You weren't the only one and I'm 85% sure that the Doctor said it that way intentionally.

 

Really? What did she do this season that made her an insufferable bitch? Everything she's done in the series so far has more or less been what the Doctor would do to a lesser extent.

Remember when Davros was accusing the Doctor of how he warps his companions minds and turns ordinary humans into cosmic moral warriors. Well this season's Clara arc has been a very good exploration of that theme in my opinion.

Honestly, I don't really get the Clara hate. She's better than Rose and Martha by millions.

 

I'll agree that she's not anywhere near as bad as Martha, but I chart her well under Rose.

Rose was funny, but she was useless 99% of the time. Clara is the like the reverse of Rose; utterly snoozetastic, but she still manages to always be integral in saving the day. I personally prefer the former characterization.

Apart from being appealing trait-and-acting-wise, I also think a big point of what makes a modern companion 'good' (or at least better than others) is emotional investiture in their lives. The show forced us to care about Rose's home life and the people in it (Mickey, her mum, her dead dad), so we became invested in the character.

Amy and Martha are prime examples of this. Amy was a good companion, but I would not care about Amy without the emotional investiture that was created by her onscreen relationship with Rory. I did not care about Martha because her life beyond the Doctor was not part of the show.

Clara is like an ineffective blend of Amy and Martha. We know her life is taking place offscreen, but we don't really see it apart from the two or three episodes that feature Danny, so no real emotional connection is made.

 

I'm with you on this. If they were in the same situation as Clara with the Cybermen they would all react worse.

Donna would attempt to kill all of the cybermen through the use of bad grammar and excessive shouting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwUk6NpfGPQ&index=1&list=RDbwUk6NpfGPQ

Martha would mention she was a qualified doctor and then hope one of them was a long dead English play-write that would magically fall in love with her for reasons of why not. Or she would spend the year travelling from different countries in the world as million people were murdered telling them stories just so that the power of love could protect protect them from a mad mans killing curse. Oh, sorry, I think I got the wrong the wrong universe. I meant to say she that the power of thought would unravel the ageing shit the master had done on the Doctor so that he could do nothing whilst Jack went and destroyed the paradox machine changing everything back to normal.

Rose would absorb the time vortex kill and the cyberman and then force the Doctor to have to absorb it from her and regenerate which would remove Capaldi from the show before we got to really see him as the Doctor.

Clara reacted the best of them all and acted like I think the Doctors companion should. She attempted to talk her way out of the situation and all though it didn't work it was quite nice to watch. Also, she made a reference to Jenny (I want MOAR!) and for the 50th time in this season there was a hint at a female doctor and I want MOAR!

Missy's I'm going to kill you bit was awesome. If I had to listen to that I would have shit myself. I'd have been up the ladder and right next to the doctor for protection immediately. Or I would have grabbed a parachute and jumped out the plane just to get away from her.

One thing that I think would be awesome would be a season with Missy as the Doctors companion. Imagine it, everywhere they go the Doctor would have to deal with Missy being crazy as well as having to fix the problem in the area they arrived in. Am I the only one who thinks this would be awesome?

EDIT: Sorry if I'ts a bit ranty but I've probably taken too many painkillers and anti-biotics to be on the internet, but who cares?

 

She's annoying, and boring as fuck.

As mentioned, the Tardis lock thing was especially dumb. Especially not backing down. And this is someone that went through the Doctor's timeline and travelled with him. It's essentially an act of evil -and stupidity since the Doctor is the expert on what can be changed.

On top of that her personal life is contrived to create drama that I could not give a fuck about. Not only don't I care about Pink, I especially don't care about drama that has to be created by Clara essentially being a liar for little to no reason. It's like watching some TV soap or drama where they have to create problems with pointless entanglements. I don't give a fuck about hapless boyfriends that can't compete with immortal aliens. Fuck off, Mickey.


Also: Clara isn't a cosmic mortal warrior, that's fucking absurd. She makes snap, dumb decisions for the whole species based on her fweelings and tries to fuck with the guardian angel of the universe for the same. You know why Davros hurt the Doctor so much? Because he was so right. Martha was going to BLOW UP THE FUCKING EARTH! When has Clara shown that strength? She can't even blow up the Moon WHICH WAS KILLING THE EARTH.

