Doctor Who is no stranger to spin-offs (hello, Torchwood, and hello, The Sarah Jane Adventures). Next up in the Whoniverse comes Class, a new BBC Three show which debuts in October – and its creator, Patrick Ness, chatted to us about it for the new issue of Empire, on sale this week.
The show is set at Coal Hill Academy in London, a key location for Who. “Coal Hill has existed in Doctor Who since literally episode one,” Ness tells us. “The Doctor’s granddaughter went there. So we thought, ‘All that time activity at the school, has that caused any problems?’ Well, what do you know, it has!”
So, where the long-running BBC sci-fi series features a 900-year-old protagonist, its new sister show will feature teenagers confronting otherworldly beasts, in the vein of Buffy, which Ness mentions as a touchpoint. “Adults watch that, because it’s a great show, but the POV and the agency are all teenage, and that’s what we want to do with Class. It needs to be from the point of view of the sixth-formers – but that doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily a ‘young show’.”
The heroes of Class are ordinary kids, too, thrust into a school where the boundaries of space-time have been stretched. These guys will have to deal with extraterrestrial threats and A-level revision.
“We’re not telling stories of the ‘chosen ones’,” Ness says. “It’s happenstance that puts these people [at the centre of things]. What if your timing is just weird and things happen to you? How do you deal with it? I’m interested in real consequences. The Doctor is always exciting, but he never stays. He goes off on the next adventure. What happens to real people?”
Class arrives on BBC Three and BBC One in October. For more on the show, featured as part of our epic autumn/winter preview, be sure to pick up a copy of the new Empire magazine, on sale from August 25. You can subscribe to Empire right here{