Who was put there...by the Master/Missy. Possibly in a back to front arc.
So what happens to Clara now?
- Thread starter Gingerbread Demon
- Start date
Who was put there...by the Master/Missy. Possibly in a back to front arc.
One of the features I like about the Moffat era is the heavy use of time travel to tell the stories. So many tales before simply use time travel to get to the story, but don't use time travel as part of the story. The City of Death used time travel as part of the story, but so many other stories just use the TARDIS to get to the story and then to leave at the end. The Moffat era takes the concept of time travel and uses it to make not just single tales, but whole plot arcs that are out of sequence from out point of view and left both us and the Doctor/companion try to figure it all out over the course of the series or even incarnation of the Doctor. The longest one has to be River Song were we got her life completely out of order, yet by the time we see her last appearance (so far) it makes (almost) complete sense, and the actual impact of her first appearance, gets stronger as the audience comes to know her and her times with the Doctor. Also there is a certain amount of pay off with the Doctor....after over a millennia of knowing of this woman, finally gets one up on her when she doesn't recognize him and he can be the one to use "Hello Sweetie" with all the seriousness of the phrase behind it he learned since he first heard her use those words....back in the Library.
For Clara, I like her (most days...Series Eight was rocky), and actually enjoy her take on being the Doctor, because she learned so well from the Doctor and can outtalk him, which makes her attempts nearly perfect (she can't regenerate...she forgot she had only one life because she's had thousands). I can imagine, if she had been written in the modern days, Zoe would have been basically Clara for the Second Doctor. Someone who could keep up with him and sometimes was past him in knowledge. While Liz Shaw had potential, the Third Doctor was always way ahead of her, she was competent enough to be useful in sciences for the Doctor, which is rare for a human, but she was never ahead of him that I recall. Romana had some of that going for her as well, but she was also a Time Lord (or Lady if you prefer) so it would be expected from her. She too wasn't written in the modern age, so she would still sometimes be the screamer or damsel. Jenna Coleman was cast partly because she could talk faster than Matt Smith, who could already talk fast. So instead of a screamer, you have the clever one who can bounce stuff off the Doctor, or have stuff bounced off her by the Doctor. So instead of having the Companion being the one asking questions for the audience, you have her working out the questions the audience would ask and either solving them, or figuring it out as the Doctor does it (showing not telling....or due to her fast speech...showing while telling so one can be smug, which is partly why the Doctor likes her).
Of course Clara is also the Doctor's emotional replacement for Rose. In fact the Doctor would do more for Clara that he would for Rose, but then Clara was able to do more for the Doctor than Rose (for the most part) was able to do. The only one to be closer to the Doctor is River, and they are actually married. And even then, they don't know each other as well as they think they do. Clara gets the advantage by dying a lot and coming back....its a feature. She presents a mystery for the Doctor, and then someone he cares about enough to do many things he might not have done in the past. Some of that was calculated by Missy/the Master. Other parts are simply the Doctor feeling he owes it to Clara for things she did for him. She quite literally has saved the Doctor countless times, and got him to change his mind (over Gallifrey, with help from the Moment/image of Rose). Fragments of her....across all of time and space...saving the Doctor. It could be Mary Sue-ish, but the fragments die most times. Plus how many people would want to save the Doctor?
For Clara, I like her (most days...Series Eight was rocky), and actually enjoy her take on being the Doctor, because she learned so well from the Doctor and can outtalk him, which makes her attempts nearly perfect (she can't regenerate...she forgot she had only one life because she's had thousands). I can imagine, if she had been written in the modern days, Zoe would have been basically Clara for the Second Doctor. Someone who could keep up with him and sometimes was past him in knowledge. While Liz Shaw had potential, the Third Doctor was always way ahead of her, she was competent enough to be useful in sciences for the Doctor, which is rare for a human, but she was never ahead of him that I recall. Romana had some of that going for her as well, but she was also a Time Lord (or Lady if you prefer) so it would be expected from her. She too wasn't written in the modern age, so she would still sometimes be the screamer or damsel. Jenna Coleman was cast partly because she could talk faster than Matt Smith, who could already talk fast. So instead of a screamer, you have the clever one who can bounce stuff off the Doctor, or have stuff bounced off her by the Doctor. So instead of having the Companion being the one asking questions for the audience, you have her working out the questions the audience would ask and either solving them, or figuring it out as the Doctor does it (showing not telling....or due to her fast speech...showing while telling so one can be smug, which is partly why the Doctor likes her).
