Bye then Jenna.

TV After days of the media thinking fans would be rioting in the streets about it as though a companion moving on was some new thing after fifty-odd years, Jenna Coleman confirmed on the radio this morning that she's already left Doctor Who, having filmed her final scenes even before the show's reached broadcast, Christopher Eccleston style - though obviously with warmer feelings about it.

Would we know this if The Mirror hadn't decided to stick it in the front page?  I shouldn't think so and it's another example of how the modern commercial media's scrutiny of the show effects how we interpret and enjoy the fiction.  Now the season will about how Clara leaves rather than "Wow, she's leaving..."  Unless, as has been highly speculated about the Chris X cover story, it was leaked to a tabloid by someone on the production team.  On purpose.  For some reason.

As you know, I've always firmly been in Team Clara camp, though I know she's not been an especially popular companion over the years.  This is partially due to her introduction as a plot point with multiple versions rather than as a straight in through the doors kind of figure, the version we have now only having shown up after us seeing to earlier fragments of the same personality.  Exciting idea in principle, well conveyed, but still with the inherent Dollhouse-style protagonist problems.

The above interview is as ever about what's not being said.  Jenna hints that it might not be before the end of the year and in fact so tied down is Cardiff now in terms of production blocks and the order of filming, it could well be that her final wrap scene wasn't in her final episode.  Her first episode shot was Hide, with the TARDIS scenes only being filmed months later.  One of these days I should get around to compiling that production calender based on the Pixley specials.