8. Boy Meets Girl, Girl Hunts Boy Down - The Usual Story
The Doctor and Clara met and immediately spent an unseemly amount of time alone together in a cab (for a Victorian girl). They then flirted like mad with each other, something the Eleventh Doctor usually finds uncomfortable but seemed to quite enjoy. When the Doctor tried to ditch her, Clara went after him and became perhaps the first nuWho companion to discover the Tardis before the Doctor showed it to her. She then went and hunted him down. When told about the Doctors current emotional turmoil, the word she chose to signify her understanding was man.
Forget the snogging, which was Claras way of gaining the upper hand when the Doctor started to get cocky: the most surprising thing that happened next was when the Doctor gave Clara a key to the Tardis. Seriously, has the Doctor ever given anyone a key to the Tardis that easily? Its just suddenly hersshe hasnt even agreed to come with him yet!
Then theres an intensely intimate scene in which the Doctor asks Clara to come with him, if he can save the world. Madame Vastra calls this making a bargain with the universe. Proving that he really doesnt have much ability to learn from experience, the Doctor saves the world but finds he cannot save Clara.
Pause, for a moment, and think about what it took to drag the Doctor back into the world. He didnt want to come: he wanted to sit on his cloud, safe from heartbreak, fear, and guilt. In the space of a day all that changed because a woman came barreling into his life and dragged him kicking and screaming back into reality. Then, when faced with the prospect of losing her, the Doctor breaks all the rules he had set for himself in order to save her life. He fails, only to discover that shes somehow still alive and out there somewhere. What the Doctor had lost was his faith in the wonderfulness of humanity, and Clara made him remember. For the people who think that the Doctor only cared about Clara because of her mystery, this episode kills that idea. The Doctor becomes enchanted with Clara before her mystery is introduced. And when he realizes shes still out there somewhere, he reacts not with confusion or interest, but with pure uncomplicated joy.