While this is not a criticism of Jenna's performances & you can visibly see how she's grown more confident and assertive at leading the show opposite her co-star - whether Matt or Peter - is it just me who perceives Clara's own self-regard & self-importance (or however you want to describe it? ). Especially with regard to the Doctor.

Like in the episode 'Hide' when the Tardis interface scrolled through the image databanks to find someone she esteemed and gave back: Clara Oswald!
Is this a character trait or is it owing to the apparent centrality of Clara across the Doctor's own timeline? She was glimpsed when he first left Gallifrey; she was there on Trenzalore for Eleven's "final battle" and end of his original regeneration cycles; and ALSO on 'The Day of the Doctor' for arguably the Doctor's most personally important Victory since he first took off in his Tardis. It's as if Clara has taken absolute precedence over every other companion in his story? Including Rose.
She even warned the Doctor to NOT die as long as she was with him, but wait until whoever comes after her in 'Before the Flood.' As if that was alright then?

That being said, I don't dislike the character or the charming actress
Maybe the time's right to give Peter his own companion now, rather than just a holdover from Eleven's time?

I haven't got an ology in Who just a long time casual viewer.
I think she should have left at the end of the last series.Osgood or someone equally as charming and viewer friendly should have replaced her and Peter could have retained his original "nasty" demeanour which made him brilliantly distinctive.

I get the impression that Clara is deliberately becoming more cocky, self-assured and gung-ho.

She constantly seems to display an attitude of "Relax, it always happens like this but the Doctor will sort it out".
I can only assume that this is deliberate and she's going to be in the middle of saying that when something explodes or bites her head off.

I really don't mind Jenna Coleman or Clara Oswald but I get the impression her character is deliberately becoming more cocky so that she can have a giant loss of faith when it all goes horribly wrong.

Maybe it just feels like that because Clara is the current co-star & the fact that her entire back-story got enveloped with the heritage of the show.


For some reason, I'm kind of reminded of the relationship of the Doctor + Clara and the one that exists/existed between Captain America + Agent Peggy Carter of Marvel Comic books fame! How Peggy was apparently so central at getting the Cap started and sending him on his way ... It's not an exact analogy, but what's ironic is that Jenna Coleman had a small cameo in the first Captain America film!

Clara isn't big on modesty, but she's not malicious about it. She's sure of herself, she's occasionally bold and cocky and she's always confident of her convictions. She'll admit when she's scared (Deep Breath), she'll confront anyone when she strongly disagrees with them (Kill the Moon), she's determined to a fault (Dark Water) but above all else she's also well-intended for the most part.

Flawed, most definitely. Self-important...now and then. But that's character flaw, rather than character-writing flaw... perfection requires imperfection as far as I'm concerned, and whilst Clara isn't a perfectly written character I'm glad we've got one with traits both good and bad - better still traits they've had the boldness to stick with (which as much as I love him consistently, cannot be said for the Twelfth Doctor who was lightened up for Series 9).

Well Done!
I think you may have summed up the important qualities of what makes the Doctor's friends successful in his company. They arguably all have varying degrees of those features. The Doctor doesn't suffer fools in his Tardis!

No, it's absolutely not you. Clara's ego is a key part of her character. She's arguably more of a leader than the Doctor is (see Nightmare in Silver or Forest of the Night) and her aping of the Doctor has only bolstered that. It remains to see whether her faith in herself or her faith in the Doctor will be her downfall, if indeed she has one.



It remains to be explained exactly why the Tardis has a problem with Clara, it's heavily implied it's due to that significance across the Doctor's timeline, which the Tardis would obviously be sensitive to. But it's also implied that the Tardis is cheekily commenting on Clara's ego.

hahahahahaha


LOL

Whatever you are smoking, can I have some please?

I really liked Clara Oswald when she first became the Doctor's assistant, but now I think she's beginning to pall.

Saturday's episode featuring the Osgoods led me to wonder if maybe Moffat's thinking of grooming one to become the next assistant when Jenna Coleman's had enough.

That apart, I found the episode itself to be really boring .. too much moralising about humanity and the stupidity of war, etc. That's not why we love this show, is it? We want fun, scares, ridiculous escapes, etc. on a Saturday evening!

I LOVE Clara's character as it's so good to have someone who's self confident from the start, verging on arrogant as believe it or not, lots of people are like that! I hate it when people say she isn't relatable, as she is to me.

The next Companion may be another Rose/Donna/Rory type, a bit lacking in self confidence at the start, and becoming great thanks to the Doctor, but I don't want every Companion to be like that.

A weaker personality would have been crushed by 12 in S8. The spikeyness in that series was 80% down to the Doctor, not Clara.

Exactly, I find it's a wonderful change of pace to have a companion who is definitely very different. A lot of people perceive that confidence as dislikeable egotism, but I quite enjoy that - and I say that as someone whose not at all like that in real life. Perhaps it's more of an 'I'd aspire to be confident like her' kind of thing - if I was in her situation. As companions go I think she's a pretty decent role model, and the change of pace to her characterisation means she gets to be 'Clara'... not just the latest face-changing incarnation of an always pretty samey 'Companion'. Character-wise it's great, and it affords Clara a lot of depth which I find a joy to watch.

She's such a great personality - that admittedly got off to a bumpy start in Series 7, but has only gone up and up since then. Previous attempts to portray confidence have been pretty poor in terms of the Doctor's companions - you have Martha who was brave and subsequently forced into a situation where she had to be confident. Then you have Mickey who was always a bit of a coward who was then given a personality transplant at the end of Series 2 and was an out-of-the-blue kind of confident. Rory switched between confident and cowardly whenever the story seemed to call for it - which was basically whenever they had to shoehorn in his love for Amy. It's a fresh new spin to see someone who has that confidence when we first see them, to not have had about a dozen therapists before we properly meet them (Amy) or to feel like their life was nothing without the Doctor in it (Rose) or to feel like their entire time travelling in time and space hinges on whether or not the Doctor can reciprocate their feelings (Martha). Like with Donna, the 'mates' aspect works tremendously and three series of Clara has afforded the writers a long game in terms of character development that they have, with the ending of the 'impossible girl' storyline, lived up to tremendously. She's never had a personality transplant, her confidence is an actual trait rather than shoehorned in to serve the story and at the same time she isn't confident in a patronising or condescending way... she, like the Doctor, uses her confidence to bring the best out in others, to call the Doctor out when he's being insensitive/offensive, to make others feel better about themselves, to take away all the niggling doubts and fears and remind you how fun travelling with the Doctor can be at the heart of it all.

Long story short, in spite of being so divisive I could personally talk about Clara all day. Whilst Donna still narrowly holds the position of 'favourite companion' for me, Clara is the first character since 2005 I feel has a lot of depth to her. Jenna Coleman has played that wonderfully.