The Impossible Girl: Who IS Clara Oswin Oswald?!?

[Christopher]

Oh, good one.

[Mr Awe]

Lonemagpie wrote:

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I was given to understand two specials- one pre-filmed this spring, and one live episode...

WTF, a live episode?! Unless it's the actors sitting around chatting, it seems pointless to air an episode live and potentially extremely restrictive on what they can do.

Either way, I wouldn't get too excited over it.

Mr Awe

[Christopher]

Mr Awe wrote:

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WTF, a live episode?! Unless it's the actors sitting around chatting, it seems pointless to air an episode live and potentially extremely restrictive on what they can do.

Not necessarily. After all, there have been Doctor Who stage plays. And the early episodes in the '60s were often recorded in a manner similar to a live broadcast, with the actors performing the scenes in sequence and pretty much straight through.

Then there's something like Red Dwarf, some of whose seasons were (and are) shot before a live audience. In a case like that, you could make the FX shots in advance and cut away to them at the appropriate moments in a live performance.

Sure, we generally expect more elaborate visual effects and action from the show today, but there are exceptions. Remember the 4th-season episode "Midnight?" A bottle show taking place almost entirely inside a tour bus, with the threat being an invisible entity whose presence was conveyed entirely through dialogue and performance. That one could've been done live quite easily.

Indeed, given that British actors usually tend to work in stage, screen, and TV interchangeably rather than specializing in just one, I daresay they'd be more experienced at performing live than the cast of an American show would tend to be.

[Mr Awe]

^ Well, I guess I just don't see the point of doing it that way. For a comedy like Red Dwarf, which I totally love, it helps with comedic timing. I just don't see it helping for a drama.

And, there are reasons why they moved away from shooting DW like a live broadcast. I did see a video of a DW stage play and wasn't overly impressed.

I'm just not sure why they'd go that route. I'm thinking maybe it's more likely a discussion about the series by those involved, or something along those lines.

Mr Awe

[Psion]

Hasn't Matt Smith performed live as the Doctor at certain children's charity functions? I could swear I remember seeing him go into an audience and picking a kid to do something important while he saved the auditorium.

[DakotaSmith]

Not to toot my own horn, but so far I've been on the same wavelength as Moffat.

There was only one reason for a married couple in the TARDIS. In the UK, this is a children's show. In a children's show, in order to remove any possibility of scandal, it's necessary to marry the characters. Rory and Amy were married to produce River.

Similiarly, there is only one reason to marry the Doctor.

I think Clara's identity follows logically if you wonder why, after almost fifty years, they would marry the Doctor.

Dakota Smith

[Christopher]

Mr Awe wrote:

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^ Well, I guess I just don't see the point of doing it that way. For a comedy like Red Dwarf, which I totally love, it helps with comedic timing. I just don't see it helping for a drama.

And, there are reasons why they moved away from shooting DW like a live broadcast. I did see a video of a DW stage play and wasn't overly impressed.

To each his own. I've seen a number of live episodes of various TV shows, as well as the live version of Fail Safe that George Clooney produced and starred in back in 2000, and I quite enjoy it. There's an energy and immediacy to a live performance that you don't get with the carefully constructed and perfected productions we usually get. There are some inevitable glitches and flubs along the way, but that's part of the fun -- it's exciting to watch actors perform without a safety net, to be aware of the risk of a mistake happening, and it makes it more impressive when they carry off the performance mostly without a hitch.

Doctor Who has always been a broad, theatrical show -- sometimes bordering on pantomime in the UK sense. And the British have a grand theatrical tradition. I think it could be a terrific idea.

Psion wrote:

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Hasn't Matt Smith performed live as the Doctor at certain children's charity functions? I could swear I remember seeing him go into an audience and picking a kid to do something important while he saved the auditorium.

That was the second Doctor Who at the Proms concert in 2010.

DakotaSmith wrote:

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There was only one reason for a married couple in the TARDIS. In the UK, this is a children's show. In a children's show, in order to remove any possibility of scandal, it's necessary to marry the characters. Rory and Amy were married to produce River.

Similiarly, there is only one reason to marry the Doctor.

I think Clara's identity follows logically if you wonder why, after almost fifty years, they would marry the Doctor.

