Hello! You’re right – episodes 11 and 12 hadn’t been written when I started Face the Raven, In fact, I’m not sure the scripts had been started by the time I finished, as ep10 was shot quite early in the schedule, before ep9, and Steven is a frighteningly fast writer. However, he let me in on his rough plan for the final two episodes when he sent me off to write my second draft – the point at which my trap street story became ep10 and took on the story of Clara’s death, Ashildr’s involvement, etc, all leading into ep11. So I knew what was going to happen in broad strokes. I knew the Doctor would be all alone and at his nadir in ep11, and that he was going to try to bring Clara back in some way in ep12, but I didn’t know what would ultimately come of that effort… except of course that Jenna wasn’t going to be in s10!
I didn’t need to know all the details of ep12 in order to write ep10, and I was happy to keep it that way so that I could enjoy the final episodes mostly unspoiled as they went to air. The final beats of Clara’s story were a surprise to me on Saturday. I watched with my heart in my mouth just like everyone else. I’m sure I stopped breathing altogether when it seemed like Clara might get Donna’d, and I burst into ugly happy tears when she refused to accept that awful fate. “I insist upon my past. I am entitled to that. It’s mine.” Precious clever fierce as hell Clara bae!! How so perf??? ;___;
I was particularly touched by the return of Rigsy’s painted TARDIS (weirdly, it felt like seeing one of my friends on television – startling and personal and proud-making) and I had no idea she was going to “live” and run off with Ashildr. That idea is taking some getting used to, to be honest. Not because I don’t want her to survive and thrive, and bring Jane onto their TARDIS for adventures, and carry on dazzling the universe for goodness knows how long. No, I think it just feels strange because I have spent the best part of twelve months contemplating Clara’s death in every possible way. I grieved for her from every angle in every draft I wrote, and witnessing your grief for her after FtR aired was the final beat of closure in that journey. I guess it hasn’t sunk in yet that the character gets to live on. Not only live on, but live on gloriously. How do you unpick all that bedded-in grief and closure? You guys only had two weeks of it – I had a full year! I’m going to have to watch Hell Bent again…
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