Monthly Archives: November 2016

The more I think about it, the more I like about the premise of Class as well. It’s like tragically, grimly accidental continuity.

Coal Hill is just this school, in a formerly working class, quickly gentrifying area of London. Full of kids, teachers, living their lives. But, a jerk in a time machine has punched enough holes in the universe that unspeakable horrors have begun to pour in.

So the school has turned into a place of incomprehensible danger and fear, that people have no rational way of quantifying. What can you do? Put up a memorial to the dead and the vanished, renovate and modernize, try to rationalize, try to keep living. But everyone knows. What had just been a normal school has turned into an urban legend, a place of dread… that still remains in operation.

What had randomly been the location for Doctor Who’s first episode, then a subtle continuity touchstone for decades, is now a character. Coal Hill has become mythologized in its own right, as a casualty of the cavalier adventure narrative of the parent show.

And into that mythology step a few brighter-than-average kids, who through it face horrors they are unequipped to cope with. THANKS DOCTOR.

When you see the Coal Hill emblem now, it comes not just with dry geeky recognition but with a sense of living menace. It has been corrupted. What had been benign, slightly wonky continuity has become a hostile mythology. It has taken on its own life, and that life is tragic.

As a writer, Patrick Ness regularly emphasizes the words that we’re using and the weight that we give them. In episode one, Ram’s father interjects about his son’s sloppy word choice.

RAM: Oh, my God! If you tell me one more time, I might literally go insane.
VARUN: Don’t abuse the word literally. It’s a good word that young people squander.

Note that he doesn’t criticize Ram’s misuse of the word; rather, the lack of consideration that seemed to go into its selection. The point isn’t a prescriptive approach to language, but rather a deliberate one.

In the case of this show, I think the most important word may be its title, Class. I think that the conflicts in the end will be less a matter of malevolence than about the consequences of righteousness and entitlement.

There are some key elements that the show has set up already: Charlie’s justified attitude toward slavery; his imperiousness when questioned on it by Tanya; that telling early moment where Ram asks him why he sounds like the Queen; his detachment, that initially we read as dorky obliviousness, upon walking into the conflict of Matteusz’s family; his calm and calculation in bringing the Cabinet with him, and in his following demeanor — on which Quill checks him in the first episode; the failure of the… whatsit in episode three to tempt him with visions of his parents.

I’m starting even to question his actions in slapping away April’s hand when she shoots at Corakinus. He justifies it by saying he hesitates in killing a friend, but at that point he hasn’t really done much to suggest he thinks that much about April. Really, his whole attitude toward the others is genial but disinterested. He’s fascinated with them, particularly with Matteusz, but they’re just tools to entertain him while he bides his time.

What have I been waiting for?
Been wasting all my time,
Watching my youth slip away
Surely is a crime.

It’s not that Charlie is an evil, malicious person out to do harm. It’s a matter of class. As Charlie loves to remind everyone, he is a prince. He is above everyone and everything, and he has his entitlement. Whatever he does, it is just — because of who and what he is. He simply is better than everyone. It’s the way he was raised, and it plays deeply into his understanding of the world. Within that framework he’s easygoing and pleasant enough, and seems willing to listen to others and entertain their views to a point. But, he’s not even the same species as these people.

To that end, it’s a little unclear what his motivation might be, but it is telling that he has this box on Earth that can in effect empty out all of the people on the planet and replace them with his own people. He’s already wearing a human skin, so it’s not like the concept is that much of a leap for him.

The issue about his parents, we can read a few ways. The initial viewing gives us a sad sentimental glow; he was the poor little royal boy who nobody really loved except as a tool (aside: how might that have affected his views of others?), and here he’s found a real family. Take another look, and we see that maybe he doesn’t miss his parents because he has a plan and he’s not so bothered that they’re gone for the moment. Dwell a bit more, and you start to wonder if the Shadow Kin were on his planet altogether by their own device. Did he play some part in orchestrating what happened? Is there a strategic reason why he might want Corakinus around?

I’m not sure that the story will go as far as that, but I think it’s becoming clear that the big turmoil in this show is going to be around Charlie’s ethics and his decisions about who he wants to be, what he cares about, how he wants to behave. And I don’t think he’s going to come to (what we would consider) the right decision very easily. “Nice” he may be, as with April, but he’s not exactly kind. It’s not natural for him to relate to others as equals. And it may take something big to force him to accept that leap.

Probably involving a few slaps from Quill.

Afterthought: Most of the sense in the main cast comes from the people of color, and the immigrant boyfriend. In the first episode Ram and Tanya joke about how glad they are to talk about something other than what the white people are up to. Ram is clearly the main character of the show; he is most affected by what’s happening around him, and goes on the most visible personal journey. The first episode opens to Ram, engaging Charlie in petty conflict — or rather, Charlie being lightly “terrorized” by Ram (see his excuse about the Quill) — and that conflict continues for some time.

Even in episode two Ram is reluctant to get involved with the chosen ones, a status that he scorns yet Charlie wears more naturally than his human skin. This really all is happening because the Doctor plopped Charlie down in the middle of Shoreditch, and being an alien — a royal alien, at that — he’s pretty tranquil about the whole thing.

So, yeah, Charlie is a problem. That’s going to be the big thing to unpack by the end of the season.