Good grief. You, along with the person who suggested it was Susan, are completely forgetting that they kissed, that Clara has been extremely flirtatious with the Doctor from the get-go. By your own logic, the last thing they would do in a children's show is include incestuous themes! Of course she isn't his daughter or granddaughter or any kind of relative! Ick! Eww!

[RoJoHen]

She's his mistress!

Dun-dun-duuuuun.

Just wait til River finds out.

[Allyn Gibson]

Christopher wrote:

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Good grief. You, along with the person who suggested it was Susan, are completely forgetting that they kissed, that Clara has been extremely flirtatious with the Doctor from the get-go. By your own logic, the last thing they would do in a children's show is include incestuous themes! Of course she isn't his daughter or granddaughter or any kind of relative! Ick! Eww!

Fans have been drawing weird connections like that for years. For instance, after the McGann film, a New Zealand fanzine argued that Grace was the Doctor's half-human mother.

[Sindatur]

DakotaSmith wrote:

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Not to toot my own horn, but so far I've been on the same wavelength as Moffat.

There was only one reason for a married couple in the TARDIS. In the UK, this is a children's show. In a children's show, in order to remove any possibility of scandal, it's necessary to marry the characters. Rory and Amy were married to produce River.

Similiarly, there is only one reason to marry the Doctor.

I think Clara's identity follows logically if you wonder why, after almost fifty years, they would marry the Doctor.

Dakota Smith

If you're implying Oswin will turn out to be his daughter, a Children's show wouldn't have had them kissing like that.

[Gov Kodos]

Susan? No, not likely. Why not another child of Rory and Amy, this time displaced through time when the Angel sent Amy back to Rory?

[ToddCam]

Christopher wrote:

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What you're doing is starting with a desired conclusion and constructing arguments to justify it. That's backward reasoning, because you can use it to support any position, no matter how wrong or nonsensical. Better to reserve judgment until we have more evidence, then formulate a hypothesis based on the evidence.

What desired conclusion am I starting with? That there are no rules? Where is your evidence that there are? There's a trend, certainly. And if I missed a quote where it's specifically said to be impossible to take on the same form, my mistake. I am slowly making my way through classic Doctor Who (and some of it's pretty awful to try and sit through), so I may be unaware of any number of statements.

Besides, exceptions are exceptions. So Clara could be another exception anyway. I am not trying to scientifically prove anything.

Just to be clear, I am not saying Clara is regenerating, and I seriously doubt that's the situation. I just don't think you can rule it out. Though I mostly just object to passive-aggressive statements starting with "I don't know why." What is your goal in making this statement? To make everyone give up their wild suppositions? To make people feel foolish for making such unscientifically-based arguments? Is the fact that I didn't use the scientific method in my grand (admittedly weak) argument that Clara could be regenerating offensive? And, if we are to reserve judgment, then why don't you take your own advice, and let people make their own foolish observations? If you want to argue that it's unlikely, or that evidence contradicts it, then fine. But why bring up your inability to comprehend others' ideas? It takes it from being about Doctor Who and makes it about the fans themselves.

Alidar Jarok wrote:

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Do you think you can regenerate from turning into a Dalek? Do you think you can regenerate by teleporting to an entirely different location (keeping in mind Clara was buried). There have been subtle variations in regeneration over the years, but nothing as big as those things.

The regeneration from being a Dalek seems unlikely, true, but what are the limits of regeneration? Has any Time Lord been turned into a Dalek before? I think it more likely that the utter obliteration of her physical form when the planet blew up probably makes it more of non-starter.

Forgive me, but didn't the Time Lord in yellowface from "Planet of the Spiders" regenerate and teleport?

Wild hypothesis: Clara's "regeneration" takes 150 years or so, so she burst out of the ground 26 years before the present day scene in "The Snowmen." In between stuff happens, has amnesia, final death in "Asylum of the Daleks."

I hate that hypothesis.

[Christopher]

ToddCam wrote:

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What desired conclusion am I starting with?

That she's a Time Lady, obviously. It's a blatantly unlikely premise on the face of it, because what's happening with Clara is blatantly unlike Gallifreyan regeneration, but you're ignoring the way it works most of the time and cherrypicking the very few exceptions in order to support a very unlikely suggestion.

