Post-apocalyptic media has always been a popular genre. Television series like The Last of Us and The Walking Dead, movies such as I am Legend, and the continued popularity of The Planet of the Apes and the Mad Max franchises are proof that doomsday media has been a massive hit across the generations. The world is always ending, and we can’t get enough of it.
Class of ’07 throws its hat into the genre, albeit with a whimsical and comical twist. This ten-episode Amazon Prime series is at the ten-year high school reunion of Ridge Heights Catholic Ladies School in Australia. While the Class of ’07 parties it up, the world comes crashing down. An unknown geographical disturbance causes water to spring up from the ground, submerging the world in a Noah’s Ark-like flood. The surviving ladies are forced to turn their soiree into a survival of the fittest, all while hashing out their past grievances and high school trauma. There is no clear main character, as Class of ’07 features a talented ensemble cast that is relatively unknown to American audiences, but there are plenty of noteworthy performances. Emily Browning (who might be long remembered for her role as Violet in A Series of Unfortunate Events) delivers a memorable performance as Zoe Miller, a woman who is trying to come to grips with her past moral failures and the consequences of her disappointments. She wants to do the right thing and be a good person, but her inherent selfishness always seems to get her into deeper troubles. In that sense, she is the dizzying embodiment of what the Apostle Paul writes about in Romans 7:19. “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” Zoe Miller’s struggle to be a good person is confounded by the fact that she keeps doing bad things, a universally shared condition.
In the end, all apocalyptic media seek to strip humanity down to its bare essentials, revealing the marrow of our humanity’s flawed desires and deepest motivations. Class of ’07 does the same but in a comical rendition. Since the episodes are around a half-hour each, it makes this first season easily bingeable in one or two sittings. (Rated TV-MA for profanity. Amazon Prime)
About the Author
Daniel Jung is a graduate of Calvin Theological Seminary and an ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America. He lives in Northern California, where he serves as an associate pastor at Home of Christ in Cupertino.