Breaking News: New Doctor Who spin-off for BBC3

[ibishtar]

"Class" is the name a new 8x45 spin-off written by Patrick Ness centered around Coal Hill School in contemporary London. Press release here.

Patrick Ness: "I'm astounded and thrilled to be entering the Doctor Who universe, which is as vast as time and space itself.  There's so much room there for all kinds of amazing stories, and to work with

Comments

[gonzo21]

That sounds interesting. But I thought the BBC had stopped commissioning things for BBC3, my understanding was the channel was being cut soon.

[amethystian]

No, it's just becoming online only. I imagine they're doing this to attract people to follow BBC3 to the online arena.

[gonzo21]

Ahh, of course. And this will be the big high profile show they need/want to try and attract people to the new venue.

Very bad decision by the BBC, scrapping their youth orientated channel. Sure, their biggest audience is old folks now, but by not hooking the younger generation into being BBC watchers, they're essentially shooting themselves in the foot 20 years down the line.

[vikingprincess]

Sounds a lot like the driving principle behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

[eowyn]

Not excited about this one.

[amethystian]

Nah, me either. The link to Doctor Who is very tenuous- we might get the odd guest appearance from Jenna Coleman (assuming Clara's exit isn't her dying) but other than that... I mean, if Ian Chesterton were the headmaster, that might be more interesting to see (I forget what his actual connection is to the school, but it's a hands off one). But this kind of seems like Sarah Jane Adventures without Sarah Jane. So a bunch of kids who fight aliens, just using the tag of Doctor Who to draw in viewers.

Kinda like Ravenswood with Pretty Little Liars (which, I hear, was pretty bad and didn't last long)

[eowyn]

Yeah, I just don't really care about a bunch of kids, even in the Whoniverse. It's not my genre at all.

[alltimeandspace]

But this kind of seems like Sarah Jane Adventures without Sarah Jane.

It does, and I have huge problems with this. Moffat swore he wouldn't replace Lis, but rebranding and rebooting just isn't enough cover for the fact he has, imo. And we didn't need this spin-off. What about Vasta? What about UNIT? There's so much potential in the current Who 'verse, I'm bewildered as to why they've gone outside it bar a few tenuous links.

[thehornedgod]

I like the name of it!

And I love spinoffs as an abstract concept. I've squandered altogether too much time reading Wikipedia articles about spinoffs from shows I've never seen.

I might give it a go. But if it's SJA again, I shan't persist.