Class has been eagerly anticipated in our household since Patrick Ness is one of the Teenager's favourite authors. This episode certainly appeared to hit its target demographic pretty squarely (judging by an n of 1 + reported views of friends). I liked it, but less than the Teenager herself, who I think engaged very strongly with a vision of what might be like for herself in a couple of years' time.
The episode itself struggled to give us a strong well-structured story. The Doctor's appearance was, pretty much, a Deus ex Machina that rather undermined the focus on the core ensemble that the story was working on before. But a good opening story can be difficult to pull off. For Tonight we Might Die had a lot of ground to cover. It worked hard to disguise its info-dumps about Charlie and Miss Quill's backstory by framing them as April's imagination (down to incongruous school uniforms - which presumably served a double purpose of saving on depicting yet more aliens), but they still acted as a drag on events and one wonders how wise it was to front-load quite so much background.
Similarly the characters struggled to distinguish themselves in an already crowded story. Miss Quill shone, but then Katherine Kelly has been handed a part which is nicely distinctive and which can be conveyed easily in a few broad strokes. As the Verity Podcast team have pointed out, this is an Avon character and in the right hands, which these appear to be, they are always a lot of fun to watch and can start out big and brash and fill in nuance later. The teenager still occasionally repeats the phrase "Leave us! We are decorating!".
The teenage characters required more subtlety which made them less distinctive. They are all nice (even if April rejects that description) and driven with a variety of personal issues. I was worried, when Tanya was introduced with lines about the Bechdel test and non-white spaces, that the show was about to be overly earnest about social justice, but I think instead it is supposed to indicate that Tanya can be a bit over earnest, and to highlight her awkwardness in trying to negotiate social relationships with people who are two years older than she is. You can see how all these people have the potential to turn into engaging individual characters but at the end of For Tonight we Might Die they haven't quite got there.
There are a lot worse pilot episodes out there in the history of genre television, and indeed within the history of Doctor Who spinoffery. For all I felt For Tonight we Might Die struggled to fit everything that was needed into its 50 minutes, it did manage to establish a clear and distinct tone for the show: something clearly post-watershed in its use of violence and horror while at the same time focused around the viewpoint and concerns of modern teenagers. Something, in fact, distinctly YA which is unsurprising given the showrunner. While I did not feel entirely engaged by it, I wasn't irritated in the manner I often am by YA novels. I certainly have liked what I've seen so far better than both Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
This entry was originally posted at http://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/220613.html.
The episode itself struggled to give us a strong well-structured story. The Doctor's appearance was, pretty much, a Deus ex Machina that rather undermined the focus on the core ensemble that the story was working on before. But a good opening story can be difficult to pull off. For Tonight we Might Die had a lot of ground to cover. It worked hard to disguise its info-dumps about Charlie and Miss Quill's backstory by framing them as April's imagination (down to incongruous school uniforms - which presumably served a double purpose of saving on depicting yet more aliens), but they still acted as a drag on events and one wonders how wise it was to front-load quite so much background.
Similarly the characters struggled to distinguish themselves in an already crowded story. Miss Quill shone, but then Katherine Kelly has been handed a part which is nicely distinctive and which can be conveyed easily in a few broad strokes. As the Verity Podcast team have pointed out, this is an Avon character and in the right hands, which these appear to be, they are always a lot of fun to watch and can start out big and brash and fill in nuance later. The teenager still occasionally repeats the phrase "Leave us! We are decorating!".
The teenage characters required more subtlety which made them less distinctive. They are all nice (even if April rejects that description) and driven with a variety of personal issues. I was worried, when Tanya was introduced with lines about the Bechdel test and non-white spaces, that the show was about to be overly earnest about social justice, but I think instead it is supposed to indicate that Tanya can be a bit over earnest, and to highlight her awkwardness in trying to negotiate social relationships with people who are two years older than she is. You can see how all these people have the potential to turn into engaging individual characters but at the end of For Tonight we Might Die they haven't quite got there.
There are a lot worse pilot episodes out there in the history of genre television, and indeed within the history of Doctor Who spinoffery. For all I felt For Tonight we Might Die struggled to fit everything that was needed into its 50 minutes, it did manage to establish a clear and distinct tone for the show: something clearly post-watershed in its use of violence and horror while at the same time focused around the viewpoint and concerns of modern teenagers. Something, in fact, distinctly YA which is unsurprising given the showrunner. While I did not feel entirely engaged by it, I wasn't irritated in the manner I often am by YA novels. I certainly have liked what I've seen so far better than both Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
This entry was originally posted at http://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/220613.html.
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