Pebkio said:
Anyway, let's take what we know about Clara Oswin Oswald:
Exists at different times
Clever in all of the incarnations
Carries experiences from one time to the next (governess from early and computer genius later)
The TARDIS has an issue with her
No memories from her previous other selves
The Doctor met the future version of her first
The Doctor met the past version of her second
The Doctor met the present version of her third
The present version doesn't have the middle name Oswin
The present version was given the Doctor's number by a "lady in a shop"
All of that is a bit hard to piece together, admittedly, and to know the whole story, we'd probably just need to have it told to us. But there's one thing I can glean from the whole thing: Clara might not be a person. There have been items powerful enough to "become" a person. 1/6th of the Key to Time was able to be a person and there are probably other things that are as powerful.
Hm, that's an interesting thought. The other thing we know is that she
inadvertently carries these things over. While she may not have exact memories of these past selves (or the Dalek Asylum and the governess selves are just keeping quiet about it), she carried over her computer knowledge to the Asylum incarnation and the Oswin made it to both, as well as the clever boy thing. It's like she's reliving the same life again and again, but those significant experiences and traits keep bleeding through.
I feel like Oswin definitely is someone important, but I don't feel like she's Jenny or Susan because I don't feel like Moffat would dishonor those actresses in that way. In every classic Who main character cameo, it has been the original actor or actress that made it into the show. When Peter Davison came back as the 5th Doctor during that Children in Need special, they excused his aged appearance by blaming it on the TARDIS's crashing. When Sarah Jane Smith came back, that much time had actually passed since their separation so that makes sense. They have brought other characters back through different actors (The Master, Davros, the Great Intelligence), but the show already has a long history of villains changing actors and forms. But the main characters are different, and I don't think even Moffat would dare try and essentially recast Carole Ann Ford as Susan.
And I think if Jenny were to return to the show, they'd grab the actress who originally played her in that Tennant episode. Anything else would be unsatisfying, and a letdown to the people who have watched that episode and have been waiting for her return. Plus, all of these hints and references go back to the Classic Who. Jenny is purely a character from the New Who.
Perhaps Oswin is somehow related to Susan or past events, but I don't think she is a direct reincarnation of a Classic Who protagonist.
EDIT: Though come to think of it, Susan was recast one other time for a couple of Doctor Who movies. But still, Moffat loves to reference the Classic Who as most remember it, so again I don't think he'd do Carole the dishonor.
Also, I'm rather surprised at the general malice against this episode's ending. Yeah, in a sense everything "didn't happen" (though the Doctor certainly seems to remember), but this is a show about
time travel. They're always going on about how time can be rewritten. And now the one time they actually follow through on that, suddenly it's the most terrible thing ever? Hell this is basically how the Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords storyline ended--they went back in time and stopped that year the Master had control over the earth from ever happening, and only those who were on board that airship ever remembered what happened.
