episode 6 Advance Review
Note: Doctor Who TV’s pre-air reviews aim to be as detail-free as we reasonably can while still offering a critique, but as everyone’s spoiler sensibilities are different, we advise you read on at your own discretion.
It’s fair to say that this week’s Class is basically a money saving exercise. Here we have everything stripped down: it’s just the main cast, a scant few visual effects, and one location – taking place entirely in Miss Quill’s classroom during a detention from hell.
Quill is, unfortunately, not in the episode a great deal, just bookending the piece, so the show does suffer the loss of its most accomplished actor for the majority of the run time. However the young cast all do a decent job with what must have been a challenging episode.
Equally, there’s not a traditional monster in sight. Instead we go back to the old adage that people are their own worst monsters. Especially when confined to one seemingly inescapable room, where all their worst traits start to bubble to the surface as panic sets in. It also helps if an unknown entity is quietly helping things along.
If you think this all sounds a little familiar then, yes, the episode seems like Patrick Ness wanted to have a stab at his own version of the superb Doctor Who story Midnight. The 2008 episode is often regarded as a Russell T Davies masterpiece, and Detained is not up to those lofty ambitions, but it’s a strong effort nonetheless.