Of course Clara is also the Doctor's emotional replacement for Rose. In fact the Doctor would do more for Clara that he would for Rose, but then Clara was able to do more for the Doctor than Rose (for the most part) was able to do. The only one to be closer to the Doctor is River, and they are actually married. And even then, they don't know each other as well as they think they do. Clara gets the advantage by dying a lot and coming back....its a feature. She presents a mystery for the Doctor, and then someone he cares about enough to do many things he might not have done in the past. Some of that was calculated by Missy/the Master. Other parts are simply the Doctor feeling he owes it to Clara for things she did for him. She quite literally has saved the Doctor countless times, and got him to change his mind (over Gallifrey, with help from the Moment/image of Rose). Fragments of her....across all of time and space...saving the Doctor. It could be Mary Sue-ish, but the fragments die most times. Plus how many people would want to save the Doctor?
"Daft modern nonsense"?
No, it is not. Do you like the same characters as I do in various TV shows or movies? There are likely some for which we're on polar opposites, just in the reverse (I like them; you loathe them). I don't march into the Voyager forum and declare that it's "daft modern nonsense" to hate Seven of Nine and Tom Paris (two characters I happen to like, while many other fans don't). Criticize the character, not the fans.
How is Romana in any way similar to Clara? Romana is Gallifreyan, an Academy graduate, and grew as a person from the naive, arrogant just-graduated-and-I'm-so-smart airhead in "The Ribos Operation" to the no longer naive, less arrogant, got-some-life-lessons Time Lady in "Warriors' Gate" who was ready to take on E-Space with her own TARDIS (after building it, of course), companion (K-9), and a mission in mind (freeing the rest of the Tharils from slavery).
Clara is not Gallifreyan (despite all her wishful thinking and bizarre statements of "I'm the Doctor"). She was always a motormouth with an attitude. And the only way she gets to scamper around in her own TARDIS is because she's using a loophole that keeps her from dying, as she was supposed to do. At this point I have to ask: Was there some notion of spinning Clara off into her own TV series?
The thing is, this sort of stuff is jarring to many of the Classic Who fans. The first time there was ever any slightest hint of anything more than a platonic relationship was in "City of Death" - and all the Doctor and Romana did was hold hands as they ran through the streets of Paris. You could interpret that as the Doctor not wanting Romana to fall behind, rather than any type of relationship that wasn't the elder Time Lord mentoring the younger, less experienced Time Lady.
After that... well, the Fifth Doctor definitely noticed Tegan's cleavage in "Enlightenment" (who wouldn't?), and the Eighth Doctor kissed Grace in the 1996 movie (since they didn't actually go anywhere in the TARDIS, could she really be said to be a companion?).
In other words, Clara = Mary Sue. She's sooo much more important than the Doctor, because without her, he wouldn't exist.
. Like no other companion has ever done anything to help him avoid getting killed or saved anything."City of Death" didn't require a flow chart to figure out what was going on. About the most complicated stuff that might have required one was the Dalek/U.N.I.T. story arc in the Third Doctor's era.
Once that whole mess with Amy and Rory and Riversong got going, I just gave up. It shouldn't require a flow chart and repeated viewings to figure out WTF is going on. To me it just looked like a case of "Oh, damn, we've written ourselves into a corner again, so let's pull some timey-wimey thing out of thin air and pretend we meant for it to happen all along."
That's the impression I got with Clara, as well - that it was just made up as they went along. Write yourself into a corner? Actress keeps changing her mind about leaving? Pull out some outrageous new Mary Sue thing!
I didn't get to see many Zoe stories, but the thing with her was although she was really smart - and knew she was really smart - she wasn't arrogant or unlikable about it.
