Class Dismissed.

TV Let's mark some time. Doctor Who spin-off Class is officially cancelled which was somewhat expected given show runner Patrick Ness had already announced he's walked away. Here's what current BBC Three controller Damian Kavanagh said today at the Broadcasting Press Guild with some invective:

"No, [we're not bringing it back]. There was nothing wrong with it – I thought Patrick did a great job, he explored an amazing world."

No, it was rubbish. After a promising first couple of episodes it plopped straight into the kind of sub-Buffy territory those opening episodes seemed like they were commenting against, with some astonishingly ripe dialogue an uncertain tone and a feeling of watching some random episodes from a much longer series were all the character development was happening elsewhere. Also had the interesting approach for a Doctor Who spin-off of mostly ignoring all the potential mythology available in favour something trite and generic. A glance through my reviews shows someone become increasingly tetchy as the series unfolded.

"In honesty, it just didn't really land for us on BBC Three."

Which judging by the lack of pre-publicity and in series promotion seemed be the case before it was "broadcast" or uploaded. There were hard core Doctor Who fans who didn't even know it existed despite Capaldi turning up in the first episode.  If you thought it was actually any good you would have mainstreamed it on BBC Two, except there isn't a timeslot on the channel any more for this kind of thing with primetime mostly filled with documentaries and Dragon's Den.  So you dumped it on BBC One, again without bothering to publicise it first.  It's almost as though you didn't want people to watch it because you were quite rightly embarrassed.

"Things sometimes don't, and I've got to make decisions about what we're going to do from a drama point of view."

Well, quite.  Thanks to the license fee settlement, gone are the days of even being able to afford Being Human of Spooks: Code 9 or indeed the BBC could afford to pay for BBC Three to go out on a linear channel.  This wouldn't have gone into production without the US money.

"There are always times when you do something and you have to decide that it's not going to come back. Class is just one of those things."

Honestly, we understand. It probably wasn't what you were expecting and it wasn't what we were either. It's just annoying that it ended on a cliffhanger. Perhaps Big Finish'll produce their usual ten boxed sets in other to provide a resolution.  This generation has its own The Tripods.

None of which has stopped me from foolishly buying the bloody thing on blu-ray because I'm a flagellating completist.