Cassie goes to upmarket Medenham College, but she doesn't fit in there. For one thing, she's not a rich spoiled brat. Her best friend is her roomate Thelma, and outrageous lesbian. They get on really well until the day when Cassie stumbles on a strange urn in one of the outhouses of the school whilst having a crafy cigarette. She develops telekinetic powers that she at first can't control, but she also starts to have terrifying visions of a woman who was the first mistress of Medenham and who died a terrible death following madness. There is also a man in her dreams, a man called Azazeal, the name of one of the fallen angels, a man who she has also seen hanging around the outskirts of the school. A chance meeting gives Cassie a chance to be in with the popular crowd, but it's not a real opportunity, forces a wedge between her and Thelma and leads or tragedy. Or was it Azazeal's doing all along.

This double length pilot episode is a slow burn affair that mixes both the ordinary concerns of a young girl on the edge of adulthood with deeper, more supernatural themes. It's an old gothic idea, the mixing of the supernatural and the sexual, but it also works in this updating that cannily plays safe by linking the modern back to a period 300 years in the past, making the gothic more acceptable. It all starts off with small flashes, half-heard voices, momentary flashes of telekinesis, small revelations about the past of Medmenham, but it's a drip feed up to a smashing climax that might all be imagination, but has a shock tragedy at its heart which it then goes and turns on its head in the most surprising way.

The witty script is aided by a number of fine performances from the younger and more mature performers alike. The double act of Cassie and Thelma has to shoulder the burden of the show's centre and Christina Cole does well with the outsider who desperately wants in, but doesn't want to pay the price. She is outshone, however, by Jemima Rooper's storming turn as the not just openly, but aggressively gay Thelma whose banter seems to permanently revolve around sex and whose brash exterior does protect a vulnerable heart. Against these two, the supporting youngsters don't stand out and are sketched in as the bitch kings and queens of any large school for the wealthy. Michael Fassbender is kept in reserve as Azazeal, mainly a brooding presence in the distance, but when he finally makes his entrance he is compellingly slimy and believably evil.

This episode was all about the set up, the atmosphere and the shocks that come late on. There are also some nice jump moments in amongst the slow build, a tactic that isn't overused. There aren't any answers and more than enough questions to ensure that we come back to find out where the show is going to take us.

The set up is intriguing enough for now and it will be interesting to see how the show develops the themes.