Liz Shaw regarded the Doctor as an interruption in her already-planned life. She'd had a job lined up when she was abruptly pulled away from it and assigned to U.N.I.T. and to be the Doctor's assistant, when she was already a doctor in her own right.
If you watch from "Ribos Operation" through "Warrior's Gate" you'll notice that Romana grows as a person from a naive damsel (think Rodan in "The Invasion of Time" when she and Leela escaped from the city to join the Gallifreyans in the wilderness) to a very capable young Time Lady who prefers to strike out on her own, rather than return to the stifling society of Gallifrey.
Being able to talk fast is not a sign of intelligence. It's just a sign of being a motormouth. Considering that I found Rose's accent hard to follow at times (she seemed to talk through a mouthful of marbles on occasion), at least I never had to use the closed-captioning for her as I had to for Clara.
"Daft modern nonsense"?
No, it is not. Do you like the same characters as I do in various TV shows or movies? There are likely some for which we're on polar opposites, just in the reverse (I like them; you loathe them). I don't march into the Voyager forum and declare that it's "daft modern nonsense" to hate Seven of Nine and Tom Paris (two characters I happen to like, while many other fans don't). Criticize the character, not the fans.
How is Romana in any way similar to Clara? Romana is Gallifreyan, an Academy graduate, and grew as a person from the naive, arrogant just-graduated-and-I'm-so-smart airhead in "The Ribos Operation" to the no longer naive, less arrogant, got-some-life-lessons Time Lady in "Warriors' Gate" who was ready to take on E-Space with her own TARDIS (after building it, of course), companion (K-9), and a mission in mind (freeing the rest of the Tharils from slavery).
Clara is not Gallifreyan (despite all her wishful thinking and bizarre statements of "I'm the Doctor"). She was always a motormouth with an attitude. And the only way she gets to scamper around in her own TARDIS is because she's using a loophole that keeps her from dying, as she was supposed to do. At this point I have to ask: Was there some notion of spinning Clara off into her own TV series?
The thing is, this sort of stuff is jarring to many of the Classic Who fans. The first time there was ever any slightest hint of anything more than a platonic relationship was in "City of Death" - and all the Doctor and Romana did was hold hands as they ran through the streets of Paris. You could interpret that as the Doctor not wanting Romana to fall behind, rather than any type of relationship that wasn't the elder Time Lord mentoring the younger, less experienced Time Lady.
After that... well, the Fifth Doctor definitely noticed Tegan's cleavage in "Enlightenment" (who wouldn't?), and the Eighth Doctor kissed Grace in the 1996 movie (since they didn't actually go anywhere in the TARDIS, could she really be said to be a companion?).
In other words, Clara = Mary Sue. She's sooo much more important than the Doctor, because without her, he wouldn't exist.
"City of Death" didn't require a flow chart to figure out what was going on. About the most complicated stuff that might have required one was the Dalek/U.N.I.T. story arc in the Third Doctor's era.
Once that whole mess with Amy and Rory and Riversong got going, I just gave up. It shouldn't require a flow chart and repeated viewings to figure out WTF is going on. To me it just looked like a case of "Oh, damn, we've written ourselves into a corner again, so let's pull some timey-wimey thing out of thin air and pretend we meant for it to happen all along."
That's the impression I got with Clara, as well - that it was just made up as they went along. Write yourself into a corner? Actress keeps changing her mind about leaving? Pull out some outrageous new Mary Sue thing!
I didn't get to see many Zoe stories, but the thing with her was although she was really smart - and knew she was really smart - she wasn't arrogant or unlikable about it.
Liz Shaw regarded the Doctor as an interruption in her already-planned life. She'd had a job lined up when she was abruptly pulled away from it and assigned to U.N.I.T. and to be the Doctor's assistant, when she was already a doctor in her own right.
If you watch from "Ribos Operation" through "Warrior's Gate" you'll notice that Romana grows as a person from a naive damsel (think Rodan in "The Invasion of Time" when she and Leela escaped from the city to join the Gallifreyans in the wilderness) to a very capable young Time Lady who prefers to strike out on her own, rather than return to the stifling society of Gallifrey.
