They haven't confirmed whether or not Clara is really leaving, it's all being kept vague, but I've got my fingers crossed!
I don't think the Doctor seriously meant that he has unlimited regenerations now. He was just talking to stop the astronauts shooting them. A bit like how in that SJA adventure he told Clyde he had 583 regenerations - it wasn't true, he was just throwing out a ridiculous number to stop Clyde asking questions. Here, he was presenting the astronauts with reasons not to shoot them, and one of those reasons was 'if you keep shooting me I'll just keep coming back to life, so what's the point?' Not that the astronauts would have known what regeneration even is. But he wasn't being serious any more than he meant it when he told them to shoot Courtney first - there, he was pointing out the 'little girl' to make the potential shooters stop and think (although I'm not sure Courtney realised that, it was yet another of those 'the Doctor says thoughtless hurtful things without even knowing it' moments).
The thing about Clara is...I see shows making this mistake a lot. Grey's Anatomy does it all the time - "we just lost a beloved character and want the fans to love the replacement, so let's make the new character better than the old one in every way, however unrealistic that requires our writing to be, that should do it," and then they undermine other characters to prop up the new one, and it never works, it just makes viewers resent the new character for the unearned favours being bestowed on them and for the damage they are doing to other characters. When if the writing were just dialled back in the first place, there wouldn't be a problem.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2014-10-05 08:14 am (UTC)I don't think the Doctor seriously meant that he has unlimited regenerations now. He was just talking to stop the astronauts shooting them. A bit like how in that SJA adventure he told Clyde he had 583 regenerations - it wasn't true, he was just throwing out a ridiculous number to stop Clyde asking questions. Here, he was presenting the astronauts with reasons not to shoot them, and one of those reasons was 'if you keep shooting me I'll just keep coming back to life, so what's the point?' Not that the astronauts would have known what regeneration even is. But he wasn't being serious any more than he meant it when he told them to shoot Courtney first - there, he was pointing out the 'little girl' to make the potential shooters stop and think (although I'm not sure Courtney realised that, it was yet another of those 'the Doctor says thoughtless hurtful things without even knowing it' moments).
The thing about Clara is...I see shows making this mistake a lot. Grey's Anatomy does it all the time - "we just lost a beloved character and want the fans to love the replacement, so let's make the new character better than the old one in every way, however unrealistic that requires our writing to be, that should do it," and then they undermine other characters to prop up the new one, and it never works, it just makes viewers resent the new character for the unearned favours being bestowed on them and for the damage they are doing to other characters. When if the writing were just dialled back in the first place, there wouldn't be a problem.