It ’s official : Clara Oswald has left the construction , and Clara ’s concluding season of Doctor Who is coming to a tightlipped — make her , depending on how you chart it , one of the longest - unravel companion in story . But even with all that time on the show , it never felt like Doctor Who fuck how to work out a problem like Clara .
There will , of grade , be major spoilers below for the most late instalment of Doctor Who , “ front the Raven . ”
From the very beginning , Clara was a mystery to Doctor Who . Her first surprisal appearance ( and seeming decease ) as a future starship crewmate in 2012 ’s “ Asylum of the Daleks ” had people swag with questions as to where the eccentric would go — especially when she pulled a similar joke in her “ debut ” sequence , “ The Snowmen”—only to reappear again in “ The Bells of Saint John ” as a 21st century London nanny . There was a fever pitch of theories as to how theses on the face of it disparate characters interconnected , something the serial publication stoked by giving Clara the ominous language of “ The Impossible Girl ” with every potential chance .
The job was , there was very little actually to Clara in her first time of year ( the one-seventh of the new series ) outside of that mystery title . We discover so lilliputian about her as a soul , and despite having some stellar turns , actor Jenna Coleman had little to really go on with Clara ’s character . Clara was n’t really there : The insufferable Girl was ( as the show frequently prompt us , as if saying the words would will the conception into being interesting ) , and when that secret reached its natural conclusion in “ The Name of The Doctor”—that Clara managed to break up “ shards ” of herself across The Doctor ’s timestream to deliver his many lives — there was no substantial common sense of expiation to it . When all there was to Clara was a secret , what ’s lead when that mystery is give-up the ghost ?
On the plus side , this perfect deficiency of any idea of where to take Clara allowed the show to rework her as showrunner and oral sex author Steven Moffat saw fit . When she returned with the novel Doctor in the show ’s eighth season , it was almost like introduce a completely novel fictional character . No longer a nurse , Clara was an English teacher , slow building a life for herself outside her adventures with the radical new incarnation of the Doctor , play by Peter Capaldi .
literal element of a multifaceted fiber started coming in — a shift relationship with the curmudgeonly new Doctor , a horse sense of confidence in her adventures and her career , and a love life with fellow teacher Danny Pink . We got elements of Clara at her best — the compassion she display to the new Doctor in “ Listen”—and her worst mo — her control addict meltdowns in “ The Caretaker , ” or her anguish at The Doctor leaving her behind in “ pour down the Moon . ” But this all steady evolved throughout the time of year , as Clara , at first alarm at the steelier man the Doctor had become , slowly learns to become more and more like him , in the realization that this position is often demand to make the decisions that the Doctor so often has to make .
This all amount to a pass in “ Flatline , ” an instalment where Clara literally has to take on the role of the Doctor to save the day . As Charlie Jane Anders acknowledgedin her review , it was a lightning rod consequence for Doctor Who : for the first clip since its return , the heart of the show was in the exploration of a major character arc , not a mystery or a plot to be puzzle out , and Clara was that character . In the infinite of a season , she ’d live on from having almost no character at all to being the major focal point of the whole serial publication — one that actually managed to pay off , even if it meant an inauspicious closing to the idea of Clara ’s human relationship with Danny Pink , a plotline that , like many things associate with Clara , never quite hit its full potential .
It was deserving it , though , because at last Clara mat like she had been put on an interesting track after a twelvemonth of wasted potentiality as “ The unsufferable Girl . ” Most significantly , it in the end cave in Clara the arc she deserved : one that was her own . It was all about her as a character and a person , rather than an ancillary plot equipment for the Doctor to understand and resolve . The spark that was there in Coleman ’s performance from the beginning was in the end reserve to flourish .
But the show bumble again . Part of this can blame can be placed on Jenna Coleman herself — the actorhad originally decided to leave at the climax of season 8 , only to require to leave at Christmas , and only then to ask to stay on for the presently - air ninth time of year — bequeath the writers with another 12 episode of Clara . In the season 9 , Clara has wavered between the unrealized version of the first season , and the character arc of her excellent sophomore season . Still , it was a frustrating via media that did n’t really click until her ( seemingly last ) end .
Without much to progress up to , Clara ’s primary focus in time of year 9 so far has been a sense of recklessness in her traveling . Her realisation that she needs to be more like the Doctor has driven her towards a reckless authority that no matter how dire the situation is , the Doctor will find a elbow room to save her . It ’s an interesting evolution of her electric arc from time of year 8 , but one the show has n’t really explore , outside of a the episodic line acknowledging that the Doctor is concerned with her luxuria for peril … at which point Clara dies from her own Doctor - inspired recklessness in “ face up the Raven . ” The import itself is sold astonishingly well by Jenna Coleman and Peter Capaldi , and there ’s enough to it that it feels like a valid exit for Clara . But it ’s still there , niggle away at the back of your mind : it ’s an a good exit that somehow happened to arrive after eight episode of nothing .
It ’s the holding pattern that ’s follow Clara throughout her prolonged incumbency in the show — a bright glance of something here and there , interspersed with long full stop of stalling , waiting for that next “ a hour angle ! ” moment to happen . Clara could have been a character that earned her two - and - a - half seasons of term of office . But with what feels like a season - and - a - one-half ’s worth of narrative to her , we spent a lot of prison term with her that never actually amounted to anything for the grapheme — something made all the more frustrating because when Clara was used well , in service of her own write up rather than the Doctor of the Church ’s , she could stand with the best of Doctor Who ’s Brobdingnagian array of companions .
Ultimately , whether if you agree or not that her death settle her level satisfactorily , it ’s unvoiced to disagree with the fact that much of Clara ’s time on Doctor Who was squander figuring out who she should at long last be . A time - scattered mystery ? An Impossible Girl ? A teacher with a life outside the TARDIS ? A medico - lite ? A rash , and ultimately tragical , adventurer ?
Clara spend so much clip trying to be all these different thing , it somehow finger like , after nearly four years , we still never really got to know her as simply Clara Oswald — a tragically neglect opportunity for a fictional character that had such great potential .
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