Being able to talk fast is not a sign of intelligence. It's just a sign of being a motormouth. Considering that I found Rose's accent hard to follow at times (she seemed to talk through a mouthful of marbles on occasion), at least I never had to use the closed-captioning for her as I had to for Clara.
I got to admit I started with "Doctor Who" in 2005 so the style of the show is the only style I am really familiar with. I'm still not seeing the Mary Sue. If the Doctor wasn't important their would be no need to spread her through time to help him. Plus some of the help seem very minor to me. It's not like she has been a major player in ever adventure he has had. I don't even think she is even a major figure in his life compared to Rose or River or even the Ponds.
Jason
I'm extremely torn in liking this post.
I like Clara but I don't like that she's basically now Undead Doctor, and she even has a companion.
I dunno, you could clearly see some hint of romance between Pertwee and Jo, especially when she left and the way Pertwee played it. You could possibly even see it in Tom's reaction when Leela left (ok I may be stretching here but compare his reaction inside the Tardis to say Sarah Jane leaving.)
For me I always liked how Eccleston played the relationship with Rose. It was clear he loved her but his attitude seemed to be along the lines of "I love you, but I'm way to old for you and I know it, so I'm not going to act on those feelings, but by the same token I can't get rid of them." I do like the way the Doctor clearly fools himself. I thought Capaldi's line not long after he regenerated was nicely done. The "I'm not your boyfriend." & "I'm not saying that's your mistake." I think he tricks himself into imagining he isn't an ageless alien who'll outlive pretty much lover he might ever have who isn't from Gallifrey (or Jack) but I guess sometimes he has to to stop from going nuts!
Clara is a curious companion. I like Jenna Coleman, and half the time I like Clara, it's just that the other half of the time she annoys the heck out of me. Plus I can't escape the fact that my liking of Who dipped when Amy/Rory left and picked up when Bill and Nardole arrived. Although obviously correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation!
Lolwut?
Romance between the Third Doctor and Jo? Romance???
The Classic Doctors had mentor/student relationships with their companions. The obvious exception is the First Doctor and Susan, because they're family. But the rest of them are friends, students, possibly surrogate nieces/nephews/daughters. As I mentioned, there was that little bit of hand-holding between the Fourth Doctor and Romana, and the kiss between the Eighth Doctor and Grace (which could be explained away by the fact that he'd just regenerated and hadn't really settled into his new persona).
My take on the Third Doctor's reaction to Jo's newfound romance with the guy she married (I'm blanking on his name at the moment) was that he felt very protective of Jo, didn't really know enough about this human to have confidence that he would treat Jo right or be able to care for her... in short, it was like a father reluctantly accepting that his daughter is grown up and has made her choice of husband - and he doesn't get a veto. That's similar to how the First Doctor reacted when Susan started talking more and more about David Campbell and he realized that she loved him and if she was ever to have a family of her own, he had to be the one to push her away.
The Fourth Doctor didn't have a choice about leaving Sarah behind. He had business on Gallifrey and couldn't take her (a point conveniently overlooked when he took Leela to Gallifrey and the Fifth Doctor took Nyssa to Gallifrey).
His reaction to Leela's decision to stay behind was more of "This is so sudden, I never imagined... oh, I see. Well, all right, then." So yeah, he was sad when Leela left, but understood her reason (although he probably knew right away who was going to run that household - definitely not Andred!). It was unexpectedly saying goodbye to a student/friend he'd mentored, not someone he loved in a romantic way.
I saw Jenna Coleman in the Victoria miniseries, and she wasn't bad. I'd been afraid she would motormouth her way through that, but I didn't have to turn on the closed-captioning even once.
"Daft modern nonsense"?
No, it is not. Do you like the same characters as I do in various TV shows or movies? There are likely some for which we're on polar opposites, just in the reverse (I like them; you loathe them). I don't march into the Voyager forum and declare that it's "daft modern nonsense" to hate Seven of Nine and Tom Paris (two characters I happen to like, while many other fans don't). Criticize the character, not the fans.