Nope, nope, nope.

I feel like no one really gave a fuck about Clara until they saw the way she was written this season.

 

Nope. I think she is pretty good companion, but it might have something to do with the fact there is no romantic tension between the Doctor and her this season.

I didn't like the fact that she tried to manipulate the Doctor to use the Tardis to save Danny, but I understand why she did it. She is only human after all. She is also mentioning old Who characters and plot points quite a bit, which is another point to her.

Donna was lulzy and I liked Rory, so I'd rate her just below those two. I do hope she sticks around for another season.

 

I fucking loath Catherine Tate. Not as Donna (or not just as Donna), but basically as a human being. Sitting through anything she has ever been involved with is like listening to a humanoid donkey. A pseudo self-aware humanoid donkey that thinks it's being funny while it shits all over whatever room it's in.

She annoys me on an almost visceral level. Not entirely sure why, but I just turn off the tv whenever she shows up now.

 

Moffat has always been about the shock value. Turn an idea on its head to wake people up. Statues move, shadows eat you, blah blah blah. Time Lords become ladies and Ladies become lads? Fine, but the Doctor's had 13 regenerations now, and that's never happened once. There's 50 years of history that says this doesn't happen for no reason. That's mostly where I'm against this.

And to her credit, Gomez performed amazingly well, considering her limited body of work. I was really impressed.

The Master showing up period, and then being a woman. You want it to happen, fine; you're the head writer. But at least show your maths.

(Although this may be a problem I've had with Moffat in general... he doesn't like to show his work. Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, wherein Queen Nefertiti, Amy, Rory, Rory's dad and random dickhead all go on an adventure just because. With zero backstory. Doesn't Nefertiti have a country to run? Doesn't Rory's dad have a job? Isn't Rory's mum expecting him to come home to go shopping later on? Beginning. Middle. End. Facts. Details. Condense. Plot. Tell it.)

Your sentence is unfinished. Enjoy this picture as a reply.

Because the very idea of sex changes in and of itself goes above and beyond. Just because they're aliens, I'm supposed to give them a free pass? That's almost like 'mpreg because magic and don't like, don't read'.

Uh, no.

Untrue. I am totally fine with a female King Arthur, so I have no magic standard. Mostly because there is no documented evidence of Arthur even existing, but also partially because Saber is mai waifu.

You wouldn't see me liking/preferring a male Thatcher or a female Blair or Bush for the same reason. Evidence.

All I want. Is a normal fucking person. Fuck Rose and the Bad Wolf shit. Fuck Martha and her lack of need for new shoes. Fuck Donna and her stupid laugh and her meta-crisis nonsense. Fuck Amy and her impatient patience. And fuck Clara and the illogic of her impossibility.

Bring back Rory. Bring back Danny. Bring back Sarah Jane and Romana. Bring back someone who is smart and imperfect and capable of learning and who doesn't overpower everything. Bring back some good writing.

Or I'm going to have to download the rest of the old series.

 

The whole point of Clara is that she is normal. That's the twist to her arc in series 7; she's an absolutely normal human being who, in dire circumstances, plucks up the courage to do something extraordinary to help a friend. The result of that - her being scattered throughout the Doctor's timeline somehow - might well not be terribly logical, and the apparent promotion of one companion over all the others might well irritate, but she is normal. Even in series 8, she's normal. She doesn't acquire superpowers, she doesn't have any big hidden secret (well, she does, but not in that sense)...the closest she gets to anything like the metacrisis, or Bad Wolf, is Missy choosing her, which essentially seems to boil down to Missy picking some random human girl who's a bit bossy. Hardly the stuff of legend.

 

Oh boy, I think this is just the point where what they were trying to do with Clara just didn't resonate with you on a personal level than with me.

That Tardis scene was an excellent call back to Deep breath. Remember when she telling the half-face man about how threats only work when you deliver on them. This was Clara growing, this was her taking her own life experiences and actually fucking utilizing them.

