10 Doctor Who Characters Who Don't Deserve The Hate
5. Miranda Cleaves
Like Ambrose, Cleaves is another character we're supposed to dislike.
Her human version is framed as one of the main antagonists of The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People, refusing to trust the Doctor and the Flesh doppelgangers, and even killing one of them at the end of the first episode. She undeniably made things worse, so it's no surprise she was frustrating to watch at points.
But the way the character was written - combined with the performance of Raquel Cassidy, which is showy when it needs to be, but never lacks subtlety - also makes Cleaves a character who's easy to respect.
Why should she trust the Flesh, or the Doctor for that matter? Who the hell would want another version of themselves to potentially steal their life? Cleaves is an interesting pivot in the pro/anti-Flesh struggle at the heart of this story, and a far more engaging presence than the other primary player, Jennifer Lucas.
The less said about that Flesh beast at the end, the better.
One also cannot help but feel quite sorry for Cleaves with the whole blood clot thing, which was resolved way too quickly at the end of the story - but that's a gripe for another list.