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Clara Oswald — news, coverage & facts — IJR

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Clara Oswald is a fictional character in the BBC television series Doctor Who portrayed by Jenna Coleman and created by Steven Moffat. She is a travelling companion of the series' protagonist, the Doctor, in his eleventh (Matt Smith) and twelfth incarnations (Peter Capaldi). Introduced in the seventh series, Clara regularly appeared throughout the 2013 specials, series eight and series nine. She also made a brief appearance in "Twice Upon a Time" (2017).

"Asylum of the Daleks" (2012) and "The Snowmen" (2012) introduce three identical-looking incarnations of Clara from different periods of history. The first two incarnations die as a consequence of their adventures with the Doctor. The third incarnation, a 21st-century nanny and later schoolteacher, travels with the Doctor as he tries to uncover the mystery of her multiple lives. This is explained in "The Name of the Doctor" (2013), when Clara enters the Doctor's timestream, creating numerous "echoes" of her across the Doctor's past. Clara witnesses the Doctor regenerate into his twelfth incarnation and comes to accept the change despite initial uncertainty. Through her exposure to the Doctor's life, Clara develops a thrill-seeking personality which leads to her death in "Face the Raven" (2015). The Doctor resurrects Clara in "Hell Bent" (2015) at the expense of having his memories of her erased. Now functionally immortal, Clara leaves the Doctor to explore the universe with Ashildr (Maisie Williams).

Clara was introduced to succeed Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) as the Doctor's companion and renew his curiosity in the universe. While the character's first two incarnations were well received, critics felt her primary version was more grounded and straightforward. Clara's "Impossible Girl" arc in the seventh series was criticised but her role in the following two series was praised. In 2015, Coleman was nominated for both a Saturn Award and a BAFTA Cymru Award for her performance. Clara is also one of the Doctor's longest-serving companions.

Contents

Television

Oswin Oswald (Jenna Coleman) is introduced in the series 7 premiere, "Asylum of the Daleks" (2012). She is the sole survivor of the starship Alaska, which crashed on the Asylum, a prison planet for insane Daleks. Oswin sees herself as human, but the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) discovers that she was converted into a Dalek and coped by dreaming that she is still human. She sacrifices herself to help the Doctor and his travelling companions, Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill), escape the planet unharmed. In the 2012 Christmas special "The Snowmen", the Doctor meets a Victorian barmaid and governess named Clara Oswin Oswald (Coleman), whom he initially knows only as Clara. He invites her to be his newest companion but she is killed by one of the Great Intelligence's minions. Seeing her full name on her tombstone and finally recognising her voice, the Doctor realises Clara and Oswin are somehow the same woman. He begins searching across time for another Clara. Unknown to the Doctor, another incarnation of Clara Oswald (Coleman) is introduced living in 2010s London.

