Class review: Detained (Doctor Who spin-off)
By James Aggas
The students of Class are stuck in detention in Detained. But this being Coal Hill, the stakes are considerably higher than in your usual detention session…
Detained was an episode that I was very keen to watch, the moment I saw the trailer for it at the end of Brave-ish Heart. An episode that focused less on a horrific alien invasion and just solely on the main characters (well, most of them), this was the kind of bottle episode that could really show off what Class could really achieve.
I’m generally a big fan of bottle episodes, too. With few effects and non-regulars to rely on, it gives the writers a chance to focus on our regulars in a completely different way. Did Detained live up to my expectations?
First things first, let’s talk about the really great stuff. With the alien consciousness trapped inside a stone, the episode’s main draw was two things. Focusing on the regulars trapped in a small environment, and exploring the characters’s darkest secrets.
A dark psychological episode
Getting the characters to confess their secrets through the alien stone in order to learn new information was a neat little idea. It was a nice, sci-fi way of getting the regulars to say things they’d otherwise would never normally admit to. But it wasn’t too sci-fi, so it didn’t take away too much from the psychological aspect of the story.
And that particular aspect was handled very well. Getting to find out all of these character’s darkest secrets was not only satisfying to watch, especially for the drama. But all of them felt real, too. They weren’t exaggerated, they were just real and relatable fears and doubts that many of us have shared. So that aspect of the story was handled well.
Once again, I think Charlie and Matteusz were the most interesting characters to watch. Not just because of their relationship, either. I loved that Charlie really got focused on here, particularly how living in privilege has made some key things in life more difficult for him. So it was great to have that kind of focus.
The Class students are stuck in detention. A detention unlike any other…
(Image credit: Class/BBC.
Image obtained from: official Class website.)
The end of a relationship
Even the April and Rami aspect was handled well. Perhaps it was because the episode finally addressed the real problem of their relationship – it just wasn’t convincing.
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I don’t know if writer Patrick Ness had planned it like that, but the two didn’t seem to share much chemistry in earlier episodes. So I’m genuinely glad that it was openly addressed, and it was brought to a natural close with this episode.
If there was anything that I wasn’t so keen on, it was how the episode was occasionally presented. I wasn’t too keen on the use of unnecessary slow-motion that seemed to show up from time to time. And while the script was generally pretty good, there were some moments that didn’t quite work.
But overall, Detained was quite the effective episode of Class. If it’s not quite great, it’s pretty close to it, and probably my favorite episode of the series so far. I also rather enjoyed the effective cliffhanger, too. Overall, a nice little bottle episode.
Next. Series Eleven: Spoilers (and why we won’t be covering them). dark
What did you think of Detained? Was it exactly the kind of episode that Class needed at last? Was the lack of an alien invasion a refreshing change of pace for the series? Let us know in the comments below.