After a rather frenetic and breathless start, Class eases the pace and is richer and more affecting as a result – ‘Nightvisting’ is the Doctor Who spin-off’s third offering and it’s easily its strongest yet.

The episode takes its title from folk singer Jim Moray’s 2006 track, which also scores a powerful opening montage charting the marriage of Tanya’s parents – from its sweet beginnings to its bitter end, with her father’s body removed from the family home after he suffers a fatal stroke.

Two years later and Jasper (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith) reappears in his daughter’s bedroom, having “reached out to [her] across all time and space” – it’s but one of many apparent resurrections occuring across London, but are they genuine or a sinister deception?

Ram (Fady Elsayed) is, of course, haunted by a vision of his dead girlfriend Rachel (Anna Shaffer) – and in exploring his prolonged guilt over her death, Class actually gets one up on the hallowed Buffy, which offed a character beloved of the Scooby Gang in its pilot… then never mentioned that character again.

Instead, Ram here has to face Rachel’s loss all over again, but finds some unexpected solace as he and April (Sophie Hopkins) – two of the few left unaffected by the alien threat – are thrown together.

April was already friends with Tanya and (to a lesser extent) Charlie before the series began, while Ram had formed a secret connection to Tanya and even he and Charlie shared a relationship of sorts.

Ram and April, then, seem like the unlikeliest of couplings – even before you consider their polar opposite personalities. He’s like a raw nerve, wearing his heartbreak on his sleeve, while she’s thoroughly repressed as the only way to get by.

But when April opens up to Ram about her alcoholic, wayward father, it brings the pair closer together – a lot closer – and it’s impressive how Patrick Ness is able to build a credible and appealing romantic connection between the two in less than 25 minutes.

The premise of ‘Nightvisiting’ also allows Katherine Kelly the opportunity to dig a little deeper as Miss Quill, a character that Class mostly used as comic relief in its opening double-bill.

While it’d just be plain wrong for Quill to start pouring her heart out, we do get to glimpse a few cracks (no pun intended) in her apparently impenetrable frosty exterior – and without ever compromising the character.

Charlie (Greg Austin) meanwhile is haunted only by the briefest of visions of his parents: “Our bond was not strong,” he explains. “I’ve got different ones that are stronger.”

His emotional development comes not from a heartrending exchange with a lost loved one, but from a heartfelt one with Matteusz (Jordan Renzo) – the pair swapping declarations of love and even moving in together after Matteusz’s homophobic family kick him out onto the street.

But for all the flurry of confusing and conflicting emotions flying through the air – ah, teenage life – it’s Tanya’s pain that proves most powerful and devastating of all.

Vivia Oparah has to shoulder some difficult material as Tanya debates whether or not to ‘pass over’ and the actress doesn’t disappoint. But in the episode’s final moments, rather than wallow in grief, Tanya instead revels in her anger and how it’s made her stronger – a fitting and strangely uplifitng note on which to end.

‘Nightvisiting’ is light on action – boiled down to its basics, it’s a series of conversations in a series of rooms. But with Ness tackling tough subject matter with confidence and his cast responding in kind with emotive performances, the end result is supremely watchable.

Those early growing pains appear to be done with, because this week Class delivers a powerful, witty and poigant piece of drama – one we’d be happy to revisit.