Falling In Love With The Doctor/Sherlock
A major criticism of Moffats Who is that all his women characters fall in love with the Doctor. There are a lot of ways that this criticism doesnt hold up. Firstly, tons of people fall in love with the Doctor, men and women. The Doctor collects hangers-on like normal people collect DVDs. Hell, Mickey didnt leave just because Rose had moved on from him, he left because he was a perpetual third wheel, and the Doctor was never going to follow him instead of Rose. More importantly, plenty of women dont fall in love with the Doctor. Amy wasnt really in love with him, she was just getting cold feet about her marriage. The Madame du Pompador loved a man she didnt really know, and chose to stay with her king rather than go after the Doctor. Sally Sparrow never felt anything beyond irritation for the Doctor. Clara is very careful not to fall in love with him (although her success is arguable). Its true that every companion who comes into the Doctors life has some sort of romantic incident with him, some situation where they kiss, etc. But honestly, how can they not? Were talking about a man and a woman traveling alone together, living in the same ship, having the same near-death experiences. Not addressing the question of a romantic relationship would be ridiculous. Lets look at Irene Adler. Yeah, she fell a bit in love with Sherlock. But that wasnt a hobble to her genius, it was an asset to her character. Until the final stumble, she had the Holmes brothers wrapped around her little finger. She was more comfortable throwing Sherlock to the dogs than he was throwing her to terrorists. And Irenes was the final victory, because on a show where lack of emotions makes one horrifically inhuman, she was able to hold onto both her humanity and her intellect while breaking through Sherlocks brutally cold heart. All right, so that last bit sounds cheesy, but in the end on Sherlock the heart is much more important than the head, and being able to manipulate both sets Irene above every other character.