Plus everything she's done has been more or less what the Doctor taught her.

Lying to Danny is just her way of having her cake and eating it too. She's imperfect and human and the funny thing is people would complain if she was perfect or just a broad shallow character but even when she's given actual character faults and growth.

She makes those snap decisions based on what the Doctor taught her. How were you missing this whole character arc when it was happening in every single episode this season.

I remember one of Moffat's biggest criticism was that his stories were never character centric so shit sucked. Now characters have characters and shit sucks. I guess there isn't winning this things.

I've really loved this character driven Season, its been a really refreshing departure and change from past seasons and I'm hoping for more of the same and I think the moment I stop enjoying the show is when guy's who have similar opinions to you start liking it because then the show will be doing everything I don't like.

 

This is stupid.

Well, it's not. There's a kernel of truth but your framing is stupid.

She has learned nothing, because she's even dumber than the robot-man. The robot man had nowhere to go but down and if he killed her he'd essentially lose. Same with Clara. She had nowhere to go but down when she started threatening to lock the TARDIS and the Doctor didn't actually flinch.

When she got to the last key she had to accept that she'd put herself in the same position as the robot dude by opening big and there was nothing to be gained by dropping the key. She didn't. Which is why this is dumb.

Threats are only meaningful if you back them up. Which is why you destroy every key but the last one. Or you don't start with "lock away the TARDIS". What exactly do you get by dropping your only leverage? What sort of stupidity is that?

Following through on the threat is losing by definition. So, no ,she did nothing useful, she learned nothing important and she was a moron.


But, of course, let's not understate the ridiculous fucking stupidity of this act even before we get to the strategy. It's fucking stupid. I'll knock off half of the stupidity for human reasons but, frankly, no one cares that much about their boyfriend.

I'm aware. You're conflating my criticism of her logic within the world wrt to the TARDIS keys and my criticism of the writers for giving me some bullshit plot with no stakes for inflated drama.

It's bullshit. There's no reason for it. It's like a character suddenly being an asshole and another character walking in and hearing the bullshit tension-creator in a soap. Sure, I can get why they'd react to the information, but the writer put them there to create fake stakes.

So, in summation; it's shit for the character. It's shit because the "tension" is meaningless. And it's shit because it's Clara being cumbersome one more time, which she, as a character, can't afford.

There's a bar of goodwill and it's being drained by all this bullshit. Characters can have "good" flaws. The Doctor has a huge gaping wound at his center. Even the Kill the Moon shit can be forgiven. I hate it, but I can hate Clara the Person, not the character or the writers. This shit though? It's just banal.

Not all flaws are good.Not all drama is entertaining.

Clara tries to be the Doctor three or four times this season. Throwing away the Tardis keys and creating bullshit relationship drama ex nihilo has nothing to do with that. In fact, the snap decisions don't really have much to do with her various performances as the Doctor.

Note that the Doctor himself didn't make a snap decision with the Kill the Moon shit.

Was it me who said that the former sucks? Don't be a baby. It's the laziest fanboy argument to group people into convenient groups so you can whine about them being insatiable.

 

The Children in Need Christmas teaser: http://comicbook.com/2014/11/14/doctor-who-christmas-special-2014-clip-released/

 

Pygmalion in a modern setting. There. 100% summarized.

Honestly, as much as I enjoy John Cho and Karen Gillan, it tries a little too hard to be funny. It's... okay.

 

It just occurred to me that the Doctor's disdain for soldiers was explained in this episode.

Missy was right when she was telling him about all the things he could do with an army and that's why the Doctor has been trying to separate himself completely from soldiers because he knows what he's capable if he had soldiers around him. Puts his rejection of Journey Blue in a new light.

Now I just wish the Christmas special deals with the face thing. We were promised answers to that question this season right?

 

My Fair Lady is also an updated Pygmalion. Talking about the incredibly famous George Bernard Shaw play, not the myth.

 

Spoiler

I felt that they overused the Dream in a dream thing but I am so goddamn happy with that ending. Clara deserves a better sending off than the shit show that we got before and this episode had to either do it justice or bring her back.