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Class

Episode 5 - Oh man, where to start. April and Ram do that thing where they keep stopping to exposition about their characters again and it's brutal. They just keep telling us what we're supposed to think of them. April is STRONG. Do you get that? She's STRONG. It feels like April's supposed to have gone through a character arc where people thought she was weak and now she's strong but like 95% of the times she's been on screen it's just been her talking about how strong she is. Absurdly strong, really! I get that she knows how to fight because she shares her heart with the King (or something) but how would that make her a better fighter than him? Oh yeah, because she's strong!

Then the plot with Charles facing the BIG DILEMMA over whether he's going to use the Cabinet of Souls (or whatever it's called) or not. They talked about it a lot. They told us exactly what it would mean if he used it. Then, five minutes later they told us again. And again. The audience then figured out that April was going to use the shadows to attack the underwritten killer plant things. But April doesn't actually do that for seemingly another ten minutes so we get Charles and Quill repeating the same argument again and again...untill conveniently he doesn't have to make a choice at all. It felt like padding. It felt like the whole episode could have lasted half the lenght and we wouldn't have missed anything.

Tanja didn't do anything all episode except tell us how great April and Ram is and gay foreign guy didn't do anything except tell us how great Charles is.

It's funny because the writer seems to know what he's doing at times and has Quill comment on how things are getting boring or stupid with a quip, but why not just write it so that it isn't boring or stupid then she wouldn't have to say anything?

I kind of liked April's dad though and how he seemed genuine about feeling bad? How mother being able to walk is...interesting considering that the actress is in a wheelchair in real life. The Governor's thing could still be good but I suspect they'll just turn out to be villains.

Oh, the worst part of all was the "Who's Frodo?"/"He's from some OLD MOVIE my DAD watched!" joke. If your'e going to do that joke (and you probably shouldn't since it isn't that funny) at least use a movie that wasn't released within the charcacter's lifespan.
 
Episode 6 - This was actually pretty good! A huge improvement over the first five. It was the first time it actually felt like a proper tv show I could see people wanting to watch. The direction was a lot better for one thing. It's funny how an episode set completely in a classroom was a lot more visually impressive than the episodes where they went to an alien world. The boy who plays Charlie had never impressed me before but he was very good here (ironically he's the most believable human character when he isn't human?) The plot was a bit similar to Doctor Who's 'Midnight' but it was a good way to actually explore the characters a bit.

OF COURSE there were still problems. The episode acted like the characters are great friends when really the previous five episodes have done a poor job of establishing their friendships. We still don't know anything about Polish guy other than that he's gay and he seems to only exist to be Charlie's boyfriend (though I did like when he stood up to Ram because fuck Ram.) And yes, Ram continues to be the fucking worst. And he's pretty creeppy being so in love with April five minutes after his previous girlfriend died. Are we supposed to feel sorry for him when she said she didn't love him as much? It seemed reasonable! And the actor is really poor with his annoying exaggerated facial expressions.
 
Episode 7 - Pretty good too. It didn't actually feel like an episode of Class though, but some wacky show about exploring metaphysical realms (somehow!) The writer seems much better writing characters like Quill and the headmaster and the alien shapeshifter than teenagers? There were actually some funny lines. I'm not really sure why they had to fight to the death at the end though.
 
Episode 8 - And...back to shit again for the finale. Ram's dad dies. Tanya's mum dies. Did we know either of their names? I don't know. So who cares. Ram does some truly shitty crying acting (and just shitty acting in general.) Fourteen year old Tanya transforms into a fighter who can beat up Shadowkin warriors after literally five minutes of training from Quill. The Ram/April "romance" is the absolute pits. It's funny that the writer is some bigtime young adult novelist becuase he doesn't seem to have a fucking clue how to write young people. Or just people in general.

Remember how in the first episode the Shadowkin were defeated by turning the lights up because they have to exist in shadows? They just walk around in broad daylight now with no problem lol. And they're still shit villains with shit voices and why is the King the King again when he was in prison after being beaten up by a girl the last time we saw him?

Tanya's brothers just disappear instead of asking her what the fuck is going on. Did she even tell them their mother died? Who cares, they're not being paid to talk!

The world building in the whole series was so poor. It's show named "Class" but we never get any senese of Coal Hill school as a place outside of the two sets we always see. No other students ever got a line (not one!) the only other teachers we saw died instantly. It made me appreciate that Buffy season one was actually pretty good!

Charles faces the dilemma that if he kills the Shadowkin he and April will both die. Except...he kills them all (which is good, because they were shown to be irredeemable monsters so all the "it's genocide!" stuff never rang true) but he doesn't die. And then April's still alive in another body. So he sacrificed nothing.

Katherine Kelly continued to be entertaining in all her scenes despite everything. It's a shame she couldn't just guest star in Doctor Who instead of being in this.

Where is the Doctor by the way? Or even UNIT? They get mentioned a lot but never actually show up.

The Shopkeeper from SJA was there without his parrot and I assume he was playing a different character even though he's a realy distinct actor. THEN A WEEPING ANGEL because they were popular in Doctor Who. Do I want to see fucking Ram fight Weeping Angels? Not really!
 
It's probably not worth watching.

I just wanted to see if Tomtrek had watched it wtihout shouting "HAVE YOU WATCHED THAT THING" at him.
 
So was I the only one stupid enough to watch every episode of this?

Not anymore. I just finished watching it on BBCAmerica on Saturday. Most people would say that body swapping trope at the end was cheesy and overdone, but I like cheesy movies and shows and especially time travel and body swapping.
 
The weeping angels should never have become recurring villains, their original episode is still the best they were ever used.
 
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