Doctor Who Spinoff Class Returning As An Audio Series

Screen Rant

By Craig Elvy

Published May 31, 2018

School-based Doctor Who spinoff Class is being revived as a Big Finish audio series after the BBC television series was cancelled.

Class, the ill-fated Doctor Who spinoff show, has been given a second life as an audio series. Created by Patrick Ness, 2016's Class focused on the lives of a group of students at the franchise's iconic Coal Hill and attempted to tell stories within the Doctor Who universe but grounded in the everyday lives of British teenagers. Starring Katherine Kelly as an alien Physics teacher, Class boasted a cameo from The Doctor himself (Peter Capaldi) in episode one and utilized a noticeably darker tone compared to its parent series, however this wasn't enough to prevent the BBC cancelling Class due to poor viewing figures.

An area of the wider Doctor Who franchise that has experienced considerably more success is its Big Finish series of audio adventures. Since kicking off shortly before the turn of the millennium, Big Finish has expanded on the fictional lives of almost every incarnation of the Doctor, often featuring the original actors reprising their roles. The stories quickly became very popular among fans and were most famous for fleshing out the tales of the Eighth Doctor, who had previously only appeared on screen once. As a testament to their popularity, the Big Finish audios were promoted to canon status in the short film The Night of the Doctor, which saw Paul McGann return as the iconic Time Lord and namedrop his various Big Finish assistants.

It has now been announced that Big Finish will be continuing the story of Class. Doctor Who Magazine revealed (via Digital Spy) that six audio episodes of Class had been recorded featuring the original cast of the TV show, as well as its original composer. The episode titles are: Gifted, Life Experience, Tell Me You Love Me, Everyone Loves Reagan, Now You Know... and In Remembrance. It has also been confirmed that the series will feature the Seventh Doctor's most famous companion, Ace (Sophie Aldred), as well as infamous baddies, The Daleks.

Katherine Kelly as Miss Quill and Greg Austin as Charlie in Class

The Class TV series ended on a somewhat ambiguous note. While stopping short of an outright cliffhanger, the show did leave a number of plot threads unresolved and, as such, the cancellation was a disappointment to both viewers. This new Big Finish series should allow the Class story to be given a satisfying conclusion and presumably, if the audio run is a huge success, there could be future adventures on the horizon for the Class crew.

Although Class may have more luck finding a home among the dedicated Doctor Who Big Finish fan base than it ever did on television, it's worth noting that while every episode of the TV show was written by series creator Patrick Ness, the audio plays have been penned by an entirely fresh writing team. This scenario could end up disappointing fans if the new adventures stray considerably from the tone and characterization shown on TV.