Good Class news and an Elementary review

[selenak]

Courtesy of davetheanalyzer: Big Finish will continue the all too brief Class, aka the Doctor Who spin-off that only got one season. And as a guest star: Ace! More here; this makes me very happy indeed.

Elementary 6.05: I have to admit that I'm really into scenes where Gregson lays down the law on Sherlock. One reason being that he doesn't do it often, but each time he does, it's justified, the show lets him make good points instead of strawman arguments, and Sherlock takes it instead of being flippant and dismissive.

This said, since the episode doesn't ultimately use the initial "Sherlock can't remember the last six hours" for something angst inducing within the episode itself (as opposed to providing the occasion where Sherlock has to come clean to Gregson about his state of health) I do wonder whether there'll be some additional pay off later.

The Midnight Ranger musical is a riff on the rl Spider-man on Broadway disaster, right? And also continuity with the Paul Cornell episode featuring superhero comics popular in the Elementary verse?

Michael, real or hallucination: on the one hand, we get another scene where Sherlock isn't present and which would be cheating were Michael not real. Otoh, said scene immediately segues into Sherlock waking up from a dream. On the one hand, Joan is present when Michael rings at the door and hears the doorbell. On the other, Joan then disappears before Michael enters and thus still hasn't seen him. If Michael is real, I can only conclude that the show goes out of its way to keep Joan from meeting him because either she knows him already in another identity, or she will meet him in another capacity that might be plot relevant.

Comments

[jesuswasbatman]

Brilliant!

I've never really got into Big Finish due to the sheer amount of stuff available and the cost of it, but I'll definitely go for this.

(My recently developed additional rule for "don't bother reading anything more by this person": dismisses Class as a complete failure)

[selenak]

Good rule!

Btw, if you ever change your mind re: Big Finish, I'm glad to give you some recs!

[selenay]

Class! Ace! I am excite :-)

[selenak]

Same here!

[andraste]

Ace meeting the Class kids is something I never knew I wanted! So glad Big Finish can take care of them and introduce them to the wider world of Doctor Who characters.

[selenak]

Same here. And since it's audio, Ace can be at any point of her life. What do you think will they choose? Teenage Ace from the tv canon era? Still young but more experienced Ace who is travelling with the Doctor and Hex? Present day Ace about whom we only have the hint from the Sarah Jane Adventures?

If it's teenage Ace, I wonder whether she'll realise that the version of the Doctor whom the Class kids have met is a later one than hers, and how that will make her feel. And which of the Class kids she'll get along best/least!

[andraste]

Well, they could always do a box set where she meets Class kids meet Ace at various points in her life. If I got to pick, though, I'd go with 'travelling with the Doctor and Hex' era.

My guess is that she'll get only with Tanya either really well or really poorly depending on her relative age when they meet, and that she'll initially clash with Charlie at least a bit. (Space princes are not really Ace's favourite people in general.)

[davetheanalyzer]

And BF's website now has it available for preorder, with episode summaries too: https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/class-returns

No audio trailer yet.

[kalypso]

WICKED!!!

Is Cyril Nri in it?

[selenak]

I don't know any more than you do from the article!

[davetheanalyzer]

Neither volume page's cast list has his name and the pair are set in series 1. Though who knows. BF has once hid a surprise role in another series by not listing the actor and I guess that's covered under "Other parts played by members of the cast."

[kalypso]

Oh well, if they're set in series 1 there's no particular reason why Cyril would appear.

But maybe that choice leaves a window of hope that series 2 isn't totally out of the question?

[davetheanalyzer]

Just listened to the latest BF podcast (Which has a thirty second audio preview around the 16 minute mark), and the set's producer Scott Handcock said they got the license for the series just as it was ending, and it specified that they couldn't write any stories after the cliffhanger under the impression there might be a series 2.

Of course, with the series canceled and if the boxset is successful, who knows, that clause might go away in the next set. Scott Handcock did use the operative word "yet."