In "The Bells of Saint John" (2013), Clara inadvertently calls the Doctor, having received the phone number for his time machine, the TARDIS, from a mysterious woman. The Doctor takes her on as a companion with a goal to solving the mystery of her multiple lives—he nicknames her the "impossible girl". The Doctor's attempts at investigating her origins over the course of "The Rings of Akhaten", "Hide", and "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS" consistently turn up compelling evidence that she is a normal human woman. In "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS", the Doctor confronts Clara in an averted timeline about the two previous versions of her he had met, but she has no knowledge of this. The mystery is resolved in "The Name of the Doctor" when Clara sacrifices her existence by entering the Doctor's timestream to undo harm caused by the Great Intelligence (Richard E Grant). This creates numerous "echoes" of Clara throughout the Doctor's past history who save his life in numerous ways. One version of Clara successfully persuades the First Doctor (William Hartnell) to pick the "right" TARDIS on his home planet Gallifrey, prior to the events of An Unearthly Child (1963). Clara is lost in the Doctor's timestream but he manages to bring her back into existence. By "The Day of the Doctor", the series's 50th anniversary special, Clara has become a teacher at Coal Hill School. She meets the Doctor's earlier incarnations, the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) and the War Doctor (John Hurt), the latter of which had annihilated Gallifrey and his people, the Time Lords, to end the destructive Time War. Upset by this action, Clara convinces the Doctor to rewrite history, and he instead seals the planet in a pocket universe. In "The Time of the Doctor", the Time Lords try to return to the universe through a crack in time located on the planet Trenzalore. Knowing that the Time Lords' return will reignite the Time War, the Doctor sends Clara home to her family at Christmas twice while he stays on Trenzalore. Clara returns in the TARDIS each time after two centuries-long intervals. With the Doctor facing certain death at the end of his regeneration cycle, she pleads with the Time Lords to save the Doctor; they grant him a new regeneration cycle and the crack closes.Clara witnesses the Eleventh Doctor regenerate into the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi). She grapples with losing the Doctor she knew and loved throughout the events of "Deep Breath" (2014), even considering refusing to travel with him, until a phone call from the Eleventh Doctor prior to his regeneration convinces her to stay by the Doctor's side and help him adjust to his new persona. In "Into the Dalek", Clara and fellow teacher Danny Pink (Samuel Anderson) agree to go for drinks together, and over the course of the episodes "Listen", "Time Heist", and "The Caretaker", the two enter into a romantic relationship. Clara keeps secrets between the Doctor and Danny due to their misgivings about each other. She experiences turbulence in her friendship with the Doctor, particularly in "Kill the Moon" when he abandons her to face a traumatic decision on her own. In "Flatline", she is forced to take the Doctor's role in averting an alien invasion, and realises she is capable of making the same ruthless and pragmatic decisions he often has to make. In "Dark Water", Danny dies in a traffic collision before Clara can announce her intent to commit to him fully. She attempts to threaten the Doctor into changing history to avert Danny's death. Despite her betrayal of the Doctor, he agrees to help her contact Danny from beyond the grave. They discover a facility where evil Time Lord Missy (Michelle Gomez) has stored the consciousnesses of Earth's dead as part of a plot to convert the deceased into a Cyberman army. In "Death in Heaven", Missy reveals that she was the aforementioned woman who gave Clara the TARDIS phone number. Danny is brought back as a Cyberman but he resists his programming in order to destroy Missy's Cyberman army and foil her plans. Two weeks later, Clara and the Doctor meet to farewell each another. The Doctor lies to Clara; he pretends he has found Gallifrey and a home to go back to. Clara lies too; she pretends Danny returned from the dead through Missy's device, when in fact he sacrificed the opportunity to save the life of a child he killed in the Afghanistan war.Clara reunites with the Doctor in the 2014 Christmas special "Last Christmas", when aliens trap them in a shared dream. Clara dreams that Danny is still alive, but realises it is not real. She admits Danny is dead, while the Doctor confesses he did not find Gallifrey. After waking, they reconcile and Clara agrees to travel with the Doctor again. In series 9, Clara accompanies Missy and the Doctor to Skaro when he is summoned by Davros (Julian Bleach), barely escaping the ordeal with her life. Now an experienced space traveller, Clara shows greater confidence when dealing with alien races and volatile humans, but the Doctor finds himself concerned by her reckless streak. In "The Girl Who Died", Clara and the Doctor use alien technology to resurrect Ashildr (Maisie Williams), a Viking killed during their successful attempt to save her village, but inadvertently give her immortality. Clara's recklessness gets the better of her in "Face the Raven". Her friend Rigsy (Joivan Wade) is sentenced to death by a Quantum Shade (a raven-like being), and is given a numerical tattoo which counts down to his death. Clara convinces him to transfer the tattoo to her, but later learns that this breaks the Shade's contract, making the death sentence irrevokable. Clara cautions the Doctor not to give in to his darker nature in response to her death, which she faces with bravery.

In "Heaven Sent", a grief-stricken Doctor imagines conversations with Clara to clarify his ideas. In "Hell Bent", the Doctor uses Time Lord technology on Gallifrey to extract Clara from her last moments of life. As a result, her biological processes are frozen: she does not have a heartbeat and cannot age. The Doctor plans to return Clara to Earth where she can live a normal life, and he prepares to wipe her memories of him so that the Time Lords cannot use her to find him. Clara tampers with the mind-wiping device so that it wipes the Doctor's memories of her instead. She leaves the Doctor on Earth by the TARDIS to start his adventures anew. Clara tells Ashildr that she intends to one day visit Gallifrey and return to the moment of her death, but vows to take "the long way around". She and Ashildr begin traveling the universe together in a TARDIS stolen from Gallifrey.

