It’s always difficult to talk about Class episode-by-episode, because it’s so much less a monster-of-the-week show than Doctor Who is. Unlike its parent show, its individual episodes all feel like they make up part of a coherent whole; which makes it tricky to identify the work they’re doing individually.
Still. Brave-ish Heart is another charming episode – if just a little overburdened with the teenage earnestness the series has so far managed to leaven with its ironising self-awareness. Having crossed into the realm of the Shadow Kin, April, supported by her love interest Ram, attempts to defeat Corakinus once and for all; while, back on Earth, Dorothea Ames (Coal Hill’s new headmistress, you’ll remember) tries to manipulate Charlie into using the Cabinet of Souls to destroy the flesh-eating petals menacing the planet – a course of action which Charlie believes will end all chance of resurrecting his people.
It’s complicated being a teenager.
In all seriousness, that’s exactly Class‘ project: rendering the emotional lives of its teenage protagonists as literal struggles against literal dragons. Certainly, the symbolism of April’s story couldn’t be more overt: the land of the Shadow Kin is a (sorry) shadow-realm in which April can act out, and thus resolve, her feelings about her father’s controlling influence over her life and her emotions.
It’s perhaps troubling that, in Class as in many YA narratives of its type, this struggle is transmuted into a specifically violent one – although it’s hard to think what other metaphor the show might use. But April’s violence is at least treated ambiguously: there’s a fine line, the episode seems to be saying, between righteous anger and toxic rage; between defeating your enemy and killing them. I’m not sure that ambiguity completely addresses the fact that dealing with your issues through violence – even metaphorical violence – is pretty unhealthy, but it’s more than a lot of narratives of this type are doing.
Charlie’s storyline, meanwhile, is more nuanced, and a better example of what makes Class really stand out. It uses a science fictional conceit – flesh-eating petals – to talk about issues of genocide and revenge, Big Themes that are nicely juxtaposed with April’s personal struggles. Charlie’s seen the murder of his people: will he use his weapon of mass destruction to take revenge on the race who did it (who also happen to be the Shadow Kin, obviously) – thereby dooming humanity to death-by-petal – or to save another race? It’s not a storyline that works through metaphor; it’s a discussion that can literally only work in science fiction (or conceivably fantasy).
As I’ve said before, I think what’s at the heart of what makes Class work is the fact that it switches between metaphorical and literal modes of science fiction. It recognises the potential SF has to encode emotional truth, but it can also use its SFnal conceits as if they’re real. This flexible approach, I think, allows the show to address some of the emotional issues that the genre at large tends to skate over. Although individual storylines can be a bit hit-and-miss (as I said above, April’s fight with Corakinus is just a little too over-dramatic), the series as a whole has a heft to it, as a result, that Doctor Who never quite manages.
The English Student 