The Problem with Clara Oswald

Anyone else watch the finale of Doctor Who? Anyone else spend a few minutes screaming at the TV? I did. But that's not what I want to talk about. I love this show, have for a while, but since the Ponds left it's lacked something. Took me a bit to figure out what it was:  a connection between the doctor and Clara. To be honest, I didn't really like Clara at first but she's beginning to grow on me. The problem I have is with her relationship with the doctor. I felt the show tried so hard for a 'romantic friendship where they like each other but they will never say they do' and it just sort of didn't work. I know what they were going for and I saw glimmers of it but it never meshed. The doctor and Clara just never connected the way they should. Why?

To me it all boils down to trust. You can't have a real relationship, be it friendship or other, without some degree of trust. But the doctor never trusts Clara. Oh, he trusts her with things that don't really matter but he never trusts her with the important stuff.  Like who he is. I'm not talking about a name. I'm talking about how he's the last time lord, how he ended the time war, how he's had other companions that have all left him in pretty much tragic ways. Rose knew all about the time war and his guilt. He let her in and she helped heal him. Martha and Donna knew about the time war and how he lost Rose. They couldn't fix it but they eased his burden and made things lighter for him. Amy was a special case because he knew her as a child and they had an instant connection even then. He trusted her from day one and from the first few episodes she knew pretty much everything about him. But not with Clara.

Through out the season you can see she's clueless about him. She knows nothing about the time war or who he really is. He doesn't trust her enough to tell her. Sure she's an interesting puzzle but at this point she's not someone he can sit down with, bear his soul and have her lift some of the weight on his heart. All of the other companions did that and more. But Clara can't because the doctor hasn't shared anything with her. There's no true trust between them and without it there's no true connection. Hopefully, now that the mystery is solved the doctor can finally learn to trust her and be open with her. Then we might see the connection.