In "Twice Upon a Time", the Doctor encounters Testimony, a futuristic organisation which copies people's memories at the moment of death and installs them in sentient avatars. An avatar of the Doctor's companion Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie) restores his memories of Clara; he sees a mental image of her telling him not to forget her again.

In the 60th anniversary special episode "The Giggle", the Toymaker depicts Clara as a marionette alongside Amy and Bill, taunting the Fourteenth Doctor by reminding him of companions who died while travelling with him.

Casting

With the upcoming departure of regular characters Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) from the BBC television series Doctor Who, executive producer and lead writer Steven Moffat began developing a new female character to serve as the Doctor's companion in the series. Auditions for the role were held in secrecy; the production was codenamed Men on Waves, an anagram for "Woman Seven". Actress Jenna Coleman first auditioned for the role of Jasmine, a bossy Victorian governess. For her second audition she read for both the characters of Oswin and Clara. Coleman assumed that this was indecisiveness on the part of the production team, later realising that her casting was part of Moffat's "soft mystery" plan. The character was originally intended to remain as a Victorian governess, but Moffat developed the concept of Clara's multiple incarnations during the audition process. Coleman had never seen Doctor Who before she auditioned.

Coleman's casting was announced in March 2012. Moffat chose her for the role due to her chemistry with Smith and because she could talk faster than him. He also said that Coleman brings "a speed and wit and an unimpressed quality that makes the Doctor dance a bit harder... That's very much driven by Jenna’s particular style, which is very, very fast and snappy." Coleman had never seen Doctor Who before her audition; she watched "The Eleventh Hour" (2010) and "completely fell in love with the show". She only additionally watched the first five episodes of the seventh series – the final episodes featuring Gillan and Darvill – because she preferred to react "spontaneously" to Smith's performance.

Moffat concealed details of Coleman's character and told the media that she would debut in the 2012 Christmas special, but Coleman surprised viewers with her debut in the series seven premiere "Asylum of the Daleks" (2012) as Oswin Oswald. Oswin's death in the episode confused audiences as to how Coleman would return to play the Doctor's long-term companion. The mystery of her multiple characters was introduced to the series when Coleman reappeared in the 2012 Christmas special "The Snowmen" as the Victorian governess Clara Oswin Oswald. "Hide" (2013) was the first full episode Coleman shot as the modern incarnation of Clara. Coleman played each incarnation of the character as individuals with "trust that there would be a payoff" to the mystery.

It was widely expected that Coleman would leave the show at the end of 2014, but the BBC declined to comment on speculation. Moffat wrote the character out twice – once for the end of series 8 and again for the 2014 Christmas special "Last Christmas" – but convinced Coleman to stay on for one more series. He didn't feel that the show was "quite finished with Jenna and Clara", and wasn't convinced Coleman was ready to depart the series; "I don’t think anyone should leave Doctor Who until they’re really ready to leave." Moffat originally scripted "Last Christmas" to end with Clara dying as an old woman, but Coleman changed her mind after the read-through. Moffat originally considered replacing Clara with Faye Marsay's character Shona from "Last Christmas".

On 18 September 2015, Coleman announced on Radio 1 Breakfast that she would leave the show at the end of the ninth series. The Guardian reported that she left the series partly to take on the lead role in the ITV drama series Victoria (2016–2019). This makes Clara one of the Doctor's longest-serving companions in the series's history.

Coleman reprised the role of Clara for a cameo appearance in the 2017 Christmas Special "Twice Upon a Time". Early drafts of the script had Clara interacting with fellow companions Nardole and Bill Potts, but Coleman's shooting schedule for Victoria prohibited this. Instead, Coleman shot her scenes in front of a green screen at the offices of the BBC Television Centre, days after filming wrapped. The episode's director Rachel Talalay described the story as being "about memories" and praised Moffat for weaving Clara into it: "The fact that the Doctor, having lost his memories of her, got them back in the Christmas episode, I just felt was so brilliant."

