Class Canceled: BBC America Says No to Season 2

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UPDATED September 12, 2017: Unfortunately, the highly-anticipated Doctor Who spin-off series failed to match the success of the mothership series. The BBC Three network has just confirmed that Series 2 of Class has been officially cancelled. The creator of the show, Patrick Ness confirmed the sad news on his Twitter account and thanked the cast and the fans for support.

Doctor Who Spinoff Class Has Been Canceled After One Season - https://t.co/bF3raxD4lQ pic.twitter.com/Rk1UH99NqJ

— Screen Rant (@screenrant) September 8, 2017

Doctor Who spinoff

Class is an exciting new Doctor Who spinoff that was commissioned and premiered on the all-digital BBC Three network in the UK on October 22, 2016. The US premiere of the show on BBC America will not take place until spring 2017, exact release date to be announced later. The 8-episode series is executive produced by Stephen Moffatt, Patrick Ness and Brian Minchin and hails from BBC Wales and BBC Worldwide.

Series' creators and storyline

Patrick Ness, an acclaimed young adult novelist and the author of six bestselling books was brought in to write the series. Ness is also the author of a screenplay based on his own book, A Monster Calls, and the eponymous film starring Liam Neeson and Sigourney Weaver is set to be released in 2016. He reports being “astounded and thrilled to enter the Doctor Who universe” and has expressed a strong desire to bring something completely new into the fantasy world. Ness' understanding of the teenage audience mixed into the dangerous and unpredictable universe of warped space and time portrayed in Doctor Who should prove a winning combination on screen.

Class targets a young adult audience and is set at Coal Hill School, where Doctor Who's Clara Oswalt used to teach (although Oswalt, or any other Doctor Who character, for that matter, is not expected to make an appearance). The cast includes actors who portray high school students – Greg Austin, Fady Elsayed, Sophie Hopkins, Vivian Oparah, as well as Katherine Kelly (Happy Valley, The Night Manager, Mr. Selfridge) who plays one of the teachers. Peter Capaldi makes guest appearances as the Doctor.

Current reception and renewal potential

The show's mostly well-received by the viewers and critics, and is praised for its witty script, energetic (if not overly fast) pace and compelling characters. It earned a 7.2/10 score on IMDb, and while almost everybody agrees that it is not a groundbreaking show just yet, it does have a lot of potential. It does target a younger audience with its younger cast of key characters, and is appropriately somewhat simpler than the original series.

Season 1 recap

The first eight-episode series of Doctor Who's spin-off Class has wrapped up on December 3, 2016 on the digital-only BBC Three network. The ratings for BBC Three are not available to the public, but the mostly positive reviews from both viewers and critics prove that the debut series is a success, with the exception of a few issues that need to be worked out, such as pacing, structure, and a certain degree of inconsistency. In the series finale Charlie and April manage to survive the Cabinet of the Souls, which Charlie uses in an attempt to save Earth from the Shadow Kin, but April awakens in Corakinus' body. The show is definitely younger-skewing than the original veteran hit Doctor Who, and with that in mind, the disappointed adult viewers may perhaps reconsider their critical view of the show. The fate of Class has yet to be determined by the network, but it was recently announced that a late-night BBC One slot is set aside for Class in January 2017, making a renewal likely. The debut season is also scheduled for the release in the US on the BBC America channel on April 15, 2017, following the American premiere of Season 10 of Doctor Who.

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