Class 07: The Metaphysical Engine, or What Quill Did

In which we see what Miss Quill was doing whilst the students were trapped in detention with an alien meteorite prison...

Dorothea Ames has offered her a means by which she can rid herself of the Arn - the creature implanted in her head which prevents her from using weapons. She warns that the procedure could be fatal, but Quill is determined to try. Meeting in the school hall, they are both joined by a man named Ballon.

Ames produces a machine which will miniaturise and transport them all.

They emerge to find themselves in a strange forest of red-leafed trees, unlike anywhere on Earth.

Ballon goes hunting and returns with a dead creature which is identified as an Arn. Ames explains that the device which transported them is known as the Metaphysical Engine. It allows people to enter into a thought or belief of another - including their concept of heaven or hell.

The device takes them into the afterlife of Ballon's people - the Lorr. It transpires that he is a shape-shifter who has become trapped in this one humanoid form. Ames needs the blood of the Lorr devil. He is so terrified of it that he cannot carry out the task, but is helped by Quill.

They must next retrieve a Quill brain so that Ballon can examine their anatomy. Quill finds herself in the Quill heaven, despite her refusal to believe in such a place. She encounters the original Quill goddess. Quill attacks her, accusing her of allowing her people to have died at the hands of the Shadow Kin. Ballon kills the goddess, decapitating her for the brain.

The trio return to Coal Hill School, now that they have the items needed to remove Quill's Arn - the dead Arn, the Porr devil's blood, and the Quill goddess' brain. Ballon carries out the operation and Quill is freed of the creature, although left with a scar down her face. She and Ballon have sex.

Going to find Ames, they find that they were never back at the school. They are really in a bleak desert landscape, within the Cabinet of Souls.

Ames claims to simply be a holographic projection. There is only enough energy to transport one of them out of the Cabinet. They must fight to the death. Time within the Cabinet moves at a faster rate, so they have no time to debate the matter. Ballon wins the fight but when he shoots Quill, it is he who dies - Ames having sabotaged the weapon.

Quill vows to destroy the Rhodian souls who inhabit the Cabinet.

She returns to the school and frees the students from detention. 45 minutes have passed for them, but Quill is several months older - and several months pregnant...

The Metaphysical Engine, or What Quill Did was written by Patrick Ness, and first broadcast on 26th November 2016.

In the previous episode we had seen Quill turn up with longer hair and a deep scar on her face - and this instalment explains how this came about.

It is refreshing to focus on Katherine Kelly's Miss Quill - who has been the most interesting and wickedly funny character of the series. The students are all too po-faced and hung-up on their relationships, whilst the purported hero of the show - Charlie - is deliberately set up to be humourless as part of his characterisation. It is also nice to see the series break away from Coal Hill once again, visiting a few new alien worlds - though they are more metaphysical spaces than actual planets.

There is just the one additional guest cast member this week - Chike Okonkwo as Ballon. The Quill goddess is played by Spencer Wilding, who had recently been playing monsters like the Minotaur in Doctor Who (as well as Darth Vader in Star Wars: Rogue One).

After coming across as an ambivalent character, Pooky Quesnel's Dorothea Ames is established as a proper villain, and we get lots of hints about the, as yet unseen, Governors who she works for.

They have been studying the tears in Space / Time centred on the school, but are not responsible for them.

Overall, one of the better episodes of the series.