I just wanted to add to the pile of praise for this piece before it slid so far down my friends page that I completely forgot about it. : 0
This is really well thought-out, and you catch so many subtle things I'd completely missed (Susan's face in the glass globe Clara's holding; the changing leaf; the time beetle on the tree). I have my issues with the writing in the second half of season seven, mostly because I feel like the episodes were being cut too short (Ragdoll's theory is that the episodes were shortened to allow for commercials on BBC-America, in which case, a pox on them), but all these things you point out show that Moff certainly had been thinking about Clara and her role on a deeper level. Some stuff may have been lost in translation (somewhere between Moff's brain, the script, and the finished episode), but clearly Clara is meant to be a lot more than "the Doctor's cute new friend."
I was a little "meh" about the character at first, but "Day of the Doctor" really made me love her, and by the time Matt made his exit, I was fully flying the Clara flag. It'll be very interesting to see how she meshes with Capaldi's Doctor. I'm so glad we're going to get a full, uninterrupted run of episodes, I can't even tell you. We haven't had that since season five! Last year, I was commiserating with Ragdoll that while Tennant and Smith had roughly equal runs as the Doctor, it felt like Tennant was around forever, but that Matt left almost as soon as he arrived. And I think a lot of that had to do with so much of his time on the show being cut into little pieces. I love the show, but it's felt increasingly disjointed to me since the sixth season. I'm hoping an uninterrupted run of episodes will restore some narrative "wholeness", if that makes any sense.
Anyway, sorry about the tangent--thanks so much for sharing this meta with us. It was definitely worth the wait!
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This is really well thought-out, and you catch so many subtle things I'd completely missed (Susan's face in the glass globe Clara's holding; the changing leaf; the time beetle on the tree). I have my issues with the writing in the second half of season seven, mostly because I feel like the episodes were being cut too short (Ragdoll's theory is that the episodes were shortened to allow for commercials on BBC-America, in which case, a pox on them), but all these things you point out show that Moff certainly had been thinking about Clara and her role on a deeper level. Some stuff may have been lost in translation (somewhere between Moff's brain, the script, and the finished episode), but clearly Clara is meant to be a lot more than "the Doctor's cute new friend."
I was a little "meh" about the character at first, but "Day of the Doctor" really made me love her, and by the time Matt made his exit, I was fully flying the Clara flag. It'll be very interesting to see how she meshes with Capaldi's Doctor. I'm so glad we're going to get a full, uninterrupted run of episodes, I can't even tell you. We haven't had that since season five! Last year, I was commiserating with Ragdoll that while Tennant and Smith had roughly equal runs as the Doctor, it felt like Tennant was around forever, but that Matt left almost as soon as he arrived. And I think a lot of that had to do with so much of his time on the show being cut into little pieces. I love the show, but it's felt increasingly disjointed to me since the sixth season. I'm hoping an uninterrupted run of episodes will restore some narrative "wholeness", if that makes any sense.
Anyway, sorry about the tangent--thanks so much for sharing this meta with us. It was definitely worth the wait!