"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Crimes against Clara Oswald: Series 7 Edition (Doctor Who)


I don’t know why, when a character annoys me, I sometimes blame the writer and, other times blame the character themselves.  Clara is one where, even though I know the writing has let her down big time, I still tend to blame her, and I’m not sure why that is.  On my latest rewatch of Who, I’ve been paying particular attention to Clara and why she hasn’t been working for me.  Basically, the writing for Clara has been a mess, so much so that I can’t get into all of it in a single post.  Since my grievances manifest differently when she’s with different Doctors, I’m splitting these posts into her time with Eleven and with Twelve (so far.)


In series 7, the greatest disservice done to Clara is, by far, the whole “Impossible Girl” thing.  By making her into a mystery, she really doesn’t get much chance to be a person for her entire first half-season on the show.  She’s so generic, her characterization so noncommittal, that I can hardly tell whether or not she’s acting in character in a given episode.  There’s nothing for me to hang onto, nothing to let me in so I can get to know her.  It’s like writing her as a person is put on hold until the big reveal, so she spends nearly all her time with Eleven in a bland holding pattern.  My first time through series 7, I was hard-pressed to come up with many adjectives for Clara other than maybe “smart” and “kind.”  As I’ve mentioned, Amy has similar issues on her first season of the show, but it’s even more glaring with Clara because, by the time we meet her, we’ve already seen two other versions of her, both of whom are written much more specifically than she is.  Although I have my problems with both Oswin and Victorian Clara, I have a decent handle on who they are.  With the Clara we get full-time, however, it’s like the writers didn’t get any further than “ordinary young woman” (though, let’s face it, they probably thought “girl”) before calling it good enough and moving on to the mystery.


Clara also pales in comparison with her previous forms where meaningful contributions are concerned.  Oswin and Victorian Clara are both over-the-top clever, frequently giving the Doctor a run for his money and beating us over the head with their wonderful capability.  Meanwhile, all Clara offers in her debut episode is a single scene where she uses the tech knowhow temporarily bestowed on her by the episode’s villains.  The skills aren’t actually hers – earlier in the episode, she herself is shown to be ludicrously computer-illiterate (I challenge you to find a 24-year-old woman living in a major city in 2013 who doesn’t understand that more than one person can use the Internet at the same time.)  They’re a by-product of being kidnapped by aliens, and they’re completely gone by the end of the episode.  If it weren’t for the mystery about her, I don’t see why the Doctor would have invited her to join him.  Most of her time with Eleven is in fact pretty short on contributions to the victory.  Her biggest moments tend to be stirring, emotional speeches, which are well and good, but she doesn’t do much in the way of tangible action.  I think of when she goes in to parlay with Skaldek in “Cold War.”  While it is dangerous and she’s brave to do it, she’s only there to relay the Doctor’s words, and another character literally calls her the monkey to the Doctor’s organ grinder – not so much with the agency.

Finally, the whole “the TARDIS doesn’t like Clara” plot aggravates the crap out of me, because every time it comes up, she’s not using a key!  She struggles vainly with the locked door and grumbles at the TARDIS for being unreasonable.  I could see it if the TARDIS wouldn’t let her in despite using a key, but who blames a door for not opening when it’s locked?  (Clearly, I have a lot of feelings about this plot.)  So stupid, and it reflects really badly on Clara’s common sense.

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