Waterloo Road: Series 8 - Episode 1

Series 9 opens with the school of Waterloo Road, some of its student and teachers transferred to a new site in Scotland.

Furthermore, the school's design is different but similar to the old one which I think helps the transfer for the audience, while it can be seen that the dynamics of the school now being independently run instead of the its state status in earlier series and how this will conflict with the local state school, will be explored.

As the opener to the series we can see the first storylines of the series developing including the students dealing with the aftermath of the bus crash of the last series in which a character, Denzil Kelly, was killed. Other storylines include female bullying, Tariq Siddiqui dealing of being paralysed due to the crash and the dealing of alcoholism of a mother and her son's battle with her.

The first episode was mainly set around runaways Jade Fleming and Drew Kelly (no relation to Denzil). Drew, who is hiding out with Jade from the police, tries to control Jade as she tries to regain a life by attending the school, but their true identities are found out and Drew's mental state flatters leading him to realise what he's done and turn himself in. This story showed that the show is still the show it's always been and dealt with the hardship of being a homeless runaway who wishes they were back to a proper life.

It was a strong opening, displaying a fresh start for the series with lots of new characters and more guest stars to come.