Characterisation

Moffat felt that the introduction of a new companion "sort of reboots [Doctor Who] a little bit" by offering a new perspective on the Doctor. Smith agreed that Clara allows the audience to "see a different side" to the Doctor. Executive producer Caroline Skinner remarked that Clara's introduction allowed the series to re-introduce common elements like the TARDIS, Time Lords and sonic screwdriver. Narratively, the character was intended to reawaken the Doctor's curiosity in the universe and "give him his mojo back" following the deaths of Amy and Rory.

Coleman stated that Clara "holds her own" with the Doctor, providing "a nice double act", and noted that her presence changed the Doctor: "There is a natural bounce between them, and a flirtation, and attraction. But, again, they've always got this friction because they're a bit magnetic and drawn to each other, but she can't quite figure him out." Coleman and Smith were influenced by the on-screen dynamic between Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Coleman was glad that the character could be explored in greater depth once the "impossible girl" story arc had concluded. Writer Jonathan Morris agreed that her status as "an unsolved puzzle... limited her characterisation". and described her as "another Clara" from "The Day of the Doctor" onwards.

In comparison to Clara's flirtatious dynamic with the Eleventh Doctor, the physically older Twelfth Doctor tells Clara "I'm not your boyfriend" in his debut episode "Deep Breath" (2014). Prior to the broadcast of series 8, Capaldi told The Sunday Times Magazine: "There'll be no flirting [with Clara], that's for sure... It's not what this Doctor’s concerned with. It’s quite a fun relationship, but no, I did call and say, 'I want no Papa-Nicole moments'." In 2015, Moffat indicated that the Doctor was still "besotted" with Clara. At the 2015 San Diego Comic Con, Capaldi stated the Doctor is "deeply bonded" with Clara in a "very unusual relationship". He added: "It's romantic in the old sense. Two people who are really crazy about each other, and would really miss not seeing each other. But they're not romantically involved."

Coleman felt that series 8's stronger focus on Clara's home life made the character more accessible and relatable to audiences. She described Clara and the Doctor as "a bit addicted" to their co-dependent dynamic. After Danny's death, Coleman noted that Clara lost her fear of mortality and increasingly cut her ties with Earth, making her increasingly reckless. Morris felt Clara "came into her own" once she was paired with the Twelfth Doctor, adding, "Steven [Moffat] gave us the first female Doctor. She was hidden in clear view all the time. And her name was Clara Oswald." However, Clara was also criticised by fans for being "too important" to the narrative of the series.

Dialogue in "The Magician's Apprentice" (2015) and "The Girl Who Died" (2015) implied that Clara was bisexual. Coleman stated in September 2015 that "it is open to interpretation." The character's bisexuality was confirmed in a 2023 issue of Doctor Who Magazine.

Reception

Nick Setchfield of SFX praised the effective surprise debut of Coleman as Oswin in "Asylum of the Daleks", writing "Coleman brings sauce and sparkiness, and while she initially seems a familiar Moffat archetype, all snarky cracks about the Doctor's chin and throwaway lines about sexual experimentation... there's a deeper vulnerability there too, which makes her eventual fate in this episode genuinely heart-skewering." Michael Hogan, writing for The Daily Telegraph, also found her debut promising and described her as "enchanting in an elfin way – rather like a brunette, curvier, less annoying Fearne Cotton."

