I'm too lazy to go look for stuff like that but why does it matter if they have lines or not?

I don't for one minute think that the writers were given any stipulation to kill the men and save the women. That's just silly.



Each to their own. I loved Clara for exactly those things


Probability only comes into it when results are random. The point of the reset is that nothing significant changes and if the same thing happens in the same way under the same circumstances then the results will always be the same.

Plus, he doesn't spend billions of years doing anything. Any one instance of the doctor spends a few weeks at most. The billions of years part is not relevant to him as he does not experience it.


That was probably the one point where she did something wrong. I thought you were upset that she was always being portrayed as infallible?


I reiterate, to him it was just a few weeks and 1 death!

I don't see that the situation with River Song is comparable. That was the predestination of a fixed event. We know he can't change those. Clara's fate he had some control over.

I felt it was great when Clara stood up to The Doctor, and then there growing relationship in season 9.

But i despise the fact Clara is saved. He witnessed her death, it was fixed in time, but it is all fine as long as she returns to that point in the future. Which means every single death could have been avoided if The Doctor wanted too, because all he needs to do is send them back in a future point in time and no one is the wiser.

And that is what frustrates me, it makes it seem like he cares about Clara more than anyone else, and cheapens death even more so than it already had done with the show. No one dies anymore, there is no tension anymore. Even River got an extra 27 years because Moffat as usual can't handle to kill a character.

It's not that easy. Clara was extracted from the timeline at the instant before her death using advanced Time Lord technology that is unlikely to be accessible to the Doctor ever again.

What he did for Clara was a one-off and extremely dangerous. It endangered Time itself. The fact that the Doctor went to such lengths because of his incredible attachment to Clara was the reason why it was necessary for him to lose his memory of her. His willingness to go to any lengths to save her was the whole reason why their relationship had to end.

Which again shows he apparently cared more for Clara than anyone else which is disrespectful.

And in the past all he had to do was travel to Gallifrey, he was president if it were that simple to save someone.

And i do get that is the reason he had to wipe his memory, which in itself is another cop out so Moffat doesn't need to deal with a broken Doctor.

All in all leave the dead, dead, stop bringing them back because you can't bare consequences in which there are absolutely none i might add.

Sorry, I only just realised what you were saying there (I thought you were referring to her being the one to save the day in the adventures we've seen her in).

If you mean she was the one to save the day in the classic adventures then I would disagree with that. She only stopped the GI's interference in those adventures otherwise they still happened as before.

Clara's splinters are not an example of predestination. They weren't always the case like some time travel stories. It was specifically shown that the GI's interference in the time line was changing the established events of the Universe and so Clara's interference, while attempting to prevent that, would still have resulted in changing things not in establishing that that is what happened all along.

My own personal theory is that, since the events of Clara's interference resulted in him not dying on Trenzalore that would have erased his Grave on Trenzalore meaning that the GI never had access to interfere with his Time Line and Clara never jumped into it.

In my opinion, the whole splintering thing now never happened. The Doctor and Clara still remember it as the TARDIS protects them from being affected by the changes in the timelines around them but, if he didn't die on Trenzalore, there was no grave and if there was no grave there was no GI plot to go there and no opportunity for any splintering to happen in the first place. The impossible girl never happened now. You should be happy

It's not disrespectful it's been the whole point of the arc!

Clara has been more important to him than any other companion. People may not like that she has but they cannot deny that she has. He has, literally, known her all his lives. She saved him from the life of hermit, gave him a new lease on life, saved him from destroying his planet, saved him from seemingly inevitable death, advocated for the Time Lords to give him a new set of regenerations, saved the Universe through her own self-sacrifice, shared his love of adventure, kept him grounded, reminded him of what was important. She has been funny and smart and compassionate. She has saved the day more often than he has over several seasons.

She is absolutely the most important companion he has ever had. If for no other reason than for the state of mind he found himself in at this time in his life and her ability to help him come to terms with it.


It's not simple. What he did was catastrophically dangerous. He would never have considered it for anyone else and the Time Lords would never have allowed it, President or not.


I love that she's not dead. I adore Clara and the thought of her now being effectively immortal having adventures in her own TARDIS makes me very happy.

