So I watched the first episode of Class last night. I have a second episode to watch and there's a 3rd one on Monday.
Based on the pilot though...I'm not a fan. I'll do a basic breakdown.
Story:
Show takes place at 'Coal Hill Academy', same place as Clara taught. The main characters are a group of kids from the school and one teacher. Said teacher (Miss Quill) and Charlie Smith are aliens in human form who came to Earth via the Doctor to escape the destruction of their races. Miss Quill was originally a terrorist of a different race to Charlie, but was essentially made his slave by means of a technobabble which means she has to protect him or die. There's also Tanya - a smart black girl who's a grade ahead of her age, April - a nice girl who's a bit of a wet hen, and Ram - a Sikh who's good at soccer.
Notes:
I've not had a huge amount of time to judge the performances but they're...OK. They're all considerably older than the 17-18 they're supposed to be, as with all high school dramas. The median age is 24. Thus, they don't really come off as kids most of the time.
It is definitely not a kids show. There's blood and people being killed. It's basically positioning itself as an English version of Buffy. Nothing wrong with that, but I wonder what the future holds.
The sets at the school are good. However the CGI for the shadow monsters in episode 1 were pretty dreadful. They looked computer generated, and when they became solid even the makeup wasn't great.
The Doctor shows up briefly to wander around and exposit. He was fine, but it basically felt like 'I have to go to my own series now, good luck coping with horrible monsters, kids!'
What was most annoying was the appearance of the Doctor Who clichés of technobabble, contrived plots and irrational angst.
Now, the second episode might be fantastic, so I'll withhold judgement until then. However, I'm pretty sure I'm not the demographic for this, and just like Doctor Who (or even more so) I don't think I want to be.
On a rating out of 10 I'd give it a 4 based on the first episode. I'll look at the other one today and see if that changes.