How is Romana in any way similar to Clara? Romana is Gallifreyan, an Academy graduate, and grew as a person from the naive, arrogant just-graduated-and-I'm-so-smart airhead in "The Ribos Operation" to the no longer naive, less arrogant, got-some-life-lessons Time Lady in "Warriors' Gate" who was ready to take on E-Space with her own TARDIS (after building it, of course), companion (K-9), and a mission in mind (freeing the rest of the Tharils from slavery).
Clara is not Gallifreyan (despite all her wishful thinking and bizarre statements of "I'm the Doctor"). She was always a motormouth with an attitude. And the only way she gets to scamper around in her own TARDIS is because she's using a loophole that keeps her from dying, as she was supposed to do. At this point I have to ask: Was there some notion of spinning Clara off into her own TV series?
The thing is, this sort of stuff is jarring to many of the Classic Who fans. The first time there was ever any slightest hint of anything more than a platonic relationship was in "City of Death" - and all the Doctor and Romana did was hold hands as they ran through the streets of Paris. You could interpret that as the Doctor not wanting Romana to fall behind, rather than any type of relationship that wasn't the elder Time Lord mentoring the younger, less experienced Time Lady.
After that... well, the Fifth Doctor definitely noticed Tegan's cleavage in "Enlightenment" (who wouldn't?), and the Eighth Doctor kissed Grace in the 1996 movie (since they didn't actually go anywhere in the TARDIS, could she really be said to be a companion?).
In other words, Clara = Mary Sue. She's sooo much more important than the Doctor, because without her, he wouldn't exist.
"City of Death" didn't require a flow chart to figure out what was going on. About the most complicated stuff that might have required one was the Dalek/U.N.I.T. story arc in the Third Doctor's era.
Once that whole mess with Amy and Rory and Riversong got going, I just gave up. It shouldn't require a flow chart and repeated viewings to figure out WTF is going on. To me it just looked like a case of "Oh, damn, we've written ourselves into a corner again, so let's pull some timey-wimey thing out of thin air and pretend we meant for it to happen all along."
That's the impression I got with Clara, as well - that it was just made up as they went along. Write yourself into a corner? Actress keeps changing her mind about leaving? Pull out some outrageous new Mary Sue thing!
I didn't get to see many Zoe stories, but the thing with her was although she was really smart - and knew she was really smart - she wasn't arrogant or unlikable about it.
Liz Shaw regarded the Doctor as an interruption in her already-planned life. She'd had a job lined up when she was abruptly pulled away from it and assigned to U.N.I.T. and to be the Doctor's assistant, when she was already a doctor in her own right.
If you watch from "Ribos Operation" through "Warrior's Gate" you'll notice that Romana grows as a person from a naive damsel (think Rodan in "The Invasion of Time" when she and Leela escaped from the city to join the Gallifreyans in the wilderness) to a very capable young Time Lady who prefers to strike out on her own, rather than return to the stifling society of Gallifrey.
Being able to talk fast is not a sign of intelligence. It's just a sign of being a motormouth. Considering that I found Rose's accent hard to follow at times (she seemed to talk through a mouthful of marbles on occasion), at least I never had to use the closed-captioning for her as I had to for Clara.
Accusations of 'Mary Sue' are a fairly modern thing to do no? This is what I mean by Modern Nonsense. Clara's overall story was decently put together, and served as a sort of discussion of the role of companions in Doctor Who over the years...specifically tying into the anniversary which she spanned. The character was reflective of the various companion roles over the years, something which I think Moffat intended and people tend not to notice...she is particularly evocative of the very first companions, being an amalgam of Susan, Ian and Barbara...particularly Susan and Barbara. She even more or less gets the ending originally intended for Ace, more or less. But it's so much easier to accuse the writers of a Mary Sue than notice the small details, like literally only existing to fill a role for the Doctor (her destiny was to go into his timestream and save him from destruction, at the cost of herself) before being something else...an example of why the Doctor is a Tragic figure, by showing her self destructive streak post Danny Pink. (Another Teacher at Coal Hill School....it's almost like there is a theme here.)
