oh the irony of the thread title

I doesn't see it...

is it ironing tho ?

Heh.

Also, Amy's characterisation had some problems early on,plus her relationship with the Doctor was written as too deep, to soon (imo). However there were at least lots of moments to develop this forced closeness. Rory 's introduction changed their relationship and it was not only more believable, but ended up as quite touching after witnessing it over time..

Same with Rose, after Series One. I never believed for one moment that the a millennium old alien could fall in love with her, but the writers at least spent lots of time trying to convince me.

That's whats missing - a coherent vision of who Clara's supposed to be, what her relationship with the Doctor is/will become and the time to develop it. Especially as her acting (again, imo) is only ok. I'd have thought that that's what Moffat would co-ordinate, even when he doesn't write the script. He shouldn't let the risk of spoilers stop him jotting some details re her character and her relationship with the Doctor on a piece of A4 for all the writers before they started writing for Series 7B.

I know Jenna Louise has apparently stated that she's in Series 8, but I wonder if that's just blatant misleading. Maybe Clara's story will be short like many originally thought and her character is undeveloped because she'll be gone by Christmas? If she's in the Anniversary Special, she can't leave in the Finale as was speculated. Even still, they should make more of an effort. I felt I knew Victorian Clara better in an hour. than modern day Clara after much longer. Actually, Clara the Dalek was more fleshed out...

As if it weren't enough to have Clara dance around quipping and sassing feistily, in this week's episode we had to be told explicitly in the programme that she is feisty and a Lancashire Sass. Oh really? I hadn't noticed, considering that is all she ever does.

It's just nothingy, clever-clever sitcom speak. And Clara's facial expression hardly strays from detached amusement. We had similar problems with Amy. I think maybe Moffatt just doesn't understand how to create female characters. They all have no further depth to them than...(I'm going to use this awful word for the last time)...feisty banter.

Imagine having to put up with someone who actually acts like that.

Yep, reminds me of series 5 Doc and Amy. There were two groups then; those who hated Amy's character and those who thought Amy's odd character points were a part of the on-going plot. Come "The Big Bang," we learn that Amy's character peculiarities were actually a part of the plot and not just random weirdness.

Considering Clara has been signposted as an on-going story arc since at least "The Snowmen," then I don't think its too much of a leap to assume the same thing is going on here. There's a distinct story developing in which the Doctor and Clara's relationship is central. There's a reason why it is superficial and that's because neither of them have been honest about why they're in it. That's clearly part od the story - to me, anyway.

Maybe the problem is that Clara doesn't have enough time, or episodes to really get the most out of her character.

Everything just feels so 'rushed' at the moment. From the pace of the episodes to the dialogue.

Yes. Good, isn't it?

There's isn't supposed to be a coherent picture of who she is - the Doctor doesn't trust her fully, she doesn't trust him. Neither one has opened up, until the now-forgotten scenes in the last episode, where the tension came out.

We are deliberately not exploring Clara's backstory, because that would ruin/complicate the reveal. This is a direct contrast to Amy, where her personal backstory was front-and-centre to her relationship with the Doctor.

Am I one of the only people who really likes Clara's backstory? We may not know why there are three of her but modern day Clara has really been explored in great depth in every episode IMHO. In Bells, we learn that she's looking after the two children because they lost their mum and she doesn't want to run away from them, despite the fact that she has clearly wanted to travel from a young age and that's the main reasoning behind her travelling with the Doctor, she wants to travel and because he has a time machine, she doesn't have to leave the kids.

Take this one step further in RIngs where we learn about her family background and how big an effect her mum's death has had on her and how this has almost certainly influenced the way she looks after the kids. We also see how she is refusing to be a replacement for anyone (potentially a sign from the writing that this won't be like Martha and Rose?).

Then, in Cold War, we see how she clearly wants to prove herself to the Doctor, as all new companions do, and in her scenes with the professor, we see how shaken she is by the soldiers being ripped apart. This is a real companion dilemma, as a companion, she feels like she's succeeding but then she's shot down to earth by these deaths that shake her to her core.

Then again, in Hide, she feels the same way as Rose does in End of the World. She doesn't feel like she can completely trust the Doctor and when she sees the entire life cycle of Earth, she questions whether the Doctor can even see individuals when he lives the life he does.

And then finally in Journey, we see everything come to a head between them, their distrust of each other reaches boiling but even after she forgets his name and the whole mystery thing, she still has the residual memory to trust the Doctor and wants to travel with him.

For me, the scene between them on the cliff edge before they jump is the highlight of the episode. The Doctor is desperate to know the truth behind Clara, stretched to his limit and she's terrified and confused by him. But then, despite that, they hug and it's clear that they really deeply care about each other and they're both confused by the other. There's a real complicated mess of emotions between them and I think it's good that it's not all spelled out in black and white between them like it was with say Donna where it was clear they were best friends and made obvious in Partners of Crime (not a criticism of Donna or RTD, just saying it makes a nice change).

The motor-mouthing, wise-cracking, quickfire exchange of one-liners that constitutes the vast bulk of the show's dialogue is the biggest problem I have with Moffat's vision of Doctor Who.

No-one seems to speak naturally at all. It's like the cast of a modern-day US sitcom have been transposed into a fantasy environment, and it just doesn't seem real. As such, the drama is just sucked right out of it, and the whole thing feels so artificial.

Now, I can understand it with the Doctor, who, after 900 odd years of 'doing this sort of thing', kinda takes it in his stride...but not with the companions.

