I agree with this . I ' m fine with the process , and thus the result , but I find it hard to accept a guy who damn well demonstrated himself through history and actions in his campaign to hold similar if not worse flaws than HRC . Worse yet , those flaws were excused because he ' s not a politician . I found that to be very bad reasoning . <| sep |> I personally agree . I think it was abundantly clear during The Caretaker that the Doctor had a paternal sort of love for Clara , taking it as a massive compliment when he assumed she was interested in the teacher who looked like his younger self . If it was still a romantic sort of love then he would have been more likely to have seen the young man as a rival . Having said all thatI am quite sure that both Moffat and RTD quite deliberately left the nature of the Doctor ' s relationships with his companions open to interpretation . If you want to believe that there ' s a romance there , there ' s plenty of evidence to find . If you ' d rather not believe it , you don ' t have to . Great writers like them know that the most important story is the one going on in the viewers ' heads .