Just to be clear, I am not saying Clara is regenerating, and I seriously doubt that's the situation. I just don't think you can rule it out.

But one can assess probabilities. It continually bewilders me how many people don't seem to understand the concept of probability. Just because multiple possibilities exist doesn't mean they're equally likely or equally worth taking seriously. Assessing the probabilities of different ideas lets you determine which ones are more likely to be true and which ones are more likely to be false. Yes, sometimes an unlikely premise turns out to be true, but you don't favor it without evidence. And you sure as hell don't make up whatever ad hoc rationalizations you need in order to justify it. The more convoluted excuses you have to pile on in order to argue that something could be true, the less credibility it has.

Besides, as I've said, it's just so damned unimaginative. We've had Time Lords in the show. We've had plenty of them, including secret part-Gallifreyans like River. What we've seen of Clara so far suggests she's something different and new. Different and new is interesting. It's exciting. I don't understand the desire of so many people to reject the possibility of something different and new and want it to be just more of the same old stuff we've already seen.

[Gov Kodos]

For what it's worth her name, Oswin, means God's friend and Oswald, God's power. What of Vastra's comment that perhaps the universe does make bargains?

http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Oswin

http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Oswald

[ToddCam]

Christopher wrote:

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That she's a Time Lady, obviously. It's a blatantly unlikely premise on the face of it, because what's happening with Clara is blatantly unlike Gallifreyan regeneration, but you're ignoring the way it works most of the time and cherrypicking the very few exceptions in order to support a very unlikely suggestion.

You are wrong. I have no desire to see Clara as a Time Lady. I want to see a return of Susan and Romana. I wouldn't mind more Time Lords either, 1) because I hate whole races being wiped out, because it's so trite (Superman, ALF, etc.), and 2) I also think Time Lords somehow all being inaccessible is stupid, given the premise of the time-traveler known as the Doctor. If the Doctor visited Earth right after the events of "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" would Susan somehow be dead? It's stupid. But Clara herself? I can make rhetorical points (badly argued or not) without believing them to be the case. You inferred something. I didn't imply it.

But one can assess probabilities. It continually bewilders me how many people don't seem to understand the concept of probability. Just because multiple possibilities exist doesn't mean they're equally likely or equally worth taking seriously. Assessing the probabilities of different ideas lets you determine which ones are more likely to be true and which ones are more likely to be false. Yes, sometimes an unlikely premise turns out to be true, but you don't favor it without evidence. And you sure as hell don't make up whatever ad hoc rationalizations you need in order to justify it. The more convoluted excuses you have to pile on in order to argue that something could be true, the less credibility it has.

Besides, as I've said, it's just so damned unimaginative. We've had Time Lords in the show. We've had plenty of them, including secret part-Gallifreyans like River. What we've seen of Clara so far suggests she's something different and new. Different and new is interesting. It's exciting. I don't understand the desire of so many people to reject the possibility of something different and new and want it to be just more of the same old stuff we've already seen.

I do understand probabilities, and as you quoted, I said I have serious doubts. I think it's almost certain she isn't a Time Lady.

While I appreciate the fact that you don't hedge your statements with "I think," unimaginative is a relative term. Frankly, I think another young pretty white girl as the companion is unimaginative. I think human companions are unimaginative (though she might be something else, I suppose). So more Time Lords is unimaginative? Because there have been TWO of them as companions in 50 years?

Companions:
Time Lords: Susan, Romana
Humans: Ian, Barbara, Vicki, Steven, Dodo, Ben, Polly, Jamie, Victoria, Zoe, Liz, Jo, Sarah Jane, Harry, Leela, Tegan, Peri, Mel, Ace, Rose, Adam, Jack, Mickey, Martha, Donna, Amy, Rory
Alzarians: Adric
Trakenites: Nyssa
Trions: Turlough
robot dogs: K-9

(I left out the UNIT guys, and the one-shotters, and River because of their narrative ambiguity as Companions.)

If anything, making the new companion a Time Lady would bring some much needed diversity to the list. When I first saw "Asylum of the Daleks" and was surprised by Jenna-Louise Coleman's appearance, I actually thought how cool it would be to have a Dalek companion! She died at the end, so that idea was quashed. Ah, well.