But no, she's too pretty, talks too fast, gets a relatively happy ending (if you ignore the whole dying thing, a long drawn out impending death.) and so she's a Mary Sue. She is no more a Mary Sue than Rose was, arguably less so (ah...that sound of a can of worms opening...) but most of the criticisms of her character focus on this.
Sure, you can like who you like, I can like who I like...but a fair amount of the negative focus on Clara from fans is often this...which I consider modern nonsense, because the Mary Sue concept is really only something popular consciousness fairly recently.
Which one is the companion? They are both immortal, both essentially part alien, and both have technically lived or will live a very very very long time. Clara is even an inherent part of gallifreyan history and legend, and Ashildr might be. That's what is sort of clever about the ending. While a bit saccharin.
First of all, I think you're reading too much into this Ian/Barbara/Susan blend. They were all separate, unique individuals, not some gestalt.
As for Ace... whut? I came to dislike Ace, because the show basically turned into "The Angst of Ace" rather than the adventures of the Doctor and Ace.
Second of all, I have no idea where you're getting the notion that I criticized Clara for being "too pretty." I never said one syllable about her looks. Her looks are acceptable, but irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. It's her behavior, her attitude, the way she speaks, the way the writers shoved her into every damn thing that annoyed me to the point that I really sincerely wanted her dead. I've never wanted a companion to die before, but with Clara, I was really looking forward to it, so she'd never come back, at least not as an active character (Adric came back a couple of times, but only as illusions/hallucinations).
So what happens? The writers/producers/whoever just can't bear to let their little darling Mary Sue character go. They cook up a last-minute mulligan that lets her essentially become an undead immortal, with her own TARDIS and her own immortal companion.
My criticism of her motormouthrunonsentences is valid. I'm not the only person who ever commented that they could only understand about half of what she said, if that.
"Mary Sue" is a concept that's been around for decades. I first encountered it in the '70s, when reading a "Best of Trek" article that discussed it. "Mary Sue" characters aren't just limited to science fiction. A few months ago I found a Mary Sue character in a Bonanza fanfic, of all places! It's one thing to have a character who is generally liked and has a skill or two... but to sing better than Adam, handle horses better than Joe, and cook better than Hop Sing, be loved by ALL the Cartwrights... and still younger than 18 years old? That's definitely a Mary Sue character.
Popular consciousness, not fan clique consciousness. It's blown up post Harry Potter.
And I am not discussing your specific opinions, but the wide popular opinions I referred to in my 'modern nonsense' post.
And I am pressed for time, so I won't defend my beloved Ace this time.....this time....xD
Clara's approach, try to figure out what the Doctor is talking about and maybe think far enough ahead to be useful before the Doctor gets to the point of sacrificing himself.
Jaime's approach, nod and agree with the weird man from all of Time and Space and he'll stop talking all these weird things and they can go back to adventuring, eating, or singing.
Jaime's approach, nod and agree with the weird man from all of Time and Space and he'll stop talking all these weird things and they can go back to adventuring, eating, or singing.
Lolwut?
Romance between the Third Doctor and Jo? Romance???
I saw Jenna Coleman in the Victoria miniseries, and she wasn't bad. I'd been afraid she would motormouth her way through that, but I didn't have to turn on the closed-captioning even once.
Laugh away but I'm hardly the first person to flag Three/Jo as a potential romance.
As for Jenna as a motormouth, this was part of the reason she was hired wasn't it? I seem to recall Moffat saying they were impressed at her ability to keep up with Matt.
Like I said Clara is a weird one. I can be much clearer on the problems I had with Rose (post Nine) or Martha, but with Clara my opinion seemed to vary on a weekly basis, especially in 7B because I don't think she was consistently written, so I really would like her one episode, then hate her the next!
*Sigh* Everyone's forgetting the Second Doctor and Jamie.
"Why, yes, Jamie, that is a big one."
