It's perfectly possible for Doctor Who to throw out a plot twist every now and then, but it'll never actually shock us like the very best of TV can do. Even when Series 6 went more serialised to tell River Song's story, the show has still stuck to a rigid structure where only the series opener and finale have any major plot shifts. The God Complex may have done the unthinkable and had Amy and Rory left back on Earth, but for the most part you can expect the TV status quo to be back to normal if we're in a mid-series episode. And if there is a disturbance, any major shift will be highly signposted. When, at the end of The Stolen Earth, the Tenth Doctor started to regenerate speculation was rife that the BBC had snuck one of the biggest recasts in television past everyone. Which is pretty stupid to think - the press are too good and the BBC too loose-lipped; Christopher Eccleston's shock departure wasn't actually a shock because he'd announced it before the series even aired. Game Of Thrones can cause uproar when it offs our favourite characters, but there the press aren't running around screaming that Sean Bean may be leaving. Rumours Jenna Coleman is planning to leave the show have been brewing over the past few weeks and even if those involved can keep mum throughout the show's entire run, odds are Clara's likely exist at the end of Series 8 will not have the desired shock effect.