I don't really see it as Clara being more special than other companions or anything of the sort. Like the Doctor said in Hell Bent, he's tired of losing people, and to me it was heavily implied that there was a slight selfishness in his motivations in that he just doesn't want to go through the grief again. Bearing in mind he doesn't usually lose companions to such a grisly fate, and this Doctor something of an extreme rule breaker. Frankly, though, I think he would have done the same for many if they were in Clara's position at the time, be it Jo Grant, Ace, Donna or Sarah Jane. He's lost one too many people, and he snapped. The thing is, while the show sifts through actors, it still needs to be finding new ways of telling stories that don't treat the current character as "the new one". At least it isn't like Rose's case, whose story came at the expense of the Doctor's character.

I don't know if the show has "become" Clara Who, seeing as she's gone. Perhaps it was Clara Who, although to me it didn't feel like she had any more focus than Rose, Donna or Amy did.

I also disagree that she was there for every single one of his adventures either. For a start, the whole thing never actually happened as the Doctor now didn't die on Trenzalore. Regardless, it was more a case of the Great Intelligence leaving wounds throughout the Doctor's timeline, and Clara stitching them back up. Not so much rewriting the entire show's history as "Clara vs the GI" which seems to be the exaggeration.

I enjoyed the bond between the Twelfth Doctor and Clara myself. It brought back that "uncle and niece" element that I think has been sorely missing from the revival of Doctor Who and I hope to see a little more of that with Bill.

The Doctor has not known Clara all his lives, and you just said in another post that it never happened.

And how do you know she is the most important person ever to him? More important than his family? Or the rest he traveled with? And the fact we are even talking about this is because of Moffat's ego to rewrite his work into everything. Its absolute disrespect to everyone before Clara and the laws of the show which have been built up for 50 years.

It also goes against everything the character is about, i don't care about the rest of my friends who died, i just want to save you. Sarah Jane even had that speech in school reunion with him.

And it seems quite simple to me, go into a room. Use some force if required against at that time an incredibly cowardly species and you can save him. And there are no consequences as long as she returns eventually, and just in general there aren't consequences anymore.

It never happened as far as the timeline is concerned. In terms of the Doctor and Clara's memory it did. Although they were never entirely clear how much she remembered from her splinters there was certainly a point initially when she seemed to retain the memories.


Because it's the whole point of the season! That's why he had to forget her because she, more than anyone else, can cause him to lose all thought of caution or responsibility. Only Clara could drive him to risking the whole of time and space to save her. That's why they had to be parted and he had to lose his memory of her.


I feel you are completely missing the point.

The whole point of Season 9's story is that his affection for Clara drove him to such a drastic risk that he would never have contemplated for anyone else.

There were very few times in his life when he would have been capable of just dropping in on Gallifrey and forcing them to use the time scoop to violate the laws of time and then not suffer any consequences. Almost none. But the more important point is that he would never have risked it. Not for anyone. Until Clara.

This is not something he can do with no consequences. This doesn't cheapen deaths past or future. It is patently a one-off and could never happen again.

It just occurred to me. This is very off topic for this thread!

Sorry

Amy and Rory living full lives, Jenny brought back from the dead, that person in Time of the Doctor who became a Dalek but not really, River being able to communicate after death, getting 27 bonus years and didn't exactly die either. Season 8 basically made everything single person updated to that Data Core with the possibility of travel in and out of it, which could have been used to save anyone if they wanted too. Ashildr which was an absolute joke and Clara. The amount of rules of time broken without a single consequence. It isn't a one off, the man will do anything in his power to avoid a death or consequences

I understand season 9's point, but the issue is the bringing her back from the dead is ridiculous. The dead have stayed dead, you can't save everyone. But because Moffat can't handle death, changes the laws and disrespects The Doctor's past, because all along he could save people but apparently didn't care enough to do so.

Amen. I couldn't have said it better myself. Why Clara? Why not go back and save his wife with that technology, especially if he only has one chance to use it?

I am sorry, but I will respectfully disagree. To me, everything that Moffat has done with Clara has cheapened the history and the future of the show. It cheapens all of the companion deaths of the past (especially Adric's) and it cheapens all of the future companion's relationships with The Doctor because, now, either The Doctor is willing to do the same for them, or he just doesn't care much about that particular companion.

When the companions were treated more or less equally, that is one thing, but to hold Clara so high above all others, above even his wife, is insane.

This is true, but I figured, rather than start a new thread when this one has been so dead as of late, I would just rant within the one where I already have a rapport with the other readers.



P.S. The men still die like flies in the show now, while the vast majority of the women live. I understand if you don't want to debate this point (because it is true or whatnot), but, nevertheless, it is true.

To me, 12 cares far more about Clara than he does about River anyway. IMHO Clara makes a much better "wife" (in the non sexual sense) for the Doctor than River anyway, River is more like his mistress, someone he sees for a bit of fun and danger!

