On Friday, January 8, BBC America’s president, Sarah Barnett, announced the Doctor Who spinoff titled Class will be airing stateside in 2016. An exact premiere date has yet to be released, but we are assuming that, like Doctor Who, Class will air in the US the same day it does in the UK. We also don’t know many details about Class, but it is aimed at a young adult audience and will be set at Coal Hill School. In case you are wondering, yes, that is the same school where Clara Oswalt worked.
Class is not the first spinoff from the internationally loved sci-fi series. The Sarah Jane Adventures, which ran from 2007 to 2011, starred former Doctor Who companion Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane. The second spinoff, Torchwood, starred John Barrowman as the flirtatious Captain Jack Harkness and ran from 2006 to 2011.
Class was already set to premiere on BBC Three in the UK, but now it will be shared production between BBC America and BBC Cymru Wales, which is how it will also air here in the US. Not many other details have been released about Class, but Doctor Who‘s Steven Moffat and Brian Minchin will be producing the eight-part series, and young-adult author Patrick Ness, known for his A Monster Calls books, will be penning the show.
According to Variety, Ness has said he is “astounded and thrilled to be entering the Doctor Who universe, which is as vast as time and space itself. I can’t wait for people to meet the heroes of Class, to meet the all-new villains and aliens, to remember that the horrors of the darkest corners of existence are just about on par with having to pass your exams.”