Saturday, November 26, 2016

My Review of Class's 1x03: "Nightvisiting"


Written by Patrick Ness
Directed by Ed Bazalgette

Tanya (to Jasper/Lan Kin): "You don't get to have my closure, so how does that taste?"

I have to admit that out of all the main characters, Tanya is arguably the one I've least been interested in but this episode certainly saw something of an upswing as the series delved a little more into her in a nicely character driven episode.

As the previous episode stated, Tanya's father Jasper died two years ago and coming up to his anniversary, she encounters a ghostly version of him who is a little too desperate to reconnect with his grieving child. Naturally, Tanya finds this all a bit suspect and it soon becomes obvious that her father's convenient return is part of this week's alien invasion story.

The race this time being the Lan Kin, who seem to be playing on the 'Nightvisiting' folk myth that April info dumps Ram about. They seek out people who've lost other and target them. With Tanya seeing her father for the duration of this episode, there's also Ram encountering Rachel for a few scenes as well as Charlie getting a brief look at his parents one more time.

More interestingly though was seeing Quill herself encountering a nicer, humanoid looking version of her sister. I like that along with Tanya that Quill wasn't buying into the Lan Kin's attempts of connection for one moment and waited for Charlie and Matteusz to show up so she could use the former to help get some answers about the creature's true motives.

I have to admit, there was some genuinely nice character moments in this one. We had some lovely conversations with Charlie/Matteusz (including a sex scene), an insight into Tanya's relationship with her family as well as the dynamic that Quill has her with her own kin too. I do think the Lan Kin were a little hastily defeated but other than that, the characters moments made up for it though.

- Matteusz has been kicked out by his parents and is now living with Charlie and Quill. This should be interesting to see unfold.
- April is into folk music because of her father and Tanya's mother enjoys swimming.
- The flashbacks of Tanya's family life reminded me of the same thing Russell T. Davies did last year for the Lance episode of Cucumber. It was pretty effective. I also enjoyed the opening song by Jim Moray for this episode as well.
- Chronology: Not long from where The Coach With The Dragon Tattoo left off.

Nightvisiting might have left Coal Hill out of the mix, but it certainly gave the show a little more breathing space. The character moments made the episode, the music was nice and having it primarily set at night made it a little eerie too.

Rating: 8 out of 10

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