I recall someone once posting that Pat and Frazer used to block their scenes out as if they were a couple but I have no idea if that has any validity.
He's referring to the fact that if the original series had continued to another season, Ace's path of leaving the Doctor as a regular companion would have been for her to attend the Time Lord academy and become a "human Time Lord". That's established in numerous behind-scenes references. "The Angst of Ace" was part of the Doctor forcing her to confront her past and deal with it, part of said training. It was also an example of what the new series has done as a matter of course - explore the character of the companion as a way to tell stories, not just have her there to scream and ask audience-surrogate questions.
It seems that what you dislike is the companion having any precedence over the Doctor as a focus of the show; that seems to be the common ground in your self-professed dislike of both Ace and Clara. But personally, I don't see that having two characters to explore instead of just one is a bad thing. The companion is as much a regular cast member of the show as the Doctor is, and deserves to be treated as such, with her own storylines, personality and focus.
Don't forget, of course, that the very first Doctor Who stories had four regular characters, not just two, and the companions were often more the focus than the Doctor was. The Doctor was off-screen a hell of a lot in the First Doctor era.
The 'last-minute' part of this is unquestionably nonsense, because death and resurrection were the over-riding themes of season 9 from the first frame. Clara's becoming an 'undead immortal' is what all of season 9 had been building to. Clara's becoming a trainee Doctor is what all of her stories with Twelve had been building to. To claim that this was shoe-horned in at the last minute just so that they didn't have to kill her off is factually false - it was the planned and intended conclusion to two years' worth of stories. Whether you like it or not is of course another matter.
I agree - Clara had no clearly defined character in season 7. She was more a puzzle to be solved there rather than a person in her own right. Her personality wasn't clarified (or indeed, Clara-fied) until season 8. I wouldn't go so far as to say that was deliberate, but it is a nice bit of synchronicity - her character was inserted to service the 'Impossible Girl' storyline above all else, so who she was as a person didn't matter as much as the pre-defined role she played in the plot.
Whereas later, once the 'Impossible Girl' stuff was out of the way (and it was basically just 'Bad Wolf part II' anyway), she could develop a personality of her own separate to the plot. Although, I would say that in season 8, her personality was the plot. That's probably exactly why Timewalker dislikes it, whereas it's one of my favourite seasons for precisely that reason.
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I won't lie...I don't see the motormouth thing, and I hate in general. Not my fault if people can't keep up with lots of words and ideas. The ...aurallly layered.. discussion is common among the chaps in my family. Me and my son particularly speak at warp.
I did have to rewind and check Capaldi words, and a few guests recently..but I blame Murray gold and BBC mumblecore fans.
The series basically started starring Susan...The Unearthly Child xD
I wonder if some of Clara dislike comes from some of the dislike I think people might have with Capaldi. I got to admit I missed Amy/Rory a great deal but I also missed Matt Smith and still miss Tennant who is kind of MY Doctor, even though technically Eclleston was the first I watched. Back then though Rose was who I saw as the star of the show.
Capaldi to me was slow to dislike and it wasn't until I rewatched his first season that I really liked him. He was just very different from what I had grown use to from the Doctor. That's why I think history is going to be more kind to both Capaldi and Clara. People will like them better when they are seen as links in the chain and less as the characters who define the show, which always happens to the current Doctor and companions, IMO.
Jason
Had Clara left at the end of Last Christmas as planned, I'd be okay with the character. Season 9 really soured me towards her, for some reason. Although, it seems her entire is when the maligned Moffat Monologues I'm always complaining about were at their worst. Name of the Doctor has her going on for about two and a half minutes about jumping into the Doctor's time stream before she actually does it. To say nothing of the fact that Moffat really just poured the words on her, right up to her departure in Hell Bent where she basically delivers a whole speech about going to Gallifrey the long way around, but takes another minute or three between saying Gallifrey and "the long way around." I remember watching that scene and actually screaming "just say 'the long way around' so we can end this already!" at my TV. Supposedly Moffat cast Jenna Coleman specifically because she could speed talk large amounts of dialogue.
