Class 02: The Coach With The Dragon Tattoo

In which Carroll, assistant sports coach at Coal Hill School is attacked by a savage dragon-like creature in the changing rooms. It leaves his flayed body and vanishes through a tear in Space / Time. Ram is struggling to adapt to his new artificial leg and is sent off the football pitch by bullying head coach Dawson. He finds the body and, still traumatised after the death of his Prom date, he hides in a toilet cubicle. After a time he emerges to find no trace of the corpse. Dawson appears and sends Ram home. Stripping off to shower, he reveals an ornate dragon tattoo on his back. He sees a spot of blood in the shower and wipes it away with his foot - and the eye of the dragon tattoo blinks...

Headmaster Mr Armitage informs Miss Quill that the school is about to undergo a spot inspection, and her class has been identified for study. She is unhappy at this but is forced to co-operate.

Charlie, April and Tanya attempt to speak to Ram about the events of the Prom, but he is hostile and brushes them off.

Later Ram witnesses another death - that of a cleaner - but once again all the evidence vanishes and Dawson is close by. He begins to doubt his sanity and thinks the trauma of Prom night has affected him.

He has always been able to talk with Tanya, and decides to confide what he saw in her. She decides to hack into the UNIT website for ideas.

Quill is highly suspicious of the strange Inspector - a man named Paul Smith - believing him to have some hidden agenda. There is no record of him anywhere.

She noticed that his spectacles have clear glass in them. He says very little - and when she throws a stapler at him he catches it with lightning quick reflexes. She notifies Charlie and warns him that they may be in danger.

Tanya tells Charlie and April of Ram's experiences. They suggest that she approach Mr Armitage to find out if any cleaners are missing. He confirms one did fail to come into work today.

A further attack by the dragon is witnessed by April and leads to the death of Mr Armitage. Ram discovers that the others have also now seen the creature and he is not seeing things.

Miss Quill uses the Inspector to lure the creature out of the school where it attacks him - revealing him to have been an android.

It transpires that there are two Leaf Dragons - a male and a female. The female has become physically bonded with Dawson, manifesting itself as his tattoo. The male dragon is visiting the school in order to hunt for and feed its mate. Ram finally makes the connection with Dawson, recalling his elaborate tattoo  and its similarity to the dragon. Quill and the pupils challenge him and he reveals the incident when the female bonded with him. He knows that he is safe from the male, who can't harm its mate, and he is benefitting from the dragon's powers to make himself stronger.

The male dragon is talked into returning through the tear in Space / Time for good - taking its mate with him. All it needs is Dawson's skin - not the rest of him. It then departs, dragging the coach with it.

Ram informs his father about his leg, and what has been happening at the school.

Miss Quill, meanwhile, investigates the remains of the android and finds a tag claiming it property of "The Governors"...

The Coach With the Dragon Tattoo was  written by the show's creator Patrick Ness, and was first broadcast on 22nd October 2016 - screened immediately after the opening episode. This could be considered in two ways. Either a double episode is fan-pleasing and likely to grab more attention - or the BBC weren't sure about the series and were determined to complete the run as quickly as possible. In hindsight, it appears that the latter was the case.

The episode title derives from the Stieg Larsson novel The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, published in Sweden posthumously in 2005 (Larsson died in 2004, aged 50). The English translation followed in 2008. A Swedish movie adaptation appeared in 2009, with a Hollywood remake in 2011.

The episode is set immediately following the events of Prom night. It is not known what really happened to Ram's date, Rachel, and everyone thinks she is simply missing. This took place one week ago according to dialogue. This cover-up doesn't help resolve his PTSD from the night.

Dawson's large tattoo reminds us of the Thomas Harris "Tooth Fairy" serial killer in Red Dragon. Harris' most famous character was a cannibal, and here we have an actual dragon monster eating victims.

We also have two types of bullying going on - the overt cruel behaviour of Dawson, and more subtle family pressure from Ram's father for him to succeed in football.

Sadly, this episode sees the departure of Nigel Betts as Mr Armitage, who had looked as though he might be a recurring character. He doesn't make it past the opening night.

Leading the guest cast as Coach Dawson is Ben Peel. He featured in Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom, so you could argue he has form with large reptilian monsters.

Jami Reid-Quarrell, who had featured in Series 9 as Colony Sarff and as a Gallifreyan Matrix Wraith, plays the enigmatic Inspector.

Seen briefly in the opening instalment, we get to properly meet Varun - Ram's father. He is played by Aaron Neil. Assistant coach Carroll is David McGranaghan, and the cleaner is Cally Lawrence.

Overall, after the set-up of the first episode, with its story arc and links to Doctor Who, Class appears to be trending towards a monster-of-the-week show. Luckily this will not actually be the case. Not many of the later instalments will fit that bill, so this is atypical.

Things you might like to know:

• One of the school buildings is named after Barbara Wright.
• We start to learn that there is more to the Board of Governors than meets the eye, as they have access to highly advanced technology and some secret plans involving Quill. However, we only recently saw that Ian Chesterton is supposed to be their Chairman. Presumably he must have retired between 2013 and 2016.
• Charlie is amazed by humans' ability to put out of their minds bizarre experiences, such as the Shadow Kin attack on the Prom. The Seventh Doctor had remarked on the same thing, citing humanity's failure to recall events like the Zygon / Skarasen incident and the Yeti in the Underground - whilst on a visit to Coal Hill School.