The point of Hell Bent, is that the actions of the Doctor are of a desperate man, who goes far too far to save Clara. His goes against his principles, his code and indeed what Clara would have wanted to save her.

That's not a sign that he thinks Clara is more important than River or Adric or Amy, but that he is so dangerously besotted with her. This is the ultimate outcome of Missy's plan to give him his perfect companion, knowing how bad Clara would ultimately be for him, and how together it would destroy him as the "Doctor"

O'Donnell - Before The Flood
Jac - The Zygon Invasion
474 - Sleep No More

Cool beans. Hooray! 3. Let us see exactly how many men die; let us look into the death tally.

I will re-watch the Series 9 boxset that I have and I will tally up the male vs. female roles and I will tally up those that die and those that survive. I will not count Clara or The Doctor for two reasons. One, you know that they will always survive. Two, because The Doctor's apx. 20 Billion deaths in Heaven Sent would skew the results incredibly. So, removing the fact that the female companion, Clara, lives forever and The Doctor dies some 20 Billion times or so, (which is already a horrible point from which to start; the male protagonist dies a nearly uncountable number of times, but the female companion lives forever) let us just look at the rest of the characters. Also, we are talking about actual people. Thus, this will not include the imaginary characters like "Santa Claus" and the elves in Last Christmas or the "Sandman" in Sleep No More. Also, we will be working with characters that have lines. Trying to include bystanders who never talk, trying to count the genders of background characters in scenes where everybody dies (like when the ship crashes in The Husbands of River Song) would be nigh impossible.

I will do my best to refrain from commentary and only give the facts here. Feel free to comment or debate with me if you think that I have something wrong.

With these simple rules, let's go:


Last Christmas:

There are three real women and one real man in the episode besides The Doctor and Clara. Guess who lives? All three women, Shona, Ashley and Fiona. Guess who dies? The only man, Professor Albert. A 100% survival rate for the women and a 0% survival rate for the man. Suspicious, eh? But this isn't the only episode, there are 13 more like this. Let us see where it goes from there.

Men: 1
Men who survived: 0

Women: 3
Women who survived: 3

I will go through the rest of the episodes and I will keep a tally as we go along.

It's possible that there may be a subconscious feeling of protectiveness in the male psyche towards women causing male writers (who, I assume predominate) to be more likely to kill off the men. Personally I care less about men dying than women dying so I can see that being a factor and, to be honest, that suits me just fine.

But the chances of it actually being done as a conscious decision by the writers I find highly unlikely and the idea that it is a dictate to the writers by Moffat is even more ridiculous, IMO.

Still, it's an interesting study!

Please don't

This thread desperately needs some missing episodes to be found.

LOL! I agree.

Definitely yes please. I do believe there are undiscovered episodes out there. Not the whole 97 . The worry is what condition they may be in.

Tonight, I re-watched The Magician's Apprentice. With the exception of The Doctor and Davros (who are traditionally male) every single major character in the episode was female (Missy, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, Clara, etc.). Anyways, here is the count:

Male:

Kanzo (Soldier #1) = Dies
Soldier #2 = Lives
Davros = Lives
Ryan (Kid in school) = Lives
Male Reporter = Lives
Mr. Dunlap = Lives
Mike (Communications Male) = Lives
2 Male Guards Die
Middle-Ages Combatant (Dalek) = Lives

The count is 3 males die and 7 live.


Female:

Shadow Architect: Lives
Karn Sister: Lives
Alison (kid in school) = Lives
Female Reporter = Lives
Chinese Female Reporter = Lives
Kate Lethbridge-Stewart = Lives
Communications Lady = Lives
Missy = Lives

The count is 0 females die and 7 live.



This brings our cumulative total to:

Men: 11
Men who die: 4

Women: 10
Women who die: 0

So far, only men die. Just 11 or so episodes to go.

Actually that highlights another reason why men might be more prone to deaths than women. The men are traditionally more likely to be the ones in the front line combat roles and, therefore, more likely to be in harm's way.

In that episode the men were the soldiers and the guards. None of the women were in combat roles.

Yeah that one pissed me off as well all this going back to before who started doing scenes like choose this one and stuff or visiting the doctor as a child. Why does Moff have to tamper with history like that.

I swear I wouldnt have been suprised for him to go whole hog and do a prequel story episode.

Yeah the key throwing scene was one that really got up my nose I just wanted Coleman to just piss off out of the series after I saw that.