Coleman's reintroduction in "The Snowmen" received generally positive reviews from critics. The Guardian's Dan Martin wrote, "The masterstroke behind Jenna-Louise Coleman's surprise introduction is that it made us want to see more of her before Karen Gillan had even gone. The cheeky, self-assured Clara won a place in our hearts from the off." Setchfield called the Victorian incarnation of Clara "less of a motormouthed quip-merchant than [Oswin], but Coleman makes her equally winning – plucky, smart and riffing on a very promising chemistry with Matt Smith." IGN's Matt Risley felt that Clara "trumped her already-bombastic debut with a character both fully formed and utterly unpredictable." He praised the mystery surrounding her and her independence, commenting that she seemed to be the "antithesis" of Amy Pond as she was "a girl who will wait for no-one." Radio Times reviewer Patrick Mulkern admitted that he had "found Oswin's perkiness a tad wearing," but he was "completely won over" by Coleman's Clara in "The Snowmen". Neela Debanth of The Independent felt that Clara's demise in "The Snowmen" made the episode "a bit of a tease" and set up the question of what the travelling Clara would be like. Unlike Mulkern, she favoured the Oswin version, describing her as "much more fun and flirtatious."

Following "The Bells of Saint John", Digital Spy's Morgan Jeffery described the new Clara as "more grounded and so far easier for the viewer to latch on to" than her two predecessors, both of whom could have been harder to sustain as long-term companions. Mulkern said that he did not bother with the character's mystery and was pleased that Coleman played her as "a straightforward modern companion with no baggage." Setchfield described Clara as "equally sparky and winning but altogether younger and possibly just a tad more vulnerable than her previous incarnations" with a "helplessly watchable chemistry" with Smith. Debnath described her as a "softer version" of Oswin, still hoping that "the character will be taken up a notch, challenging the Doctor more and bouncing off him like Oswin did." However, the Daily Mirror's Jon Cooper expressed concern that Clara was too similar to Amy. Mike Higgins of The Independent felt that Coleman was "an improvement" upon Gillan, but wrote that "the pairing of an intellectually bright but emotionally dim male with a techno-illiterate but wised up female is a tired old trope of much drama and comedy."

The character's development throughout series 7 was met with positive reviews. Martin praised the development of her backstory in "The Rings of Akhaten," as otherwise the character "was danger of becoming simply a story arc in the shape of a girl." SFX's Richard Edwards wrote that she had the potential to be "a truly great companion," and that it was "refreshing to see a companion who isn't in total awe of the Doctor... and she's not afraid to take the lead when she needs to." Debnath praised her "caring nature" and "lovely maternal side," but felt that she could be "annoyingly naïve." Dave Golder of SFX stated that Clara was "to an extent, a bit of a cartoon character" and that Moffat was better at writing her in "The Name of the Doctor" than some of the preceding writers. He also commented that she "still feels too new a companion (and an underdeveloped one) to really care about her sacrifice."

Fans and critics noticed similarities between Clara and Billie Piper's Rose Tyler. Clara helps the Doctor recover at a dark point in his life, as Rose does during a much darker time; both companions lose a parent; each has a close relationship with the Doctor, who sees part of their childhood. In "The Time of the Doctor" (2013), the Doctor sends Clara back home for her safety, echoing his earlier decision to send Rose home in "The Parting of the Ways" (2005).

Martin expressed support for Coleman to remain in Doctor Who beyond 2014, praising her performance and describing Clara as one of the strongest aspects of series 8. He also stated that Clara’s implied bisexuality was "one of the most compelling facets of the character", arguing that it aligned with Clara's established personality and praised it as a subtle form of LGBT representation on television. In the book Being a Girl with The Doctor: Essays on the Feminine in Doctor Who, Lynnette Porter noted that although fans identified Clara as bisexual, her orientation was never the focus of plot or her character development. In 2018, Maya Philips of Vulture placed Clara last in a ranking of the revived series's companions. She criticised Clara's "poorly executed" story arc, and stated that Clara stayed on the series for too long. She compared Clara to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl stock character, and stated that Clara "became most interesting... when she became reckless in her grief and overconfident in her own abilities". Aimee Hart of Polygon praised the dynamic between Capaldi and Coleman throughout their two seasons. Moffat's predecessor as executive producer, Russell T Davies, praised the character's reversal of the companion's tropes: "Nestling at the heart of the show is Doctor Who’s very own problem category, the Companion, a title inherently subordinate to the Man. Until Clara comes along! Companion to every single moment in the Doctor’s life. A woman so strong that in her first appearance, and her last, Death itself cannot stop her."