京都　御室仁和寺　🍁紅葉2021🍁

“I loved every minute of it,” says Patrick Ness of his Doctor Who spin-off Class. “I’d be doing it now if they’d let me.”

Following a group of students at Coal Hill school, Class was Doctor Who’s third spin-off since its 2005 revival. With a celebrated young adult author at the helm, Class was a series in the same vein as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, always bursting with ideas and deeply invested in its characters. After the success of The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood, Class seemed set to reach similar heights – until it didn’t.

Five years since the show was first released on October 22nd 2016, creator Patrick Ness, director Ed Bazalgette, and stars Greg Austin, Sophie Hopkins, and Jordan Renzo look back on Class – reflecting on its complicated relationship with Doctor Who, their experiences making the show, its untimely cancellation, and the series two episodes we never saw.

“We literally had Peter Capaldi filming season 10 next door to us, not to mention getting to work with him briefly in episode one. It honestly felt quite imposing having the show’s magnitude following us everywhere. It was both a blessing, and a curse.” -Greg

“It’s a shame there was no official announcement or that the cast and Patrick weren’t told about the cancellation prior. It turned out the ‘announcement of cancellation’ was just a passing comment from someone at the BBC at some Q&A event: we then all found out via Twitter. It wasn’t my favourite.” -Sophie

“The theme of series two was going to be ‘deals with the devil’. What does it cost you to save what you love if you have to do something extremely compromising to your morals?” explains Ness. “I was really looking forward to that. I had a storyline where current day Charlie met a future Charlie who’d essentially lost his soul to save Matteusz. Could that timeline be changed? Would you do it all over again if you saw the cost?” -Patrick

“April [would] get her body back but at a price. A deal is made with The Governors who step in to switch [her] body back.” -Sophie

“Time Capsule [episode]. It would have seen the whole gang blasted back in time to the 90s by the Weeping Angels, their only hope of getting [home] a time capsule they knew would be dug up at Coal Hill 30 years later.” -Kim Curran (writer)

“My episode was going to revolve around fame, the Internet, and the backlash that’s sure to follow,” explains Derek Landy (writer). “In a way, it was about so-called ‘fan entitlement’ — that curious sense of ownership some people develop with regards to entertainment they love. I had a vague plan on how best to execute the idea, but never got the chance to nail anything down.”

Matcha reports on Soshuku Shibatani, the transgender head nun of the Shozenji Temple in Moriguchi City, Osaka. It  is Japan’s first temple built as a refuge for the LGBTQ community.

Soshuku Shibatani, a 65-year-old openly transgender Buddhist nun, was assigned male at birth: 

She began to identify as a female in elementary school but never dared to express her gender identity at the time. As a university student, she met people similar to her and briefly lived at ease among like-minded peers. However, upon entering the workforce, she had to hide her true self once more…

According to Ms. Shibatani, “Buddha saw beyond the differences of gender.”

There is no need to hide your true self. Ms. Shibatani gradually became interested in Buddhist teachings and enrolled in community courses at the Graduate School of Koyasan University. She later resigned from her company, joined the priesthood, and went on to study Esoteric Buddhism.

Ms. Shibatani stated, “Shozenji is not exclusively for the LGBTQ community, but rather a temple for everyone.”