I was hoping that this was just a River / Rory & Amy problem, but Clara is no better. It would appear that there is only one type of companion Moffat can actually write. Sadly, that companion is not someone who, to me, feels like a fully-rounded person, but just a cardboard parody of a character, there solely to bounce comedy lines off of their co-stars, and remind us how ridiculous the whole thing is.

Well, I guess it's a 'style', but it's not one that I've ever been able to adjust to - I find it grating and totally unnatural. I almost yearn for the days of Sophie Aldred's cringeworthy 'white kids firebombed it / BOOM!' lines, which were a major step up over what we have now.

There, got that off my chest...

Regards,

Cypher

Nobody, in the whole history of Doctor Who, has talked like a 'real person'. The dialogue is no more quick-fire than your average sitcom. The wordage is decided by what the person needs to say in order to get the point about the character or the plot - or the joke - delivered. Nothing much about that has changed in seven years.

I don't agree with that.

Ian & Barbara, Jamie, Victoria, Liz, SJS etc...all came across as 'real' to me. In writing their lines, it seemed the writer had tried to put himself in the shoes of an everyday person whisked away to places that were both magical and dangerous, or they were exposed to things that challenged their belief systems.

I'm not getting that anymore - we don't have companions, we have walking joke-machines. And it's been like that since Amy Pond arrived on the scene. RTD could be guilty of a bit of that - I'm reminded most strongly here of 'The Impossible Planet' - but not to this level.

Of course, if it works for you, then that's great. But I find it really, really off-putting, seriously so...

Regards,

Cypher

Reading this thread has got me thinking that my criticism of Karen Gillan as an actress over her time on the show might have been a little unfair. She's not the greatest actor that's for sure, but it may actually have been the dialogue she was expected to deliver that was the problem a lot of the time, and thinking about it now, it's quite easy to imagine even a great actor struggling with some of the clunky, unnatural things she was given to say.

Jenna-Louise seems to have a more natural gift for acting, but still it's not ringing true and that's down to the dialogue too.

The one liners are all very clever and everything, but conversations have to be believable too.

Yes, indeed - I've no reason to question Jenna or Karen's acting abilities - my issue is with the material that they are given. Material which, to my ears, doesn't sound like it was designed for a human being to say, well not one off the set of 'Friends'...

It's not even the presence of 'one-liners' that is the problem - it's that the dialogue and character exchanges are just an unbroken succession of them, which form conversations that don't seem natural, don't seem real, don't sound like any exchanges that human beings actually have with one another...and, as such, are off-putting, smug and totally undermine the dramatic events that are taking place around them.

I've tried and tried and tried to adjust to it, or to put it to the back of my mind, but it's really difficult...

Regards,

Cypher

Agreed Cypher.

On occasion. The rest of the time they were given generic 'companion lines', created mechanically and solely to give the opportunity for the Doctor to explain the plot.

From Rose onwards, the character writing hasn't changed much. I mean, Moffat has put in some particularly funny lines, but generally the pacing and attitude has been the same since 2005.

"Why doesn't The Doctor and Clara talk properly?"

Why indeed - both of them drop their t's frequently. At least Clara speaks a lot more clearly than Rose - she was using glottal stops and dropping her t's and h's all over the place. A good thing that DVD's have subtitles. What happened to good old RP?

Well I've re-watched a few Clara episodes and read what everybody has said in this thread. I am still none the wiser and have nothing constructive to add, but I don't see why that should stop me making a post.

Regards

Koquillion

I wish Moffat would write a female character who wasn't a quick witted know it all, rarely phased by anything and largely always in control of their emotions. Just a well rounded woman would make a change....

No chance, Moffat has been writing them that way since way back with Press Gang.

One of the most commonly-levelled criticisms against Amy was that she was rarely in control of her emotions. When she wasn't frightened, she was lashing out at those around her because she was frightened.

Exactly. Back in the Sally Sparrow days 'fans' would claim that Moffat couldn't write a female character who wasn't some sort of perfect ideal. Then when he wrote Amy they complained that she was odd and unpleasant. Now with Clara it's back to 'too perfect' again.

I would say the most common criticism of Amy Pond was that she was a character created solely for an arc and not a character in her own right that becomes part of an arc.



Whist I am, for the most, personally enjoying Clara as a companion, and have been liking the Tardis/Clara relationship also, there is something missing, I still get the same feeling I did with the Amy Pond character under Mr. Moffat as a show runner, inconsistency. To me it is as if the other writers do not know what she is about as a 'real person' because she is an arc character and nothing else, thus we get smart one liners as conversion and 'character development' because there is no real flesh to the bones.

There is no 'Can you smell that...fish and chips' genuine character connection in the writing for me. Sounds like a daft example but in the context of the conversation it was a wonderful human moment between two characters.

That said I do think Matt and JLC have great chemistry and look forward to how they pan out.



After 2 and a half series under Mr. Moffat I'm afraid that I have come to the conclusion that he doesn't know what the hell to do with The Doctor as a character and for the same reasons this has a knock effect on the other writers.

That said apart from some terrible pacing and structure series (this new team just can not do excitement imo) 7b for me is in terms of tone, how Moffats reign should have started, unfortunately its all a little too late as series 7b doesn't seem to be doing anything original as he has already heavily done the mysterious companion stchik and The Doctor looking on.

If series 7b had been series 5 I would have loved it but as it is now 2 and a half series into Moffats reign it is more a case of 'you done this already' and 'seen it before'

Average is the word I'm looking for.

I find it fun, to be honest but it's probably primarily to appeal to the kids.

I purely clicked on this for the irony.

It delivered.