Jenna Coleman to leave Doctor Who - my instant reaction

So, the BBC have officially announced that Jenna Coleman is to leave Doctor Who during the forthcoming series which starts on BBC1 tomorrow evening. Fine. I don't have an issue with that. I've never really 'got' her character Clara anyway and I don't feel she's brought much to the programme since her early timey-wimey appearances across Matt Smith's final split season. In fact the perfect time for her to go was probably in 2013 when she jumped into the Doctor's whirly time line vortex thing in the wreck of his TARDIS on Trenzalore, in The Name of The Doctor, since she appeared to have been created by the universe solely for that moment alone.
 

Things are never simple, though, and the character was saved and has been with us ever since. She's a nanny one moment, then a qualified teacher the next, she doesn't have a family, she does, she's this, she's that - depending on what the storyline requires, and the production team have continued the trend with Clara that they started with Amy and Rory of picking the companion up for her Saturday evening adventure and then dropping her off again afterwards so she can live her normal life for the rest of the week, in an all too literal representation of us as viewers watching at home. I can cope with a bit of it from time to time, but not persistently and not when, as in Into The Dalek, the Doctor finds himself in a situation then leaves the situation in order to pick up Clara and bring her back into that same situation to help him out. That's silly in my view and if the companion isn't going to stay with the Doctor from one week to the next we should expect to see adventures without them directly involved. (In the spirit of ongoing narrative and story arcs, though, I don't have an issue with us seeing the companions in their lives outside of the Doctor's adventures to move their own personal storylines along.)

But those are my thoughts on the way the production team have used the character and developed her relationship with the Doctor, it's nothing against Jenna Coleman the actor - I find her to be a very capable performer and I hope that the series has been a useful springboard for her onto new and wonderful things for the future. She's been on screen with the programme now since Autumn 2012 - that's a good long stretch, but thanks to a year off for the 50th celebrations she's only really done one and a half series.

I never 'bought' her relationship with Danny Pink in Series 8 either. Again, this isn't a criticism of either Jenna or Samuel Anderson, it's a criticism of what we as viewers were shown of their blossoming love or their life together. It just didn't add up to the kind of heartbreak we were meant to assume in the tragedy at the end. Despite what I've said so far I really loved Series 8 on the whole, but these things have always niggled away at me.

You'll notice that through all of this I make sure I separate the actor and the character. What's appalled me most about the 'fan' response to the BBC's announcement today is the sheer amount of bile and hatred that's being aimed at Jenna Coleman the actor for personal issues with, or dislike of, her character Clara Oswald and the programme in general. And some of the Tweets the BBC have chosen to use on their own news feed about the announcement? Ouch! don't give these nutters that kind of publicity - the natural assumption will then be that these views are held throughout fandom, affirming the 1980s stereotype about how fandom loves to hate the show and those involved with it.
You don't like the character? Fine. Don't watch the programme. It's not compulsory.
You don't like the storylines or all the epsiodes? Fine, you'll never get 100% enjoyment out of everything, that's life, get over it. Or if you don't like the odds, again don't watch the programme.
You don't like Jenna Coleman? Fine, but aim your criticism correctly.

Older people used to say 'if you can't think of anything nice to say don't say anything at all.' Then they invented Twitter and internet forums. Now it's all too easy...

I won't miss Clara Oswald in the programme that much. I hope the new companion will be more roundly thought-out in advance, and if she's female I hope she'll be less about immediate 'impact' or tropes and misguided female empowerment through overt sexuality; we've had a succession of those now (River, Amy, Clara). And it's very likely that I'll look back fondly on Jenna's years with the show. But regardless of how I feel about Clara I'd like to thank Jenna Coleman for her input, for giving a reliable strong performance each week (material notwithstanding) and forn being a fine ambassador for the programme.

I wish her all the best going forward.