Doctor Who will be mostly absent from our telly in 2016 – but a new spinoff, Class, is coming to BBC Three and, word has it, it’s “brilliant”.

Damian Kanavagh – digital controller for BBC Three – told Digital Spy that writer Patrick Ness and producer Brian Minchin have an “amazing vision” for the series.
“I’ve read some of the scripts, I’ve met and talked to Patrick and Brian, and I think their vision for it is amazing,” he said.

Class is set in Doctor Who’s Coal Hill School and will follow its students as they battle intergalactic monsters and other sinister villains.There’ll be yet more shocking events in halls of education in Clique – a new drama from Skins writer Jess Brittain that’s being pitched as Skins for the university age.

“I’ll tell you, when I read the first script of Clique, it just leaps off the page,” Kavanagh said. “There’s so many layers and so much intrigue to it.”
Thirteen – a kidnap thriller from rising star Marnie Dickens – will also form part of BBC Three’s new output, with Kavanagh hinting that the brand shifting online means “more scope” for drama, not less.

“We’re working with BBC Worldwide – there’s a couple of projects in the pipeline, not only in drama,” he explained. “If they come on board there’s additional money, so there’s ways to make budgets go further.

“You’ll see that with pretty much every broadcaster. The story around Humans [a co-production with US broadcaster AMC] isn’t too dissimilar on Channel 4.”